Coronavirus

Amid widespread expectations that the 2020 minor league season will not be played, Major League Baseball is considering an expanded version of the annual Arizona Fall League as a means of recouping some critical game reps for prospects throughout the sport, Josh Norris and J.J. Cooper of Baseball America reported earlier this week. MLB is thinking about not only adding additional teams to the traditional AFL format but also mulling the creation of a Florida Fall League, per the report.

While the AFL usually features six teams, each made up of prospects from five MLB clubs, there’s been talk of all 30 organizations being permitted to field their own Fall League club in 2020. There would be added cost for MLB clubs under this scenario, as player are paid for AFL play — albeit at a particularly high level. Cooper and Norris write that AFL prospects generally are paid $2250 per month, plus a $750 housing stipend.

Broadly speaking, that’s an eminently manageable sum for an organization to stomach, even if it’s sending a full roster of players as opposed to just a handful of names. But we’ve also seen even the $400 weekly stipend being paid to most minor leaguers at present be utilized as a cost-saving mechanism by some clubs. The A’s initially stopped the stipend entirely as of June 1, but reversed course yesterday in the wake of widespread criticism from fans and media.  Similarly, the Nationals sought to reduce the weekly payment by $100 but reversed the decision after a wave of negative reaction from fans and their own Major League players (who had banded together to cover the would-be losses for the organization’s minor leaguers). A few teams have committed to paying their minor leaguers through the end of August, when minor league seasons would’ve ended, though most have only committed through the end of the current month.

All of that is particularly notable given that the BA report suggests MLB could try to begin Fall League play “within weeks” of kicking off the regular season. (For those keeping score on odd seasonal semantics, that’d put “Spring” Training in June and “Fall” League play in July/August.) It’s not clear whether Fall League pay would be in addition to the ongoing stipend or whether it’d simply replace the stipend; presumably, that’d be left to ownership discretion on a team-by-team basis. Minor league players, after all, aren’t protected by the MLB Players Association.

Even with an expanded two-league format that allows each organization to send one team would leave each organization with close to 200 prospects missing key developmental time. Eno Sarris, Emily Waldon and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (subscription required) tackle the matter, floating the possibility that some teams could include at least one top prospect who isn’t big league-ready as part of the proposed 20-player taxi squad that would train and work alongside the Major League roster. This proverbial “50th man” wouldn’t actually play in any MLB games, but would at least get an opportunity to at least somewhat replicate some type of normal developmental environment.

The taxi squad plan will also provide an opportunity for teams to provide work to minor league coaches and instructors who are otherwise hamstrung by the lack of a minor league season. Such coaches, instructors, training staff, etc. will be necessary since the regular Major League coaching staff would naturally be focused on the 26-30 big leaguers on the official roster.

Finding roles for these minor league coaches, coordinators, and other player development personnel is another separate issue altogether. Sarris, Waldon, and Rosenthal note that since many of these employees are furloughed within their organizations, it creates some legal gray area as to whether or not they could potentially look for a job with another team — as the Athletic trio put it, “If you are a furloughed employee on a one-year contract, are you basically a free agent?” That said, Major League Baseball took a firm stance against such “poaching” practices when the suspension of Uniform Employee Contracts was originally announced.

5:22pm: The league and the union have continued to battle this week in the form of letters, per Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic. Halem sent one to the union Wednesday explaining why the league’s not on board with its 114-game proposal, saying that “we do not have any reason to believe that a negotiated solution for an 82-game season is possible” and detailing why extending the regular campaign into October isn’t feasible from the league’s perspective. As of now, the league’s also unwilling to give service time to a player who opts out of a potential season for health and safety reasons.

MLBPA negotiator Bruce Meyer responded that he’s not sure MLB even wants a season to take place. “We are happy to hear that ‘the Commissioner is committed to playing Baseball in 2020,’” Meyer wrote, “since MLB’s course of conduct continues to lead to doubts.” The union also called MLB’s unwillingness to play into October “wholly unjustified.”

For now, MLB seems inclined to pursue a schedule of 50-some games, but that would also displease the union. Furthermore, the two sides haven’t even finalized health and safety protocols in the event a season does happen, though Meyer wrote, “We will be available at your convenience to continue those discussions, including over the weekend.”

