While the league and the MLBPA have yet to reach a formal agreement on either player compensation or health/safety protocols for a rebooted 2020 season, teams are still preparing for a shortened restart of “Spring” Training — ideally beginning in mid-June. The goal is for a three-week training period to lead into an 82-game season that kicks off in early July. The latest on plans for a few NL clubs…
- The Mets will likely hold their version of Spring Training 2.0 at their spring facility in Port St. Lucie, Fla. rather than at Citi Field in New York, Tim Healey of Newsday reports. New York City remains the U.S. epicenter for the coronavirus, and beyond the pure health aspect of the decision, staging their training camp in Florida gives the Mets access to multiple fields. As Healey notes, the Mets completed a $57MM renovation project at Clover Field back in February, which has improved the overall quality of the facilities and equipment available to Mets players — several of whom are already in Florida.
- The Phillies are likely to remain in Philadelphia for their second wave of Spring Training, per Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia. The Phillies’ Urban Youth Academy, across the street from Citizen’s Bank Park, has two full-size fields that could be made available, and Salisbury notes that the Phils have ownership stake in their nearby Triple-A and Double-A affiliates, which could allow those parks to be used as well. Both affiliates are fewer than 70 miles away from Citizen’s Bank Park.
- The Diamondbacks have opened Chase Field for individual workouts, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets. Unlike other clubs, the D-backs have the luxury of their home field and spring facility being a mere 20 miles apart. Nightengale notes that in addition to Chase Field opening up, some players are also reporting to the Salt River Fields spring facility in preparation for a second Spring Training.
I’m still confused how all the league’s are all over the map in their plans.
baseball – change division alignment but play from home stadium
basketball – likely to use Orlando as a hub
hockey – pick 2-4 hubs and Play all games out of those.
I mean clearly if there is this much variety then people clearly don’t all understand the severities.
I don’t think you should be as confused as they are. This is a unique situation.
I think the major difference is that baseball is played outside. Both NBA and NHL have different challenges as they are contact sports played indoors. There are simply different protocols for safety in these situations.
Travel is certainly a concern for baseball, but I think that they have more options due to the outdoor nature of their sport.
I don’t see why travel is a concern. The players will travel on private team planes probably from small private airports. So they won’t have much interaction with anyone outside the team. You’re in close quarters on a plane, but that’s no different than a bus.
People are flying every day right now and I haven’t heard of outbreaks from it.
Is this necessary? I mean, really. Is this the best you can come up with?
He is a meathead on his sharper days-in this case-he may just be a lowly troll.
Travel is such a concern that many cities didn’t shut down subway systems or buses. If they can keep going, a ballteam can fly private.
how are you confused? the states themselves are doing different things.
The easiest thing to do from a logistical and safety standpoint is to have all the games in one location, especially if there are no home team fans. This works for basketball and hockey because they are likely just going to have playoffs. So some teams will play games for only 7-10 days and others for maybe a month. Players are okay with being away from their families that long.
Baseball plans to have every team play for 3 months. Players don’t want to be away from their families for that long. Baseball also will have fans at some point during the season, even if it’s only a few thousand. You want to be home for that.
@Coast1 What single location has the ability to house/host 30 different teams of players and the team support systems? Even the ST facilities are spaced out. I don’t like this option for the roster sizes of baseball and football. If things are centralized in this way and if the disease gets in it will get passed around quicker within the sport. Keep locations spread. I don’t care if that is in the various parts of Florida/Arizona, where ST happens, or if this is in home cities. As someone stated previously all travel happens on private planes, or could happen on buses if they opt for a regional plan as proposed.. I still like the idea of home games being home games.
The reason why Orlando and Vegas are considered for the NBA and NHL is they have enough unused hotels that they can handle it. Baseball considered centralized plans but opted against it.
I’m not at all sure MLB will have fans at the games this year at all. I would pleasantly surprised. Then we could be given are chance to show the Astros we haven’t they cheated…
Stop the fear. This whole is a joke. Live in Sarasota Florida, 20 million people, 95% people over 65 at risk.
What did you do before cable news. More people in USA have died of the flu, heart attacks, and cancer.
Fear is a political game.
Start MLB now or just fold all sports until a vaccine is found. What 2025. Still no flu vaccine that works
Wanted to say well said, but I’ll settle for excellent points.
Very correct.
Nearly 100,000 dead so far but nobody you care about apparently, so we’re good.
Some joke.
the majority of them would have died any how.
