Palm Springs Power’s season postponement impacts players, competition

Tomorrow would be Opening Day for the Palm Springs Power. Instead, the 2020 season could start later in the summer, or even the fall.

"If you can't be seen and you can't expose yourself to people to watch you play, there's not much you can do," said Sam DiMatteo.

The Palm Springs Power is a way for players to do that, as a hitting coach for the past three seasons DiMatteo has seen success stories. But this year, the season has been pushed back, without a definitive start date.

"It's watching them move guys on to professional contracts or getting them exposure to professional scouts," he said. "Obviously guys are going to be missing out on that."

And now, the competition is even tougher, with the MLB Draft shortened to five rounds this year, as opposed to 40.

"All the guys that probably would've gotten drafted, and then all these guys that are maybe middle of the road or more toward the bottom tier, they're all trying to move up and all the upper level tier guys don't have places to go either. It's kind of just a big jam up almost," said DiMatteo.

Because of this, team leaders say whenever the games start, fans will likely see higher caliber players than ever before.

The Power's owner and president Andrew Starke is still hopeful that a season will happen this year, whether it's later in the summer or even the fall. 

Starke gave a statement to News Channel 3 about looking forward to being able to play. It reads:

"We have been the hometown baseball team for almost 20 years and provided hundreds of local ball players an opportunity to play at historic Palm Springs Stadium in front of their friends, families and community. To that point, we look forward to continuing this as soon as we are able."