As if there weren’t enough moving parts already, Major League Baseball is now re-thinking its fundamental approach to putting on the coronavirus-altered 2020 campaign, Jared Diamond and Ben Cohen of the Wall Street Journal reports.
MLB had previously contemplated naming a host city that would house all of the season’s games. There were various permutations of the concept, some involving multiple cities. At base, the idea was to limit travel and keep players (and other key personnel) from interacting with the broader world.
While the league had moved on from such an approach, it now seems the creation of a “bubble” is back on the table. The worrisome rise in cases in several states has surely had an impact. Today’s news regarding the spread of COVID-19 at some organization’s facilities may well have influenced the thinking as well. Indeed, Diamond says eleven players on 40-man rosters have tested positive for infection over the past two weeks.
It’s rather discouraging to see this possibility back on the table at this juncture. Even as MLB and the MLB Players Association seek to bridge their final disagreements on the economics of the season, the basic logistics of safely holding a campaign seemingly remain in doubt.
I think that every alternative will hold risk. At this point the virus is spreading like crazy. Thankfully most will recover but how sad for those families that will suffer loses.
Playing…what every day appears to be fewer and fewer games….in one city only diminishes the product even more. Useless and dumb idea.
I’m not expecting baseball this year. Whatever they put out there now will be meaningless. Phooey…..(I could use a more colorful metaphor).
find something else to do. there will be no season.
RIP to all those commenters in April who said to cancel the season and were torn to shreds.
Just cancel the season and reset all luxury tax implications. I say this not because I’m a Sox fan but because the union will need Boston and all other big market clubs to bid on free agents this off season. I also think every pending free agent who is about to go through free agency for the first time should be given an option to extend his deal at 2020 salary levels. While they will then be a year older, it gives them an option since I see all teams cutting spending until there’s a cure.
do the two state plan. if they can keep the guys contained (unlike how the Phillies and Jays guys were) that plan should work the best
I haven’t been keeping up, but what’s MLBs plan if a player catches COVID during the season? What if it happens during the playoffs? What’s their contingency? As a fan, I don’t know the feasibility of actually having a season.
That’s the biggest thing to me. How can they be working on a plan for a season without a plan of what to do when players get sick? Because it’s inevitable.
They are going to keep wasting our time. Neither side wants to have a season if they did we would be watching baseball right now.
then why are they still negotiating? and if you feel this is a waste of time then you can stop paying attention.
The owners are probably negotiating because they have political pressure to do so. That basically means the players have to negotiate. But neither side really wants to get a deal done — every time they get close they find a way to scuttle it. The only other reasonable explanation is that they are truly incompetent negotiators on both sides. All of them have enough money in the bank to wait for 2021.
They aren’t negotiating they are just trying to make it look like they were the side that tried and blame the other one. They had an agreement in March that was a negotiation. This is just sad for all of baseball.
The players are willing to play for that deal, the owners don’t.
Snore…. not happening
Rethinking? How are they rethinking this? It’s the only possible solution.
I would have chosen threes leagues around three localized areas.
No one in their right mind could have thought traveling to cities was a possible alternative.
Again, if you want to play baseball, have a post season play in, ten team leagues, one series a week, forty five games.
This isn’t a season. People need to wrap their heads around that. It’s a series of post season play in games.
Put the Western Division in LA. Central in Chicago. Eastern in NYC. Each area has 2 MLB stadiums and plenty of hotels.
Those cities will never allow it
I thought Metro NYC would work for hockey so that the same facility wouldn’t have to used. Between the Prudential Center, MSG, Brooklyn and before it was shut down this week, Nassau Coliseum would have had four local facilities, all within 30 minutes (with so few people out) from Manhattan hotels.
I think it’s prudent to re-examine the structure of a season based upon the current events. That being said, if the “plan” was to completely shut-down facilities if/ when a player tested positive for COVID-19, this season wasn’t going to be completed even if it had gotten (or does get) off the ground.