10:26am: Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association remain at odds over both the length of a would-be 2020 season and the manner in which players would be compensated in a shortened schedule. Both sides have their own brand of mathematical gymnastics to show how much revenue would (or wouldn’t) be lost, and neither side has been inclined to budge whatsoever to this point. To recap — an abbreviated timeline of how this has played out:

• March 26: MLB and the MLBPA “agree” to conditions for return to play; players will receive prorated salaries if a season is played or a $170MM advance payout divided among all players if the season is canceled. Players will accrue the same service time they did in 2019 even if no season is played.
• April 16: Initial reports surface that ownership will seek further pay cuts from players due to a lack of gate revenue. The league points to a clause in the March agreement stipulating the two sides will “discuss in good faith the economic feasibility of playing games in the absence of spectators.” The union contends prorated salaries were agreed upon with or without fans in attendance.
• May 11: After nearly a month, ownership finalizes an economic proposal that includes a revenue share with the union. Before it is even formally proposed to the MLBPA, union chief Tony Clark wholly dismisses the proposal, likening it to a salary cap.
• May 26: After another two weeks of calculated leaks from both sides and public back-and-forth, ownership presents a “sliding scale” for further pay reductions that amounts to a mean 38 percent cut on top of prorated salaries (lesser percentages for lower-paid players but greater cuts for higher-paid stars). The season would consist of 82 games.
• May 31: The union counters with a proposal for 114 games and prorated salaries.
• June 3: MLB rejects the MLBPA’s proposal and indicates it will not offer a counter-proposal. Instead, commissioner Rob Manfred and the league’s owners begin discussions on an even shorter season — reportedly 48 to 54 games — at prorated rates.

Now, per ESPN’s Jeff Passan, the league is focusing in on a 48-game season. Fans and players alike recoil at the notion of such a truncated season, but the Associated Press yesterday obtained an email from deputy commissioner Dan Halem to the union in which Halem wrote: “You confirmed for us on Sunday that players are unified in their view that they will not accept less than 100% of their prorated salaries, and we have no choice but to accept that representation.”

The dramatically shortened schedule being discussed by the league is a reflection of the losses they’re willing to accept. The extent of those losses remains a point of contention, as the league has not yet provided the MLBPA with what it terms to be sufficient evidence to substantiate their claims.

Nonetheless, Passan takes a look at the numbers both sides have put forth. If the league is willing to play prorated salaries on a 48-game schedule and the union is indeed accepting an 82-game season at a prorated level, then the difference amounts to 34 games’ worth of prorated pay. Even accepting the figures ownership has floated at face value, the dispute — at least viewed through this lens — boils down to about $326MM in total, Passan surmises.

Ownership might look to spin the number to be greater, just as the union might look to cast doubt upon the fact that the losses are even that sizable. Regardless, if the players will indeed accept an 82-game season and prorated pay, the dispute comes down to roughly one month’s worth of games. On the surface, that appears like it should be a surmountable obstacle, but of course neither side has been particularly enthusiastic about compromise in any capacity.

Still, SNY’s Andy Martino writes that at least one person involved in the talks believes the outcome will indeed be a compromise: something in the vicinity of 65 to 80 games with slightly less than prorated salaries and temporary suspensions of the luxury tax and qualifying offer systems.

That sounds amenable to onlookers, though the involved parties surely view things differently. FiveThirtyEight’s Travis Sawchik examines why the players may be so reluctant to agree to further cuts, noting that the oft-cited “millionaires vs. billionaires” characterization of the public squabble isn’t necessarily reflective of the average big leaguer. Nearly two thirds of the league last year had not yet reached three years of MLB service time in 2019, meaning most had yet to even secure their first million-dollar contract. Add in their tax bracket, union dues and agent fees, and the actual amount that players take home off their pre-arb salaries is indeed probably lesser than most would assume from the outside looking in. It’s worth pointing out, of course, that ownership could push back with similar means of demonstrating that their revenues are less than most would assume.

