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I agree that the player-family issues are real, and wrote an entire article about that last week. Having said that, I don’t know how anyone will know at the point teams start in Arizona, if, when and how they might return to their home cities later. So the players are going to have to assume some risk to start playing early.
And can MLB later return to some cites, but not others? If they have to wait to be cleared in all cities, they may run out of calendar.
And finally, as I asked before, unless there are fans in seats, why would any owner care about returning home this season?
Beyond the obvious testing and safety concerns, I look into some of the potential considerations behind the idea of MLB playing its 2020 season in Arizona and Florida. (free) https://t.co/PDxcGfPx6A pic.twitter.com/0ezmMBymye
— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) April 17, 2020
I’ll be happy to just watch on TV and I don’t care where they play. It makes sense to stay in AZ. and FL.
This season will be regarded in the future as the pandemic season (with an asterisk) and folks will understand and remember for a long, long time.If things work out with this proposition the ’20-’21 off-season will be a lot shorter :). There are a lot of another factors to be decided… but the sooner we see some baseball the better.
I dunno about you, but I sat through many meetings like this over the years… 😉
Commissioner Rob Manfred spoke for one hour this morning with major-league managers. Offered no specifics on how season might begin.
One manager: “Nothing concrete.”
Another: “Very vague.”
A third: “It was mostly a forum to allow guys to ask questions.”
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) April 17, 2020
Aww shucks here is a Saturday morning and no game today…..again. Maybe this will perk you up if you happen to have 22:23 to spare. BTW – I sure see Ozuna and Martinez’s names a lot in these clips.
This is a long but interesting article from Peter Gammons. To sum it up he writes that MLB may not fully recover until 2023 because of falling revenues and the public’s hesitance to come back to the park even after the proverbial “green light”. He also writes that the most devastating impacts are going to hit the minor leagues because they do not have TV revenue to fall back on. He speculates that there could be much more upheaval for the minors than just contracting 42 teams.
I usually don’t care about hearing from Anthony Rizzo but this was kind of interesting.
An excerpt:
OK, let’s switch over to baseball. What do you think of the Arizona plan? (MLB continues to discuss an idea in which all 30 teams would be quarantined in Arizona and play games with no fans).
I think you’re going to have a hard time telling grown men with established lives to stay in a hotel and not be with their families. You’re going to tell Kris Bryant that he’s not going to see his baby (born April 7) for 4 1/2 months?
It might not be that long. It might be more like six weeks, only at the start.
Six weeks, I think that can work. It’s just the logistics of it. Hotel workers and grounds crew and cameramen. … It can be pulled off. I think it could. But health and salaries, how do you work through all that? They can’t pay us full pay, right? Then playing into November, December, you’re jeopardizing getting ready for next season. I want to play. But we don’t want to jeopardize two years of baseball. That’s the hard part.
In an interview on KMOX aired just now, Mike Shildt said that he feels that there is a “strong possibility” that the game will be played in 2020.
A couple of random thoughts concerning the Arizona Plan:
Some believe that the covid-19 virus will not spread as fast in hot weather. I am not a medical person and have not read if that theory has ever been proven, but if there is truth to it, what better place to be for hot weather than Arizona in the summer?
Would the 15 grapefruit league teams be assigned to one of the existing cactus league facilities to share with the home resident? I know that a few of the cactus league sites already have two teams but the majority don’t. I also know that the plan calls for college facilities to be used but I don’t know how many. I was just thinking to myself how humorous it would be if the Cardinals and Cubs shared the same facility in Mesa. What a hoot that would be.
Ultraviolet light (i.e. sunshine) kills this corona virus almost instantly.
BTW, this explains why there have been remarkably fewer infection with the virus in California than in other places.
It is not the place here, but I hate to let something pass that needs to be clarified. There are three different types of UV rays. The type that may have effect on the virus is filtered out of sunlight.
Here is a good article on this from NPR.
Now let’s get back to discussing resuming games on this thread and let’s stay safe!
Okay, but cherry picking one article doesn’t help much. I think the idea that this virus is susceptible to something in the environment stimulates thought about baseball and about baseball games being played.
This offers mathematically sound examples of how many games might be played per week if scheduling was aggressive, but assumes there are no logistical challenges in getting teams to and from where they need to be. Also no mention of having to juggle around the heat, day games after night games, etc. So I would consider it the very best cases.
How MLB could squeeze extra games into a shortened season –> https://t.co/c9rH2YKCHg
— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) April 20, 2020
That does seem rather aggressive. While the Arizona heat would be a negative at least they wouldn’t have to worry about rain outs.
To have any chance of playing that many double headers in that short period of time I think rosters would need to be close to 40. Might as well just let teams use their current 40 man roster. That would have to be an advantage for the Cardinals right? I like our 40 man depth, especially with pitching.
The 40-man roster should be the way to go but have an “available roster” of 26/27 for each game. The 539 story regular season schedule would end on OCT 21st and likely the post season would end sometime around Thanksgiving. There could be NHL-NBA-NFL and college football games being played during that same period as well.
This is something that those parties will need to iron out. TV time will be a highly sought after and couch potatoes will be having field days. My head is spinning right now.
If they play seven-inning doubleheaders, it would diminish the pitching need a bit. Not sure I like it, though…
I do think 40 for the roster size is a best guess since it also means they can probably avoid having to try to play minor league games (to have reserves ready). 40 should provide enough depth to cover injuries.
To your question, I am not familiar enough with the back end of other teams’ 40-man rosters to say for sure. But I really do like the Cardinals’ pitching advantage if everyone went with just 29.
A Cardinals Starting Five, Long Five and Short Six Pitching Staff
One question that I have not seen asked yet much less answered is what happens to the minor league season. Does it get scrapped completely since those Arizona and Florida facilities are home to a lot of the minor league low level teams. And if the majors are playing in front no attendance could the AA and AAA minor league teams play at all in front of no fans? I am coming to the conclusion that unless games with fans are allowed the minors are completely done for the season and that will surely show up next season.
Well, I devoted a whole article to the subject the other day. But my bottom line best guess right now is that there will be no minor league season in 2020. And there will be significantly fewer teams next season.
You are probably seeing less about it because it is of lower importance to many.
Will there be a 2020 Minor League Baseball Season? And what about 2021?
My first impression is that it’s hard to keep a 25man rosters bench active, playing a conventional six games a week. If they choose to carry 40man rosters, they need as many double headers as possible. Really max the games played, and be willing to use those last 15 players to prevent rust. For hitters, game timing only comes from games.
Now there is a third plan.
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