This so much more deadly than the flu, don’t be naive. Cancer is not contagious. The CDC estimates 24,000 to 60,000 deaths so far in 2019-2020 flu season. COVID-19 is approaching 100,000 deaths and counting, could reach 200,000 by January.
The leagues dont consult with eachother to make decision. Do you consult with other households to make a decision in yours?
While we’re all down in the dumps these days, there’s always a feel good story out there to put things in perspective.
https://www.nj.com/yankees/2020/05/yankees-aaron-judges-girlfriend-busted-for-dui-do-you-know-who-my-boyfriend-is.html
Or is it this one?
https://www.tapinto.net/towns/summit/articles/meals-on-wheels-continues-to-serve-seniors-during-covid-19-outbreak-5
So done with baseball.
You bite your tongue.
Yeah if I was you I would protest by not watching any games today
Not completely. You commented on this article on a baseball site.
See ya…
Since Judge’s moral character is above reproach given his take on Altuve and the Astros, he will break up with this young lady. No reason to stay with a woman willing to put lives at-risk driving intoxicated. But I can’t “judge” Aaron’s morality scale.
It sounds like she was pretty upset with herself, but sadly more upset because she got caught. That’s the fundamental problem here. It’s not, oh my gosh, I could have killed someone. Rather, it’s oh my gosh I got caught. We are incapable of empathy or taking any responsibility, but we are all about “freedom”. We are so screwed because we will probably never learn. Sad.
Reading and Lehigh Valley are both like 40 minutes from Philly so that makes sense. Although I’ve read Allentown is a COVID hotbed.
Still wondering what MLB is going to do regarding teams playing at home in areas not open yet. King County, whère Mariners play will probably not be at phase 4 in state plan by July. In phase 1 now.
I work at an outdoor concert venue in Memphis. We’ve been told that phase three will stay in effect here until there is a vaccine. No gatherings of over 50 people allowed…
We’re screwed, yet I can understand it. I’m having to follow this closely, and so far, every place in the USA where they’ve eased restrictions even slightly has seen a rapid and massive spike in positive tests, Memphis included. Methinks we have problems without immediate answers for the foreseeable future.
King county is pretty much same..no large, over 50 crowds until phase 4. The steps to move up are not quickly done.
It’s obviously going to really hurt (maybe destroy) the pace where I work. I have NO idea what will happen with the Grizzlies or the Tigers; besides music, Memphis is a basketball town and those two teams mean a lot to the city, both morale and economic-wise. We won’t have the Redbirds at all this year, of course…
I don’t know if all this will hurt a city like Memphis MORE than cities who have multiple major league teams (the Grizz are everything here) or less than, say, New York because SO much is invested in sports there.
I guess they will either not play at all or play a further reduced season. I’m not sure what the “phases” are as I live in Canada but it is likely that Seattle and New York teams wouldn’t play as those are both hot zones.
Or they might have to play away from home. Not sure what plans are. It is something to do need to address though.
They do need*
curious if Phillies are allowed to have contracted AAA and AA rosters to practice at their facilities throughout the season
Won’t Spring Training 2.0 require teams to play each other? How is that going to work if some teams are in Florida and others back in their home cities? Defeats the proximity advantage for travel.
The Phillies will play the Yankees or Orioles if they train at their home parks. If not, they’ll play their minor leaguers. The Mets will play other teams training in Florida. I’m sure the Marlins will be nearby.
I thought I heard that for this second Spring Training, much of the action would be intrasquad.
MLB keeps leaking information to the media without having reached an agreement with the players. Negotiating in the media doesn’t help. It does allow you to mislead the public as to whom is responsible.
This is just the logistics of prep. They need to get all that squared away now because if they wait until they have all the details finalized they might delay the season further.
They don’t need a final agreement until they’re ready to play games that count, All they need is an understanding that both sides believe they will reach an agreement.
MLBPA needs to leak their ‘player’s will be paid pro-rated salaries without fans in attendance’ statement they received.
Are you sure it doesn’t help? If they keep leaking out their plan to start play, and then it eventually gets shut down because they can’t come to an agreement with the players, it’ll be very easy to shift blame to the players. They know what they’re doing.
Isn’t the union presenting an updated plan today?
The D’backs probably won’t be making much use of their spring training facility, at least not the outdoor part of it, no matter how close it is to Chase Field. By the middle of next week the temperatures in the Phoenix are area forecasted to hit 110 degrees.
Has anyone discussed the Phillies plans with PA Gov. Wolf? From his recent comments about continuing to limit social and economic activity in PA in the month of June how in God’s name will the Phillies practice in Philadelphia?