Taking a step back from the finer details, it’s rather remarkable to look at the above timeline, realize that it spans more than two months, and think that the two sides are still, in essence, diametrically opposed without any real willingness to compromise to get a product back on the field. The NHL and NBA have approved plans for a return to play, but the distrust between MLB and the MLBPA with collective bargaining talks looming in 2021 continues to stand in the way of a suitable compromise.

7:49pm: There’s no end in sight to this standoff. After an MLBPA board meeting on Thursday, union head Tony Clark said, “The league’s demand for additional concessions was resoundingly rejected” (full statement here via Jeff Passan of ESPN.com). The players want to return to the field, but they’re simply not open to another pay cut, as Cardinals reliever Andrew Miller told Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (subscription link). “Players are engaged like I’ve never seen before,” Miller said. “Every day through ths each of those factors is reinforced. We hope to be on the field as soon as possible.”

6:39pm: As the deadlock between the league and the Players Association continues, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets that the 30 team owners are remaining “steadfast” in aiming to end the season by Nov. 1. Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick already firmly voiced earlier this week his stance that ownership’s model of not playing games in November “will never be changed.”

Twins president, CEO and executive board member Dave St. Peter offered a similar sentiment in a lighter tone than Kendrick, telling La Velle E. Neal III of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: “Getting derailed on the start/stop scenario is the worst-case scenario. You’re trying to thread a needle in getting a baseball season in before a second surge of this virus which we believe is a very real possibility.”

Never one to hold back his thoughts, agent Scott Boras again pushed back on ownership’s public-facing stance, telling The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal: “The NFL and college football – contact sports – could be playing in November, let alone December. MLB, a social distancing sport, says it can’t play playoffs in November.”

It’s possible to push back on baseball being a “social distancing sport” in a general sense — there are close quarters the dugout, clubhouse, on the bases, etc. — but relative to a sport like football, the point obviously holds true. As St. Peter and Kendrick have alluded to, however, the worst-case scenario for the league might be paying the players a prorated salary (or even a reduced rate) and then having to cancel postseason play. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale has previously reported that the standard-format postseason television revenue could approach $777MM, with an expanded format pushing that number closer to $1 billion.

Furthermore, as Reds righty Trevor Bauer and his agent, Rachel Luba, discussed earlier this spring in a detailed YouTube video, player postseason shares are derived from gate — not television revenue. In other words, those TV dollars are pure profit for the owners. Perhaps there’s additional negotiation to be done there, but if the two sides have yet to even agree on regular-season player compensation absent gate revenue, it’s unlikely they’ve sufficiently addressed postseason shares. The sheer volume of revenue owners would stand to receive from carrying out a postseason — be it expanded or not — gives enormous incentive to strike a deal at some point, but both the length of schedule and the timeframe within which it falls remain major obstacles.

All of that seems to dovetail with the league’s newfound push for a shortened schedule. It was reported over the weekend that the owners feel the standing March agreement gives commissioner Rob Manfred the power to unilaterally impose a shorter length of season. Doing so would likely entitle the players to prorated salary but over a fraction of the would-be regular season; the New York Post’s Joel Sherman suggested as few as 48 to 54 games may even be under consideration.

That push would limit the owners’ in-season expenses while bringing about a notable postseason windfall. To that end, Ronald Blum of the Associated Press obtained an email sent from deputy commissioner Dan Halem to MLBPA negotiator Bruce Meyer which expressly confirms that the league is looking into a commissioner-imposed, shortened season. A portion of said email read as follows:

We do not have any reason to believe that a negotiated solution for an 82-game season is possible. You confirmed for us on Sunday that players are unified in their view that they will not accept less than 100% of their prorated salaries, and we have no choice but to accept that representation. Nonetheless, the commissioner is committed to playing baseball in 2020. He has started discussions with ownership about staging a shorter season without fans.

However, Blum notes that the league is strongly opposed to deferring salaries, with interest, likening that to another means of accruing debt. Halem also expressed concerns about the costs of acquiring mass testing capabilities, suggesting that’d cost teams upward of $50MM.

As has been the case for months now, it’s readily apparent that both sides have considerable motivation to finalize some type of agreement on how to salvage the 2020 season. Actually moving closer to finding a common ground, however, has proven virtually impossible — even as other sports have found ways to chart a path back to their seasons.

