4:07pm: There is no formal directive to freeze rosters at this point, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today (via Twitter).
Some within the game are still hoping to squeeze in a 162-game regular season. Red Sox president Sam Kennedy (Twitter link via Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic) and White Sox VP Scott Reifer (Twitter link via Adam Hoge of NBC Sports Chicago) said as much. And Nightengale (via Twitter) and Jared Diamond of the Wall Street Journal (via Twitter) were among those to report the same from unnamed sources.
Of course, Diamond was also among those that have pointed to a recognition within the game that the initial delay will be for more than two weeks. And the Red Sox front office acknowledged in its conference call today that there’d need to be a second round of Spring Training before starting back up.
Those (and many other) factors will make it awfully difficult to make it to 162 while still wrapping up postseason play by even early November. Kennedy noted the possibility of holding games at spring sites or without fans, but even in that scenario it would seem to require quite some creativity to make a full season possible given the limits of how hard pitchers can be worked. Perhaps hosting postseason contests at sites impervious to the cold would allow some flexibility on the back end.
1:11pm: Yesterday, public health imperatives relating to the spread of the coronavirus forced Major League Baseball to pause Spring Training and institute a two-week delay to the regular season. The decision leaves many questions left to answer in the coming days, weeks, and months.
Teams are holding in place and awaiting further direction for the time being. MLB and MLB Players Association representatives are scheduled to meet this weekend to work out a plan, Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times reports (Twitter links).
In the meantime, White Sox GM Rick Hahn says that MLB has temporarily paused player transactions, MLB.com’s Scott Merkin reports (via Twitter). The freeze will be in place through the weekend, at least.
This is certainly not the right moment for trades and waiver claims to be executed, so an immediate moratorium was all but certain. Presumably, a more formalized plan for dealing with roster matters will ultimately go into place. It’s obvious that some kind of exceptional measures will be needed.
Typically, this is a time of year when we begin to see a high volume of transactions. Many of those rate as relatively minor in comparison to the high-profile signings and trades that we focus on, but they mean quite a bit to the individual players involved.
To some extent, it’s not difficult to imagine a roster freeze from a logistical perspective. Dates for certain decisions can simply be pushed back. There may be some tricky bits to sort out, but they’re of relatively minor import.
The tougher questions relate to the potential for a lengthy stoppage. While the initial postponement of Opening Day covered two weeks, every indication is that further delays will take place.
For the time being, players are being kept on site in spring facilities. Teams are taking varying approaches, with some holding limited workouts and others canceling player activities.
Managing this crisis will require the league and union to work together to ensure a fair outcome for all players. Minor-leaguers aren’t even compensated for time spent in Spring Training, so the loss of anticipated in-season earnings would be devastating. And that’s just as true for the many workers around the country who rely upon ballgames to pay their bills.
Manfred waited till the last possible second to pull the plug after a whole bunch of other sports teams already did. Just another failure for Manfred.
Y
Z
Does this mean the decision on the Red Sox cheating will be delayed?
You should run for congress. Fit right in with the bunch of morons currently in majority.
I think you mean Senate.
It depends….if you are a Republican then you think the house is a bunch of morons. And if you are a Democrat, then you are the moron. 🙂
Paddy0875 is the exact definition of can’t fix stupid!
Basketball had too,nhl had to since they share the same buildings.so obviously the would be last.the tourney got canceled last
manfred has turned baseball into a joke with the way he handle the Astros. I say just cancel the season maybe people will forget that MLB has turned into choreographed wrestling
lol..why are you on a baseball forum then? go back to your cave bud. let’s get this season going asap!! cant wait!
he makes a valid point and you attack. some of us boomers remember baseball before the commissioners office rigged the game and just individual players were. He’s on a baseball forum to point out what a joke it’s become because idiots like you have no critical thinking skills and get your world view from Twitter.
OK Boomer.