Carve out an exception for pro athletes. Gov. Cooper did it here in NC (college athletes, too) to let NFL & CFB players train. That doesn’t mean the move will be popular, because Cooper’s order keeps gyms and rec facilities closed to the general public. He’s getting heat for that.
In anticipation of spring training 2.0, wonder if all of the players from other countries, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, etc. are here in the states?
Good question toooldtocare – I was thinking the same thing. Those players that left the US to go home – are they able to return and if so when will they be able to return? How many flights are flying out of South America, Mexico or even Cuba (don’t know if Cuban flights can fly directly to US yet) or Canada?
The league or the teams will send planes to get players in foreign countries. As far as Cuba goes, I highly doubt any players return there since they all needed to defect in order to play MLB. I doubt they are welcomed back into the country after that, even with the relatively new agreement in place with Cuban players.
The problem isn’t flights, it’s whether the U.S. or Canada requires a quarantine after coming from that country. The player may need to quarantine for 14 days.
A quick payday for MLB would be to find two wealthy billionaires willing to start an expansion franchise in the city of their choosing. Not sure what the buy-in rate is, but let’s pretend it’s $300-mil to get a franchise. Times two, there’s $600-million coming in. Spread that evenly among the other 30 teams and allocate 100% of the funds to the players to recoup some of the money lost on a pro-rated contract. Since we’re probably going to see games played on a neutral site this gives the two expansion teams more time to prepare their home park next year.
Then come 2021 we will be ready with 32 teams, four divisions of 8 teams and two more teams competing for the services of guys standing on the sidelines like Puig, Gennett and others.
CBS Sports has a really good article today with same idea. MLB has history of expansion to help with costs in past. Makes sense. Easy way for teams to get quick cash flow, creates needs for minor league teams. My concern is how much will effect other teams on a talent level.
That’s 20 million a team. So the Yanks could pay Cole but what about rest of team? The Os could pay Chris Davis but what about rest of team? Etc. I don’t see how that’s enough money to cover player salary lost.
It’s just a little more $$ coming their way to soften the blow. That is all.
Trying to think of some billionaires who aren’t wealthy. Anyhow this seems like a pipe dream. Whatever the buy-in might be the largest obstacle to expansion is the need for two new ballparks. They don’t exactly grow on trees and if you think it’s easy to build one take a look at the years and years of problems the A’s have had building a new ballpark in Oakland. I also don’t see what four divisions of eight teams accomplishes, except for eliminating the leagues, which I am sure the teams would welcome because it fattens their bottom lines. But what does it do for fans?
Let’s not use a sad-sack city like Oakland as an example, as the red tape there is much different from other areas where a minor league facility with temporary seating for the 2021 season in-hopes of a ballpark in 2022 would suffice.
The four divisions is a simple afterthought. The bottom line is finding new funding while growing the league simultaneously. Why you are asking about fans is a rather dumb question, since it’s obvious; new fans in two new cities down the road, and the rest just want some baseball played to take their mind off this pandemic for a couple hours a night. This issue has nothing to do with fans since no fans will be attending games anytime soon.
You probably shouldn’t call a question dumb when you obviously didn’t understand it, not that it was very complicated. The point wasn’t about the expansion, it was about the four divisions. Not only does it eliminate the World Series as we’ve known it for over 100 years it buries half of the teams deep in those divisions. Good for owners, maybe. For fans? Not so much. Your point about Oakland is not taken, because it doesn’t seem to be a point at all. Building new ballparks takes years under even the most ideal circumstances. Don’t know if you’ve noticed but our current circumstances are something less than ideal. If there’s a good time or plan for expansion, this is neither one.
Both Michigan & Illinois Governors are not letting sports to be played until a vaccine is made. Same thing with the Los Angeles Mayor in his city.
Hundreds of millions of lost revenue and local tax revenue from no sporting events..
And then these same Politicians will want other states to bail them out !. NO WAY !
In California the governor has said it will be up to county health officials and Garcetti hasn’t said anything about sports not being played in LA until we have a vaccine. What he did say about a month ago is that he couldn’t envision events with crowds happening this year, and that he didn’t expect the city to be “completely opened up” without a vaccine. None of which precludes the Dodgers playing at home without fans. Not that it’s really up to the mayor anyway.
Don’t hold your breath. With Boras pulling the strings for Tony Clark, there appears to be no path for agreement on a salary structure. MLBPA feels the March 26 agreement covers everything. Owners say that without fans in stands — and no concession revenue on top — it makes no economic sense to open at all. Find the middle ground and wiggle room between the two sides. Otherwise, you’re looking at 1994 all over again.