It doesn’t appear many (if any) fans will be permitted to attend Major League Baseball games this year during the COVID-19 pandemic, but there are at least a couple of teams that could have somewhat of a home-field edge. Two major league sources told Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News on Thursday that the league may leave it up to local and municipal governance on whether to allow fans in the stands. That would be a plus for the Rangers and Astros, as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced this week that teams in the state will now be able to fill their stadiums to 50 percent capacity.

This must be welcome news for the Texas-based clubs’ ownership groups – after all, MLB has claimed it could lose $4 billion if there aren’t fans in the seats this year. The Rangers, for their part, are still waiting to play their first game in the brand-new Globe Life Field. The Astros, after an offseason of turmoil caused by a sign-stealing scandal, would surely be happy to receive some in-person support from their fan base.

Of course, despite this news, it remains very much up in the air whether there will be baseball in Texas or anywhere else this season. The league and the union still haven’t come to a deal that would clear the way for baseball in 2020. There may also be health and safety protocols standing in the way, as Grant writes that Texas’ optimistic plans could change based on those matters. Notably, we’ve seen the coronavirus rear its head in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball this week.  It’s unclear how MLB would proceed with players or fans should the illness affect one of its own teams, even if that club’s local government is open to letting spectators into the stadium.

June 4: Both Sakamoto and Oshiro showed only “traces” of the virus, the Giants announced (link via the Kyodo News). Mitsuo Kaku, an epidemiologist who has worked both with NPB and Japan’s pro soccer league, indicated that Sakamoto and Oshiro “had recovered from their infections,” adding that “there is not a high risk they would expose others around them.” Both players have been hospitalized to undergo further testing, and teammates who came into contact with them will undergo a polymearse chain reaction test.

According to the report, the league has yet to indicate that this situation will impact the scheduled June 19 opener.

June 3: Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball resumed exhibition play this week as it prepares for its new June 19 start date, but two players on the Yomiuri Giants have already tested positive for COVID-19, per Jason Coskrey of the Japan Times. Reigning Central League MVP Hayato Sakamoto and catcher Takumi Oshiro both tested positive on the first day that games were set to resume. Wednesday’s scheduled exhibition game between the Giants and the Seibu Lions has been canceled.

Beyond that cancellation, there’s been no announcement as to how the league will handle the pair of positive tests. Both players will surely be isolated, but the league’s overall health and safety guidelines aren’t yet clear. The Kyodo News wrote just yesterday that NPB was still in the process of finalizing those protocols, borrowing heavily from the guidelines utilized in the Korea Baseball Organization and Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League — both of which are now well into their respective regular seasons. The CPBL, in fact, has begun to allow fans to attend games — permitting up to 2,000 per contest as of mid-May, per FocusTaiwan. NPB has been aiming to play a 120-game season.

The pair of positive tests underlines the importance of Major League Baseball establishing health and safety protocols that are not only agreeable to players but as efficient as possible in terms of minimizing the spread of the virus. NPB is less than half the size of MLB (12 teams). The challenges of keeping 30 MLB teams, coaching staffs and taxi squads healthy (as well as umpiring crews, security workers, grounds crew, etc.) are plentiful. To this point, Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have yet to reach agreements on either health protocols or player compensation.

It’s well known that Major League Baseball owners and players have been at loggerheads over several important issues during the sport’s shutdown. One of the key disagreements centers on the length of a potential season. The union side proposed a 114-game campaign with full prorated salaries over the weekend, but the owners clearly have other ideas.

While they have already proposed a sliding pay scale based on an 82-game schedule, they’ve at least kicked around the idea of something in the vicinity of 50 games. Even as few as 42 contests is a possibility, according to Bill Shaikin and Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times. At least to the owners, that would offer some sort of season while mitigating teams’ monetary losses during a year in which there may not be any fans in the stands. MLB claims it would lose $4 billion if there’s an 82-game, spectator-less season in which the players would receive full prorated salaries.

As of now, however, a 50-game season doesn’t look like something the players are going to accept. Commissioner Rob Manfred is allowed to implement as long or short a schedule as he wants; however, as Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic reported earlier, the players may be able to object based on the agreement the sides made in March. That deal says the commissioner’s office must make “best efforts to play as many games as possible.”