Dan Partridge. Hey, try an original comeback next time. “OK Boomer” is like an 80 MPH fastball down the heart of the plate.
and yet you couldn’t even hit the meatball you accuse him of tossing.
So cancel it yourself. Go away.
Yep that boy has to go!
Less than 24 hours later is not “the last possible second.” Manfred has a lot of faults, but you are wrong to conclude this is one of them.
Are you really arguing that announcing cancellation of events hours before, and with people in route from all the way around the country, and in the midst of thousands of dollars in travel expenses, is not the kind of situation that people people might refer to as “the last possible second”?
Are you really arguing that they should have known before they knew? Many many organizations are scrambling to cancel events within the last two days, as the recommendations on public gatherings are handed out by health agencies. Having been very recently involved in decisions to cancel events myself I can tell you they are very, very painful decisions to make. Nobody takes them lightly and we are all learning on the fly.
@BlueSkies I’m sorry to hear you and your colleagues took action 2-3 months too late, but surely you had a television and a smartphone when a global public health emergency was announced many weeks ago.
This is complete nonsense, and only goes to show you to be both callous and uninformed.
@BlueSkies “You might want to cool your jets. Stooping to insults doesn’t help your argument.”
It’s an observation. At every opportunity you have demonstrated a lack of knowledge of this situation. You are now adding to that a complete disregard for the people who are faced with dealing with it in real time. Some of us actually put ourselves on the line for these organizations every day. You can only think it’s easy if you haven’t actually been there.
Another observation. You and your organization contributed to the current uncontained outbreak by failing to take adequate action when a global public health emergency was announced, and now that containment is impossible, in order to justify or skate over your own incompetence, you are actively contributing to the public panic and massive economic loss.
Garbage isn’t proven with more garbage. Callousness isn’t mitigated with more callousness. As a wise man once said, when you find yourself in a hole, you should stop digging.
Oh but he keeps digging!
Right on Blue Sky!
Oh beisbolista you are so uneducated. Try reading. Blue Sky said the cancelled the event. As its cancelled explain how they contributed to the virus genius!
Shut up I want BASEBALL
I’m not a Manfred fan, however, what was he supposed to do? Everyone is panicking. Some perhaps justly but others just to panic. In a few weeks when everything calms down, maybe then we can judge if he waited too long.
I think you should use some other wording besides “public health imperative.” Perhaps “public health considerations.” The use of the word “imperative” implies that there was a municipal, state, or federal edict which forced Major League Baseball to discontinue spring training operations in Arizona and Florida. As far as I know there was no such imperative, and this was an elective action by Major League Baseball taken hastily with no advance notice and in response to public relations concerns and industry pressures.
A global pandemic is not just a public relations concern. It IS a public health imperative. Let’s listen to the public health professionals and not armchair pretenders practicing without a license.
It’s not remotely as bad as all these people are saying.
Says the armchair healthcare non-professional. Thank you for your bad, uninformed advice. I’ll go with the experts. The point is to prevent the deadly, not-so-widespread virus from becoming widespread. With strong measures, we can do it. In spite of some people.
Not as bad? Keep telling yourself that. How selfish can you get?. You may be young and healthy but if you don’t take steps to stop the spread, you can kill someone by spreading it to someone not as young and healthy. Maybe think about someone other than yourself.
@Mo4Ever A moral imperative is a subjective standard and not actually an imperative at all. Without an edict it is an election, a CHOICE clear as day. You can listen to the public health professionals all you want, but let’s not pretend this was anything but a choice.
It’s a public heath imperative, not a moral imperative. One is practical and factual, the other is philosophical. Don’t mix up the two.
Go to Italy then come back and say the same thing with a straight face.
He thinks its a Chinese hoax because they hate baseball.
Dear The Truth, I heard that you and Mrs. Truth got divorced a while ago. Sorry to hear about that, but now it’s time to move on. I heard that a woman named Uninformed is looking for a date; maybe give her a call.
Oh its. It as bad huh? Because you say so? Are you a doctor? No you are not.