I follow the news from all the reporters but I really like Jared Diamonds. My wife likes them even more.
He is really good, I like him a lot also. I don’t always agree with his takes but they are still high quality takes. Not lazy “low blow” articles like other sports media.
You do that Jared is a jewelry store chain, right?
Well yes but that’s also actually a writers name. Didn’t realize you were joking.
Explain to your wife that those are just rocks and buy some real estate instead.
The bubble concept was devised and is working in boxing right now, and they are still having to cancel the occasional fight. For those who aren’t fight fans or are just curious, here’s a cool review: https://www.espn.com/boxing/story/_/id/29283251/how-bubble-las-vegas-became-solution-top-rank-boxing-return
This season is toast. They can’t agree on number of games, how much to pay the players and now you want to add where to play the games. Its time to just call it and work on preparing for the 2021 season
Cut down to 5 cities home parks. Play a 1,4, and 7 game. That’s 6 teams a day in each place. Runner on 2nd to start 10th if xtra innings. Rotate days off.
Just have teams only play in their division and the same division in the other leauge. Travel will greatly be reduced and there are many situations in that where you could avoid planes.
There is going to be risk, no matter what plan you choose. But KBO has played for a month now and is doing so without cases. So it can be done. But some players at some point are going to test positive. The question is how to you handle those cases. KBO plans to shut down for 3 weeks if it happens. MLB probably could not do that once games started. So the key in pulling off a season is how positive cases are handled to minimize spread, and how teams are allowed to handle their rosters if any of their players do test positive.
KBO has the luxury of playing in a country that has aggressively taken precautions and a population that complies with health recommendations. No way the MLB could operate as cleanly as KBO has — they have zero infections so far, and we don’t even have a season and there are outbreaks among teams.
KBO has had a few positive tests since they started back have they not?!…I may be wrong but I’m pretty sure at least a few
Holy crap!! If they keep doing 180’s on every single element of a potential season they might as well just throw in the towel… I had actually started to think things were just about wrapping up and a season would be agreed to soon. But now all of a sudden they’re basically considering starting from scratch on the whole concept!?! — I mean from a health and even logical standpoint I don’t necessarily even disagree that a ‘bubble approach’ might make the most sense. But starting that conversation NOW after months and months of planning and negotiating and pathetically arguing an entirely different concept seems too absurd to even be true… it’s like someone’s about to say “April Fools” on this just being a really bad (and seemingly never ending) joke.
The owners and players are acting like young children. Literally. And this happens every time there is any kind of labor dispute or negotiation going on. Like a child that knows that he will not get dessert until he finishes his vegetables, yet every night will cry at the dinner table for 20 minutes until mom picks up his plate and sends him to bed without dessert. The child, thinking “oh, mom’s serious this time!” will then eat his vegetables immediately so he can get his dessert. This is what the players and owners do. Instead of hammering out all their nonsense well in advance, they drag their feet for weeks and months, the equivalent of crying at the dinner table every night. While they cry, the fans keep voicing their frustrations but both sides still won’t eat their vegetables until they both realize how bad they look and what a PR disaster they’ve caused and are thinking “oh, the fans are serious this time!” and immediately have a sense of urgency which should have been there the whole time. And this happens EVERY time during any sort of labor dispute they have. My message to the owners and players (not that they’d listen) is this: After the 2021 season is over and before the current CBA officially expires – eat your damn vegetables!
Thank you!
Rob Manfred should watch whatever Gary Bettman does and apply it as best he can to baseball.
If you want to do a bubble concept in MLB parks, you can use NY and LA, as they each have two MLB caliber facilities in a few miles of each other. Lots of hotels.
If you think that those two states value human life over pro sports too much for your taste, you can use FL and TX.
Or you can just use the Grapefruit and Cactus league setups.
The idea of flying players all over the country just to play in empty stadiums never made any sense.