The players, like the owners, have finances near the forefront of their minds during this standoff. The league’s potential proposal would entitle the players to prorated salaries, but it wouldn’t move the needle enough for them during a severely truncated campaign. As Travis Sawchik of FiveThirtyEight tweets, 50 games is “not acceptable” to the union side. Furthermore, Sawchik points out this potential proposal wouldn’t make nearly enough of a financial difference in the players’ minds. They’d earn roughly 31 percent of their pay – about the same total as owners offered in their first proposal – per Sawchik.

Beyond the money factor, there’s concern on the players’ side over whether a 50-game season would be worthwhile, Jesse Rogers of ESPN.com explains. For instance, would it behoove the players to put themselves at greater risk for injury or contraction of the coronavirus during what would essentially be one-third of a typical season, wherein they’d earn far less money than expected? Rogers also wonders how such a shortened season could affect salaries down the line, as teams and players would have to weigh such a small sample of statistics in future contract talks.

This continues to look like a dire situation for the game, especially with time running out toward actually starting any kind of season (remember, the players would still have to go through another few weeks of spring training beforehand). Now, if the owners don’t offer another counter-proposal, the players will be “done” talking, Sawchik reports.

JUNE 2: While the league may implement a 50- or 60-game schedule, the union could object to it based on March’s agreement, which says the commissioner’s office must put forth its “best efforts to play as many games as possible,” per Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic (subscription required). Regardless, the two sides aren’t making much progress, nor have they scheduled further negotiations. As Rosenthal and Drellich point out, if MLB and the MLBPA are going to meet in the middle for an 82-game season that starts July 4, time’s running out. For that to happen, the players would have to be back in spring training by the middle of this month.

JUNE 1, 10:09pm: The two sides remain far apart in talks, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports in a piece that’s worth reading in full. In regards to the counter-proposal the union made over the weekend, deputy commissioner Dan Halem told Sherman via text: “The one piece of good news out of [Sunday’s] meeting is that Tony Clark acknowledged that the March Agreement contemplated another negotiation over player salaries if the 2020 season could not be played in front of fans. We were concerned based on media reports if players knew that. Tony told us the players were aware that the March Agreement did not resolve the issue of player salaries in a season without fans. And he said the players‘ decision to accept nothing less than 100 percent of their prorated salaries was due to the risks of playing the season, not because they were promised it in the March 26 agreement.” Clark fired back in an email to Sherman, though, calling Halem’s quote “purposefully misleading and inaccurate.” Clark added that MLB is trying to “negotiate through the media instead of focusing on how to bring baseball back to its fans.”

6:58pm: A season with roughly 50 games would be “a last resort” for the league, Passan writes. The hope remains that MLB and the MLBPA will reach an agreement to avoid that outcome.

4:48pm: The MLBPA and MLB haven’t been able to see eye to eye on a potential 2020 season as they negotiate during this pandemic. In the latest developments, the union proposed a 114-game season this past weekend, though it seems the league is open to a much shorter campaign. MLB plans to propose a smaller schedule – perhaps one with as few as 50 to 60 games – per Jeff Passan of ESPN, but the league would give players a full portion of their prorated salaries.

Whether this plan will appeal to the players remains to be seen, as they wouldn’t come close to their normal salaries in such an abbreviated season. However, as Jon Heyman of MLB Network notes, commissioner Rob Manfred has the right to implement a schedule that’s as long or short as he wants based on the agreement the owners and players made back in March. As of now, Manfred and the league are still hoping to reach some sort of compromise that works out for both sides, Heyman suggests, but Passan adds that MLB is prepared to go with a schedule length of its choosing if it’s unable to find common ground with the players.

Season length aside, it’s notable that the league’s willing to give players their prorated salaries without further reductions in pay. The league presented its latest economic proposal last week – one that didn’t go over well with players, including Nationals ace and influential union member Max Scherzer, who noted the players had already agreed to take lower salaries in the form of prorated salaries and weren’t open to accepting even less money. A 50- to 60-game schedule obviously would not be ideal for the players from a financial standpoint, but if they’re not on board with this plan, perhaps they and the owners will be able to meet in the middle on schedule length in the coming weeks and get a 2020 campaign underway.