Guys, facts provide that they are taking precautions because they admittedly don’t know how bad the effect will be on our population. The cause, however, is flu-like symptoms and is well noted.
Insulting people who differ on an opinion, like the Truth’s, demonstrates that you think insulting the man by calling him stupid for doing exactly what you’re doing (opining on an opinion website) makes you all just the same.
Look, we won’t know who’s right until a year from now. Maybe it will be worthwhile maybe it won’t, but nobody has the answer right now. So, they admonish everyone to use caution.
I’m more upset our government seemed to take it too lightly before it was too late, but I may be wrong about that.
I hope it ends soon and we get back to bickering like old ladies about baseball.
What a moron Mo4ever is! He doesn’t even understand what he is saying! LMAO! What a tool!
@Judge44 … The government reacted quickly and decisively. Compare it to the do-nothing response of the Obama administration to H1N1 virus which killed 12,500 Americans. THAT was an example of taking it “too lightly.”
Don’t be silly. It’s a global pandemic. Necessary measures were taken in an effort to curb the outbreak. As such, sacrifices are required. Advance notice would have been more possible if the virus wouldn’t have begun to spread so rapidly. It is what it is. Dont catastrophize the small concessions being asked of you.
@Mattcubs This was declared a global public health emergency weeks ago. Either this was a hasty decision made on the spot by MLB, or advance notice was possible. Either way, MLB had every opportunity to mitigate the damages of their fans and chose not to for their own enrichment.
I’m sorry you had to refund the profits you made scalping tickets.
@raisinsss Sad that you claim to be a sports fan yet don’t even know what ticket scalping is.
Oh but the other sports did not stop then either so only baseball did it wrong? Because poor baby beisbolista had to refund $50 in tickets and spoiled his vacation? Oh boo hoo.
The staunchly conservative Mormon (LDS) Church has suspended services worldwide and cancelled the General Council, a bi-annual weekend-long meeting in Salt Lake City at which thousands attend from around the world. They did not take these decisions as a publicity stunt. They did it to protect members and do their part to limit the spread of the virus. And good for them.
Rather than debate the definitions of the word imperative (it is used correctly here), we might consider what could happen if we don’t voluntarily cooperate and follow the recommendations of public health experts on how to slow down the spread of the disease. If that fails then we will see some imperatives that will make current ones feel like a church picnic.
@BlueSkies “Let’s not debate the definition of the word imperative (proceeds to debate it).”
Not at all. He doesn’t debate the definition of the word at all. He lays out why it’s important to deal with the problem BEFORE it gets much worse. SMH
It’s an explanation. No debate required
He literally states a position on the definition. Are you blind or is your head really that thick?
He states a fact. Deal with it now or it’ll get worse. A fact.
Here’s the real fact. It’s not contained and it’s not getting contained. The CDC experts say it will now cycle in the population like the flu. A sad reality that could have been prevented 2-3 months ago but wasn’t. Therefore, it’s time to stop panicking people and resume our normal lives.
You might want to cool your jets. Stooping to insults doesn’t help your argument.
To be clear, my argument is not less valid because I failed to suck up to you
This doesnt make sense @beisbolista. Just because it is going to spread doesnt mean that you dont work to contain it as much as you can in order to help protect vulnerable populations. Delaying the start to the MLB season isn’t a move made to induce panic, it’s one made to prevent hastening the spread of the virus.
There should have been a quicker response by our government, no doubt, and such a response may have given organizations like the MLB, school districts and etc a better idea of what to expect and what to plan for. Unfortunately, the initial response was inadequate and dismissive, thus helping to create a blaise attitude within a large portion of the population who now think the media is producing false information in an attempt to create panic. That’s all quite silly. These restrictions shouldn’t cause panic, they should produce more conscientious behavior.
