Former Brewers react to major cuts throughout MLB, "It was almost like a D-Day for minor leaguers"

 

Scott: “If coronavirus doesn’t happen do you think you are still with the Brewers organization right now?”
Robie Rojas: “Yes, I think 100 percent. I think a lot of guys would be with their teams still.”

But the coronavirus pandemic did happen leaving Robie Rojas and hundreds, if not thousands of minor leaguers without jobs.

Pat McInerney, former Brewers minor leaguer: “It was almost like a D day for minor leaguers. We felt like something was coming. We were looking for some answers, unfortunately we got the worst news we could find.”

Pat and Robie are two of nearly 40 ex-Brewers minor leaguers looking for work. And with every team making cuts and the season in jeopardy, looking is about all they can do.

Robie Rojas, former Brewers minor leaguer: “Usually it’s like I just got released so now let me see if I can get picked up and you try to get picked up in the first couple of weeks. Now it’s like I have to wait until I can even call a team because a team is not going to take your call.”

Robie is training like this is the off-season, hoping to sign with a team in six months. It’s a different story for Pat who is hanging up his cleats for good.

McInerney: “More so psychologically than anything it was almost like I just have to take the next step. I’ve been playing sports for my whole life so you still don’t really grasp it, you don’t. It takes a while for your identity to change because for so long your identity is ‘athlete.’”

The Brewers could have cut Pat at the end of Spring Training even without the pandemic and he knows that. But after 20 years of baseball he tells me the hardest part about the way this happened is he never had the chance to prove himself this season. Reporting from home, Scott Grodsky CBS 58 sports.