Coronavirus

Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have spent considerable time negotiating a postseason “bubble” format in recent weeks, and it appears the two sides are moving toward a deal — although some notable hurdles remain in place. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale writes that the Rangers’ Globe Life Field would host the World Series and the NLCS under the currently proposed format, while San Diego’s Petco Park would be in line to host the ALCS. The ALDS would take place in two NL parks: Dodger Stadium and Petco Park. The ALDS would be split between Globe Life Park and Houston’s Minute Maid Park. That alignment of games played would allow all series to be held at neutral sites.

As was the case with negotiations on a return to play and on this year’s expanded postseason format, however, talks between the two sides haven’t been seamless. The league is seeking to adopt similar health-and-safety protocols to those in the NBA and the NHL, which would require some strict guidelines for the family members of players — specifically, a seven-day quarantine prior to entering the bubble. That has been met with some pushback from players.

Dodgers union rep Justin Turner voiced his disapproval of the notion to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal this week, pointing to the number of successful games played throughout the season and minimal outbreaks that were due to “poor choices by individuals.” The quarantine for family members would represent a departure from in-season protocols, as Turner points out, noting that he’s spent the entire season with his family when home. The New York Post’s Joel Sherman wrote yesterday that Turner and the Dodgers aren’t alone in their belief that the proposed protocols for family are too stringent; other clubs are similarly resistant to the notion.

The league’s current proposal would even see contending clubs who finish the season playing at home isolating at hotels for seven days leading up to the playoffs rather than spending them at home. Family members would have the option of quarantining over that same period and then entering the bubbles after the Wild Card round of play. Alternatively, they could quarantine at a later date and enter the bubble beginning with the LCS round of play.

There’s still time for the two sides to align on an agreement, but it’s not a surprise to see MLB borrowing from what have been successful bubble formats in other sports — particularly given that reports have indicated the postseason could generate upwards of $800MM in television revenue (including a reported $200-300MM in additional revenue thanks to the expanded format). The 2020 playoff expansion included a $50MM pool for the players, representing a departure from the typical player pool, which is driven by gate but not television revenue.

Major League Baseball has submitted a proposal to the MLB Players Association about potentially holding at least part of the 2020 playoffs inside a multi-city “bubble” environment, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports (Twitter link).  It isn’t yet known if the entire postseason would be played at neutral sites, or if the best-of-three first round series would remain in the home ballparks of the higher-seeded teams.

As initially reported by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (via Twitter), the league has been in talks with the union about how to manage and conduct games at these “controlled sites” in order to limit city-to-city travel and thus limit the chances of a COVID-19 outbreak in October that would delay the entire postseason.  While details are “nothing close” to being finalized, as Rosenthal notes, MLB began preparing an operations manual regarding such a postseason scenario earlier this month.  As outlined by ESPN.com’s Emily Kaplan and Jeff Passan, the baseball’s plan would bear a strong resemblances to the NHL’s staging of the Stanley Cup playoffs in Toronto and Edmonton.

While the NHL is holding all games at two arenas, however, baseball’s plan may seem to involve five different stadiums and civic areas.  Southern California (San Diego and the two L.A. ballparks) and Texas (Arlington, Houston) still seem to be the favored candidates for these sites, as noted in the Kaplan/Passan piece, with Rosenthal adding that National League’s postseason teams would play in Texas while the American League teams went to California.  The World Series would be held in Arlington at the Rangers’ new ballpark.

It is quite possible that the framework of this plan would be changed over the coming weeks, and as talks develop with input from the MLBPA.  As of today, however, we are exactly one month away from the last day of the regular season.  One would think negotiations would need to progress pretty quickly to get a bubble environment launched by the start of the playoffs on September 29, though the possibility of the first round being played at home ballparks does allow some extra flexibility.

Major League Baseball has begun creating an operations manual outlining the procedures necessary for a neutral-site “bubble” setup for the 2020 postseason, ESPN.com’s Emily Kaplan and Jeff Passan write.  Though still in the early stages, the fact that the league is taking such preparatory steps indicates that the new staging format could very possibly happen for October’s games.

