Some items from around the sport…
- The league’s decision to limit this year’s amateur draft to five rounds is explored by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (subscription required), who notes that the players’ union turned down a proposal from MLB to have a ten-round draft, with the signing bonuses attached to the picks in rounds 6-10 reduced to half of their usual value. The gap between the cost of full bonuses and half-bonuses was relatively minor, only around $500K per team, yet the MLBPA “did not want to set the precedent of altering the March deal, knowing the league will likely seek a similar opening next week and ask for additional sacrifices.” This is in reference to the public discord that has already taken place between MLB and the union about the possibility of reduced player salaries should the season begin without any fans in attendance.
- Speaking of salaries, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney points out that some players managed to avoid the financial crunch that most of the players around baseball will face under the terms of the March agreement between the league and the MLBPA. Those with deferred contracts will take less of a financial hit in 2020 since they’ll be getting their money down the road, while other players (i.e. Dellin Betances) who had up-front signing bonuses in their contracts have already received those full payments. Zack Cozart will receive the full $12.167MM salary owed to him in 2020 since the Giants released him in January, whereas Cozart would have had his salary greatly reduced had he still been on San Francisco’s roster at the time of the shutdown.
- While nothing has been decided about the location of any possible 2020 games for any team, restrictions on the Canada/U.S. border adds another layer of difficulty to the possibility of Blue Jays games in Toronto, Sportsnet.ca’s Shi Davidi writes. International visitors to Canada are currently subject to a mandatory 14 days of either self-isolation or quarantine upon arriving in the country, depending on whether or not they show any coronavirus symptoms. While the Jays have had some discussions with civic and provincial officials about the feasibility of playing games at Rogers Centre, Davidi notes that the club could end up playing regular season games at its Spring Training facility in Dunedin unless the situation changes (such as “expected advancements and the wide-scale deployments of rapid-result diagnostic testing”).
⚾️⚾️⚾️PLAY BALL…!!!!!⚾️⚾️⚾️
The sooner, the better!
Outdoors is the BEST place to be!
You’re so dumb it’s almost adorable. If it wasn’t so dangerous.
Relax, it is better for contagions that they are outside rather than in confined spaces. Given enough distance of course and people sitting beside each other packed closely in a stadium is not going to cut it. Agentp doesn’t explicitly state anything dumb.
What the hell are you talking about?
So we can’t have baseball but some writers want us to pay for subscription to read about baseball.
so they’re supposed to work for free? want to have your soup and eat it too?
The Athletic is far and away the best and well worth the price. Don’t be so cheap.
Dennis – they are not writing about baseball games just “what ifs”. If this trade hadn’t happened….made up content to sell ads !!!
Which team’s fans are the the most frustrated…..
What if Mike Trout was on your team……
MLB No-Trades.Bom
PLAY BALL!
Has anyone talked about what happens if someone on the team tests positive after the season starts?
When*
You need to stay inside. Forever. Nobody will miss you.
That’s just not nice.
Dynamite – to quote your own words back at you
“You are so dumb…..”
You are not nice and you started it. Next time be nicer and you will not get it back…. I feel like your dad…
Uncle Freddy died?!!!???
They shut things down for remainder of the season. What else would they do? Burn the bodies of those infected? This isn’t game of thrones.
things shut down like they did in the NBA. its that simple.
Wouldn’t Buffalo be the obvious choice as a host city for the Jays based on a myriad of reasons?
i guess because the team has been playing in Dunedin already for ST so they have something of a home advantage there over Buffalo.
Rosenthal just put this up https://theathletic.com/1804433/2020/05/09/rosenthal-latest-details-on-baseballs-plan-to-return/?source=user_shared_article
Blue Jays play in Buffalo, it’s their AAA affiliate, large stadium and big Blue Jay fan base.
What does the fan base have to do with it if there’s not going to be any fans present?
There has not been a decision on fans at this point it’s all conjecture.
yeah thay haven’t said anything about it because it’s assumed there wolnt be fans for obvious reasons.
The number of high school players drafted will be interesting.
Plus the fact that college athletes can make money off their name you could see a lot of high school players choose to play college baseball.
There are some teams who will take the risk and try to grab some young arms but with only 5 rounds some teams could look like idiots if 2-3 of those high school players tell them no.
of all the teams angels should grab as many college starting pitchers. and stop drafting lesser talent on first round to sign a high school kid in second round and pay over-value.
The Angels only have four picks after signing Rendon. I don’t trust Eppler and the scouting staff to draft wisely. Based on his past drafts they will take a SS or CF in the first round.
The 5rd draft will get the same money as always. Anyone drafted will get their money. So why would any high schooler be more likely to go to college than any other year?
many high school graduates get over-value bonuses because of threat of going to colleges. with just 5 rounds that’s kind of hard.
Draft bonuses will also be deferred so if they decline and get drafted in two years out of college with a non-deferred bonus they’d be getting the full sum around the same time
Javia – Agreed. !!!!
Either High School or College players will be more likely to sign as next year there will be a glut of nearly two years of talent and a player that might have gone in the 5th round this year could get pushed down to the 9th or 10th round next year.
In addition, if the MLB changes to a ten round draft it should make players nervous enough to sign.
Soxprospect.com lists 27 years of their entire player drafts including every selection of who signed and for how much, whether they made the MLB, and whether they were high school or college. It is a great read. In most years 100 percent of top 10, and 90 to 95 percent of top 20 rounds sign every year !!!! This year will be no different.
Not as many players will get paid, but I suspect this is part of the plan to retract some minor league teams from existence. Fewer teams means fewer players need to be drafted and some minor league teams just can’t cut it economically, especially in the current environment. There isn’t an ownership who wants to weather those kinds of losses for the small likelihood of ever reaching profitability.
lol at giants. cozarts hurts anything he touches!
i wouldnt be suprised if sports teams cant get exemptions, especially given hockey is still in limbo and Canada doesnt want to kill the 19-20 NHL season.
Stfu this is for baseball, no one gives a crap about hockey
Wow, very intriguing comment.
speak for yourself – Darkside is stating a fact
and clearly a relevant one. i know it sounds like a joke but i mean it very seriously. Canada would kill for hockey and maybe the loophole is big enough for two.
Blue Jays would play in Buffalo. It can hold 16k.
Have a free giveaway of N95 masks.
nah, they would try to silkscreen some image onto it, and someone would sue that the modification decreased the effectiveness of it and caused an infection that ultimately resulted in the death of a loved one.
Teams are not going to hand out safety equipment as a promotional item, only as a required tool that everyone has to adhere to certain standards to remain in the park.
The new rules for playing would be something like a 35 man roaster basically a tripel A team sitting in a hotel if people get sick and for the additional game that would be played in a short amount of time. The players would be quarantined for series and would only play their division for the most part.