I think one of the more important factors for a 2 or 3 city hub concept would be havng domed stadiums. Any city that has major league sized stadiums, especially domed ones, is going to have enough hotel rooms, especially since so few people are traveling these days.
This is an excellent point. Can’t lose games because of rain in such a condensed schedule. TX and LA (no domes, but little rain) make the most sense in that regard.
You would need more stadiums to play in for MLB than the NBA or NHL need because of daily games. That is an added challenge.
BTW, with the obvious caveat that players have to self quarantine in those bubble cities or else it backfires and spreads like wildfire.
This is the biggest hurdle to having a season. What does that self quarantine look like?
Are players in hotels with their own teams, no family? Are they in hotels or rental houses with their families away from the teams except during games? What is the setup and will they accept it?
It’s a tightrope made of dental floss that they have to walk to make it work.
“self quarantine in those bubble cities or else it backfires and spreads like wildfire.”
Players have to give up three months of their lives.
Ironically it’s up to the players to make this work but you have the unions and the owners negotiating.
Go figure.
Just agree to any amount of games. Just start playing.
The outbreaks are basically Kharma to both sides. They need to quit playing games and simply cancel the season.
Canceling the season would do so much harm to baseball. They can’t afford to cancel the season( no pun intende) it would cause a ripple affect and hurt the next 2 seasons at least. They absolutely must play by any means
One step forward, two steps back. If I was the NFL, I’d be sweating things right now especially with the increased chance of increased infection rates in the fall/winter. Not looking good.
Yeah, there’s never going to be a season. So get used to it folks.
And hope for 2021.
Players will never agree to play in a bubble. Period. The reason MLB dropped the idea was because of the push back from the players who want to be with their families. It may work for a short NBA playoff tournament but not from July through October.
Then you can’t have a season. The players need to agree to go in a bubble for three months.
If they don’t want to get it, I get it. But if they don’t, it wont happen.
There will be no season. Not for any pro sports. There’s just no way to handle with COVID issue. It’s sucks. But it is what it is
MLB could easily get ahead of this by calling off the 2020 season, and then opening the offseason starting right now. We can still be entertained by trades and FA moves and hot stove stuff.
Bubble was the only way this was ever going to work. Instead of coming up with an actionable plan, both parties wanted to get what really matters out first,the $$$$$ in March
Then they fought about money for the last 70 days…..
‘
But yea About that bubble Now……..
Its Over folks……. and thats OK……..They need serious time to talk it out and we fans need some time to rethink our allegiances. The whole sport is on the line with the next CBA .All we can do is wait to see what they do with the chess pieces. My best wishes to them. I {Think} both parties know the stakes but you never know with this sport
So this is what happens to you baseball fans when there is no sports on TV eh? Interesting
Just call it over now and open up the 2021 offseason extra early, so we can stay engaged with the game via the sub-season (hot stove) that birthed this very site.
Meh…..
Only one way to save a season now. Play a regular season and base it all on ending winning percentage because most teams will have a quarantine and they won’t play the same number of games. Top two teams play a World Series and that’s it. No playoffs because playoffs can’t deal with a quarantine. This plan sucks and has many flaws but it’s better than NO baseball and no player development.
There is not going to be a baseball season. Time to accept the fact and move on. The rich guys versus the prima donnas ends in a tie and everybody loses, including the baseball fans.
With all the issues now dealing with a proposal for a MLB season for 2020, and the possibility of only a 50-60 game season, an over crowded field option for the playoffs and the ever present Covid-19 threat, is this season really a necessity? As a fan I would like to see games, but the shadow over the options never mind the bickering between owners and players, seems like no matter how the season would shake out, it would not really be a true season, but a sham for money (both sides) and no fans in the stands to make it legitimate. Instead, try to work out a deal for 2021 that does not look like a greedy power struggle this year has and try to start next season anew. Put common sense people in charge of the negotiations and keep it off the front pages of the news till an agreement has been reached.