MLB’s plan would most closely resemble the NHL’s bubble format for its ongoing Stanley Cup playoffs.  Kaplan and Passan outline the NHL’s plan for those unfamiliar, detailing such aspects as COVID-19 testing, what life is like for players inside of the “bubble” (actually two areas in downtown Toronto and Edmonton that contain the arenas, hotels, and other amenities, with the entire area closed off to the public) as well the challenges of maintaining this environment while also keeping the postseason’s competitive integrity intact.

In theory, the 2020 Major League Baseball playoffs could adopt something of the same format, with two host cities — or at least host areas — staging the National League and American League’s games.  Texas and southern California are “early favorites” to be hub areas, Kaplan/Passan write, with New York and the Chicago/Milwaukee also under consideration.  One would imagine that Texas and SoCal would be favored in part because of the likelihood of better weather conditions for October baseball than the more northern cities, though Milwaukee’s Miller Park at least has a roof.  It is possible different cities could be used for different postseason rounds — Kaplan and Passan write about a scenario that would see, for instances, each league’s division series played in San Diego and Arlington, and then another city could be used for the two LCS matchups as well as the World Series.

While MLB is already in the planning stages and they do have the benefit of learning from how the NHL and NBA have already launched and maintained their bubbles for postseason play, there are still a lot of obvious complications ahead should baseball try to install such a plan for October.  For one, baseball will be heading into its playoffs directly on the heels of the regular season, while the NHL and NBA had months during the pandemic lockdown to plan and prepare for their restarts.  Both the MLB office and league owners have openly expressed concern about extending the season much beyond October due to fears of a possible second COVID-19 wave later in the year, and the mechanics of getting 16 teams (don’t forget, MLB has an expanded playoffs this year) safely into the bubble and completing enough testing to start playoff games might require some extra time.

As Major League Baseball continues to adapt to the unprecedented circumstances of the 2020 season, it is considering a notable change to the present 60-man player pool system. Per Josh Norris of Baseball America, a proposal under consideration would add something like 15 more slots to each team’s alternate training site.

It doesn’t sound as if this evolution is a done deal, or even a firmly hammered out system under consideration. But developments have come far more rapidly than usual during this ad hoc, covid-addled campaign. If the league is to implement it, we’d presumably see things come together in rather short order.

As with the alternate site information sharing plan that is set to go into effect, this latest development reflects observations from the early functioning of a modified season and an effort to anticipate issues to come. First and foremost, as Norris explains, the current approach has left too few players around to participate in alternate site games. And teams would surely rather have more flexibility to get players in action, both to enhance development of younger players and to build out veteran depth.

There’s also an interesting potential trade deadline tie-in here, as with the enhanced scouting that would come from video and statistical sharing. Bigger player pools would give much greater flexibility to teams looking to structure mid-season deals. (Remember, only players in the 60-man pool may be traded.) Teams would have more room for prospects in their pools, thus making it easier to put trade candidates into play without unduly sacrificing the ability to supplement the active roster as needed.

With just over two weeks to go until an undeniably bizarre trade deadline, this could be quite the wild card. It’ll be especially interesting to see how quickly the changes are agreed upon and implemented. If teams are to wheel and deal at anything approaching their typical levels, they’ll want to have some advance notice to hash out potential agreements.

There’s a tie-in to a broader matter within the baseball operations landscape. In the past decade or so, roughly the span of MLBTR’s existence, we’ve seen analytics (in the broadest sense) grow from a niche element of the roster-building meta game to a more-or-less universal, rather uniform philosophical framework. Thinking about the game critically and shrewdly applying analytical resources is the base state for the contemporary front office. Doing more and better remains the goal, but the returns are necessarily diminishing. What we’re seeing now is something else entirely: an entire new set of challenges with human dimensions; ever-changing rules regimes and economic circumstances; information gaps that technology can’t really solve.

Navigating this world to construct a winning MLB team presents a new — or at least heavily altered — challenge. Particularly for those of us who’ve observed the evolution to this point, it’ll be fun to sit back and see which executives thrive in this new era of the hot stove.