@mattcubs I’m sorry but your response demonstrates a lack of understanding about what it means to have a cycling virus. The spread cannot be stopped. The only things that can be stopped are panic and economic loss
@beisbolista … It absolutely could not have been “stopped 2-3 months ago.” You are ignorant. The ONLY place it could have possibly been contained was in Wuhan, China. We already know the Communist Chinese dealt with it, don’t we. Get off your freaking high horse and learn something.
@beisbolista Its possible you dont understand how a virus spreads. By limiting social contact, including large social gatherings, you limit exposure to the virus. We cannot totally stop the spread of the virus, this has been admitted, but we can work to minimize the extent of its sprawl by limiting individual exposure. This necessitates some individual sacrifice, a change of daily routine, and most importantly, a little self awareness. You seem to think theres some fear mongering going on which seems to hint at a misinterpretation of events that lends itself more to conspiratorial, blaise thinking.
It’s funny knowing that if we are able to mitigate the spread of the virus and it goes away quickly after enacting precautions, doubters will not see the interventions as what caused the effect, they will just say, “see, told you there was nothing to worry about!”
Complicating matters even further, the states are pretty much on their own in dealing with this. Shouldn’t be that way but it is. Those of us who have to make decisions can only wait for the recommendations of our state public health agencies. In California the Department of Public Health issued their new guidelines in the middle of this week. Followed to the letter they made it all but impossible to hold public gatherings of any size. This resulted immediately in the cancelation or indefinite postponement of plays, concerts, sporting events, public meetings, receptions, classes, and the closure of schools, museums. Pretty much you name it, all within the last 48 hours. I’ve been a part of having to make decisions for organizations that hold public events. It’s a very painful process, all around. But if it works to keep our public health system from collapsing, we should all be grateful. Not that everyone will.
The states are not “on their own.” The Feds are providing support and guidance in all areas. But the states and local municipalities have authority to do what they believe is in their best interests. The US does not have a centralized government like Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. Take a civics class.
Garbage. The CDC is responsible for coordinating the national response to health emergencies in the same way FEMA is responsible for coordinating the response to natural disasters. For one the state and local agencies are depending on the CDC to deliver test kits. All of them complain that they aren’t getting even a small fraction of what they need. You can’t excuse ineffectiveness by pretending that effectiveness isn’t actually required. You seem to need to take more than a “civics class.”
So now you’re complaining about a totally different thing than your original post. Maybe you should take a class in Logic (aka Critical Thinking)?
Oh beisbolista do you even know what 2 + 2 is? Boy are you clueless. He never debated the term.
How can one have a position on the definition of a word?
Apparently, if you’re arrogant enough to believe you are the smartest person in the room, it’s easy to have a position on the definition of a word.
Imperative conveys a sense of necessity. It doesn’t specifically imply anything about governmental authority. I believe it’s an appropriate word here.
Entirely appropriate. It also conveys urgency, immediacy, and critical importance.
Very appropriate. But hey Beisbolista had tickets to a cancelled game … boo hoo for him
How about Public Health RESPONSIBILTY? How about that. ?
@MoneyBaller Even that would be more appropriate. At least the word “responsibility” demonstrates some subjective moral standard
This is ridiculous.
You probably didn’t intend this comment to be funny, but I laughed. I mean when a debate over the meaning of a single word gets to be too pedantic for even ME. Anyway I feel your pain.
“The use of the word “imperative” implies that there was a municipal, state, or federal edict which forced Major League Baseball to discontinue spring training operations in Arizona and Florida.”
No. Stop.
imperative:
noun
1.
an essential or urgent thing.
“free movement of labor was an economic imperative”
What type of imperative is it?
P_____ h_____.
An imperative is a command. That is the common grammatical definition in the English language. You are obviously very impressed with yourself, but I’m not impressed that you know how to use Google to find the weakest possible definition of a commonly understood word; the real definition of which is taught in 5th and 6th grade by the way.
You should know Beisbolista. I think you are in 6th grade
It’s less that minor leaguers don’t get paid during Spring Training than that many of them live and eat “on campus”. If the camps close, even for a short while, they’re essentially stuck there with no food or shelter. Many would be financially burdened by traveling back home and THEN have to travel back to camp.
