photo: Adam Wainwright and family (St. Louis Cardinals)
There are already countless takes being made about the “Arizona Plan”, a potential path for Major League Baseball to resume play before a national return to normalcy. I joined them via my Wednesday with Walton feature this week at scoopswithdannymac.com and will continue on a subset of my remarks here.
The essence of the plan, which has not been finalized, would be for all 30 MLB teams to temporarily relocate to the Phoenix area and play in empty spring training stadiums and Chase Field, augmented by local college facilities.
It was first detailed by Jeff Passan of ESPN on Monday, including an assertion that national health officials “have been supportive”.
But on Tuesday, Major League Baseball made a very swift and decisive countermove. Its press release acknowledged that while scenarios to resume play are being considered, no approvals from national, state or local health officials had been requested or received. The release closed with an assurance that safety is the game’s primary concern.
My feelings that with the press release, MLB is walking the tightrope of managing expectations. It is their job to explore all alternatives, but they also understand the importance of not appearing to be pushing their business agenda ahead of public health.
There are many other writers explaining in detail the many, many challenges inherent in pulling off the “Arizona Plan”. Same with editorializing on the matter of whether this is baseball taking much needed social leadership during a difficult time or putting countless people at unnecessary risk while chasing revenue.
My simplistic view is that the Arizona Plan consists of a chain of many links. If any of those links are not strong enough to hold, the entire initiative fails.
Here, I want to focus on just one of the links, albeit a very important one – the Major League players.
One other part of Tuesday’s MLB press release was an acknowledgement that the Players Association has also not yet approved any plan.
Obviously, for any initiative to resume play to be feasible, the players must buy in. Let’s step back and consider what this might entail.
We are not talking about 30 owners here, but instead literally approaching 1,000 individuals, all needing to agree (or at least be willing accept the majority decision) to resume play – before the national all-clear has been sounded.
What happens to a player and to the game itself if he (or a group of players) is uncomfortable enough to prefer to stay home? Would the revised season go on anyway?
The Arizona Plan assumes teams (including necessary support personnel) can be sequestered, likely in hotels in the Phoenix area. Lodging, food and transportation can be controlled. Same with access. Consider it a form of house arrest, or more politely, extreme group social distancing.
Therein lies the rub. These are men, not machines, as Tony La Russa so often reminded us over the years.
After the Passan story surfaced, more than one player expressed concern over the potential of being separated from family for what could be as much as four or five months.
After play resumes, what would happen when an active player faces a significant life event, such as a birth of a child or death of a parent, for example?
While MLB has a Bereavement List for such matters in normal times, 2020 is not normal. Would a player be allowed to leave his team? And if so, would he be required to sit out two weeks in quarantine upon his return?
If the Arizona Plan was expanded to include families, the complexity and risk grows exponentially. No longer would hotels be adequate to house families with children for months. Potentially, hundreds of rental homes would be required, not to mention the much greater exposure risk that would be inherent with the players in contact with more individuals – not just family members, but all of their necessary support people.
Now, let’s get to the money. While it always seems to be about the money, I am not as sure that is the case in this unprecedented situation.
During April and May, MLB veterans are receiving advances on their 2020 pay to the tune of $5,000 per day or about $150,000 a month. This money does not have to be repaid if the entire season is scrapped.
But what if the Lords of Baseball are ready to begin play? Any reasonable person should be willing by now to accept that 162 games is out of the question. Ownership will be taking a huge revenue hit, both on games not held and on ones that would be played in empty stadiums per the Arizona Plan.
It only stands to reason that owners would ask the players to accept less than 100 percent pay based on this shortened season, reduced further by the April/May advances provided for work not performed. A simple pro-ration would not reflect the fact that the rescheduled games will include no gate and concession revenue flowing in to owners.
So, what is the tipping point that would provide enough incentive for all players to be willing to suit up – yet not be so expensive that the owners would not be better off financially by not playing at all?
Again, my primary focus here is on the players. They are not a homogeneous group, meaning their financial acceptance (or “puke points”, if you will) are not going to be identical.
For example, the St. Louis Cardinals have five players with more than 10 years of MLB service time. These players have already made millions of dollars over their careers. For individuals like these, security may be defined by more than just money. However, the Cardinals also have 23 players with MLB experience that is low enough they are not yet eligible for arbitration, and therefore make close to the minimum salary.
Might some players be anxious to come back while others are uncomfortable enough with the specifics of the Arizona Plan that they determine the amount of salary offered them to play this season would not be worth the perceived personal risk?
Yet because they all are under contract for 2020, would an individual player have a choice if the Players Association as a group votes to accept the owners’ financial and logistical terms for the shortened season?
Even if participation is announced as voluntary, would a player holding the minority position after a positive return-to-play vote be pressured to relent for the “greater good” and risk being labeled a non-team player or worse if he sticks to his principles? Ultimately, could his contract be voided, affecting his longer-term livelihood in what is a non-essential, entertainment business?
These are highly personal matters for these players and their families, but because these men are part of a larger collective unit, the MLB Players Association, they may not be in full control.
How all of these questions (and others not posed here) could be sorted out satisfactorily for hundreds and hundreds of players to return as a unified, satisfied work force and sustain for potentially months is but one weak link which leads me to conclude that the “Arizona Plan” has a very low probability of coming to pass. As I see it, it is good to be hopeful while also remaining realistic.
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Brian Walton can be reached via email at brian@thecardinalnation.com or for fastest turnaround, pose your questions on The Cardinal Nation’s members-only forum. Follow Brian on Twitter.
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