I’m sure some organizations are taking this into consideration; and equally sure that some aren’t.
My nephew is still in Arizona (he’s in the Angels system). He’s currently rehabbing so I guess he could go home and do it there as well. In a way for him and other injured players, this might be a mild blessing.
its not like they have no money to eat on. they have been getting paid and its a fair amount. i dont foresee, walking around arizona or florida looking at people holding up signs saying will play third base for food
Only ones on the 40-man roster get “paid…a fair amount.”
Exactly. No, minor leaguers don’t get paid during ST. Tho I admit a chuckle at the idea of some guy from A-ball walking around with the “Will play 3B for food” sign.
OTOH, if it’s around Oriole camp, they might take him up on it.
And how about a thought for Baseball Annie who provides “comfort” in Chicago for visiting players ; she likes Chicago because both leagues play there. Where is she going to get her money?
they just announced all players in camp if they choose to stay will continue to get a living allowance. and in major sports a living allowance is a livable amount
I like hearing when teams take care of their players during this. Providing allowance for them if they choose to stay is very fair for both sides – you’re available to work, you get paid.
hm I was expecting to see some trades pop off while they had time but this axes that.
It’s just good business for the owners to pony up and take care of their minor leaguers.
Some day they will be negotiating big contracts with many of them.
This whole situation sucks bigly. We’d have a lot more surety about duration and severity of the problem had they not screwed up the testing so badly.
That’s my point. They really don’t have to pay them (tho that would be nice), but keeping the camps open and providing the auxiliary services would likely help them out a lot.
The weird direction that these comments have gone in just go to show that civilization would crumble without baseball.
@mattcubs I’m sorry but your response demonstrates a lack of understanding about what it means to have a cycling virus. The spread cannot be stopped. The only thing that can be stopped is panic and economic loss
You would not think one would be so motivated to utilize a Russian bot on the MLBTR site. But the multiple times that the same comment beisbolista’s toward mattcubs has been posted, along with his blatant lack of sound logic, and the blatant attempt to create more entropy make it seem that beisbolista is a Russian bot/troll.
I just hope it doesn’t get rapidly worse and it costs us the whole season!
Was looking forward to the “free team themed paper mask give away night” promotion at the ballpark.
Sanitizer Sunday, Respirator Monday, Test Kit Tuesday, Wheezing Wednesday…
Were is Bill Veeck when we really need him?
Please don’t propagate ignorance. The reality is masks are designed for the sick to wear to stop the spread. A healthy individual wearing a medical mask does nothing to stop them from contracting diseases and depletes the supply from those who need it.
they just announced all players in camp if they choose to stay will continue to get a living allowance. and in major sports a living allowance is a livable amount
As I am not a professional baseball player, I can only guess what I would do in this situation, but I am pretty sure I would stay in the Spring Training facilities. They have already taken steps to protect the players and staff, and staying put makes for a much smaller chance of the players encountering the virus while traveling plus it saves on money.
MIKE PAUL
Not as much as you may think. Section C(2) deals with those living away from ST HQ
ARTICLE VII—Expenses and Expense Allowances
C(1)”During the 2017 Spring Training season, each Player shall
receive a base weekly allowance of $320.50, and each Player living
away from the Club’s Spring Training headquarters also shall
receive a base supplemental weekly allowance of $57.00. During
the 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 seasons, the weekly and supplemental
allowances shall be the prior season’s allowance plus the cost of
living adjustment rounded to the nearest $.50. Notwithstanding the
foregoing, the weekly allowance will not be reduced below $320.50, and the supplemental allowance will not be reduced below $57.00 during the term of the Basic Agreement.”
C(3)All players who are assigned to a Major League Spring
Training camp shall receive the allowances set forth in Section C(1)
and (2) above, except that any non-roster players assigned to a
Major League Spring Training camp shall receive the allowances
only if they have Major League service at or above the prior season’s
cut-off for obtaining salary arbitration eligibility as a “Super Two.” (See Article VI(E)(1).) All players who are not assigned to a Major League Spring Training camp, but who are in uniform for a Major League Spring Training game, shall receive the daily allowance set forth in Section C(2) above for each such game.
mlbplayers.com/cba
We will be SO lucky to get in a 50-80 game season this year, including doubleheaders, even if the playoffs go into December. What an absolute joke anyone is who thinks otherwise.
I think otherwise. Strike Fourtnite’s post is a perfect example of someone who values ONLY her opinion, yet doesnt understand that no one else in the world takes her opinions seriously.
The season is not going into December
162 is almost impossible. Even if they played 7 days/week, they’d have to start on April 19 to finish Oct 4 (without an ASB). And that eliminates off days after travel from west to East.
They should do contingency plans for 134 starting around May 1, 110 starting June 1, and 80 starting July 3rd.
After that, scrap it.
15 games vs each division rival. (60)
6 games vs rest of (nl or al)league (60)
4 gms vs each tm in 1 div of other league (20). That’s 140 games. Schedule a couple double headers. Push all star game to end of season. Of course, this could only work if they started the first week of May, which is probably unlikely.
Schedule more doubleheaders. Simple as that. Double headers on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Saturday is a single game for everyone. On Tuesday, 7 games are played and Sunday 8 games are played. Thursday becomes a travel day off for everyone. So each team gets two days off every week. That will still allow for 8 games a week. You can fit in 162 games in 20 weeks easily that way.
Depending on the number of missed games, and it won’t be so easy to schedule double-headers with teams outside of a division. Unless you are talking about completely overhauling the schedule.
You just about have to completely overhaul it at this point. Logistically, it could raise some issues, but no more than a regular schedule. They have a month to do fix it. The only really big problem I could see would be rainouts, but since we are missing April altogether, there won’t be as many rainouts to deal with.
As far as travel goes, that’s why I said Thursday should be a travel day. We are in 2020, it only takes 3+ hours to go from any big league city to another one. This is not like Joe DiMaggio having to take a train from New York to St. Louis.
Better expand roster sizes cause no way a team is going to want to push their starting 5 and bullpens to those extreme levels.
But it’s not extreme at all. It’s actually more days off per week than usual. If players don’t want to do it, then they can walk away from the game. There are plenty of minor leaguers willing to do it for their salaries. I’m tired of teams babying players. Teams used to play DHs all the time with only about a 20 man roster. And people still survived somehow. With 13 pitchers on a roster, plus AAA guys ready at a moment’s notice, there is ZERO reason why teams couldn’t play 8 games a week.
It’s times like these that make me wish I could afford a tv and a PlayStation at least some baseball could happen
tv-costco. ps4-ebay.
JMHO, but I think we’ll be lucky if we see baseball by June. This virus ain’t going away no matter how many people we test. Sure, we can hopefully curtail it spreading more than it might have, but without a cure/vaccine, it’s still gonna adversely affect us.
We might not quarantine ourselves in our homes, but we’re all gonna be a lot more wary about the things we used to do and/or took for granted. . To wit, would you take your kids or grand kids to a baseball game right now?
Double headers? Eliminate interleague games? More spring training? Why can’t these teams still be playing against themselves in their own split squad games? Listen, in 2 weeks, this virus is still going to exist. As soon as people get back on planes it’s going to spread again. There might not be a vaccine for this until December, so does the USA shut down until there is one?
As soon as the severity of this virus was known, all traffic leaving from the effected areas should have been halted immediately. No flights out and ships been made to turn around. This crap got here on people who got off of airplanes.
I know for a fact that the shuttles from the northeast to Florida do NOT clean anything between flights. People on, people off, people on, people off all day long. Had the USA, Canada and Mexico banned all incoming international travel and shipments, we wouldn’t have a single case. It’s too late now and this thing is going to be with us until there is a vaccine no matter what we cancel.