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Dr. Anthony Fauci On Possibility Of 2020 MLB Season

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Yesterday, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said that broader considerations would dictate whether and when the league is able to resume play in 2020. He expressed a commitment not only to the safety of those involved directly in staging ballgames, but to relaunching “in a way that will not impact the public health situation adversely.”

Whether that will be possible remains to be seen, but experts aren’t ruling out the possibility of some kind of return. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key voice on the coronavirus pandemic, addressed the potential of baseball resuming play this summer in a podcast appearance with Peter Hamby (who also wrote things up at Vanity Fair).

There’s certainly plenty of important information to digest from the interview, but we’ll focus on some of the aspects relating directly to the game of baseball. Fauci wasn’t willing to give a strong prediction as to whether we’ll see MLB and other sports this year — largely due to the vast remaining uncertainty in dealing with COVID-19. Per Fauci, the feasibility of holding sports is “really going to depend on what actually evolves over the next couple of months.”

Manfred says that Major League Baseball wants to be a key “part of the [economic] recovery … and sort of a milestone on the return to normalcy.” He has thus far backed that up with creative planning efforts (as we discussed in a recent YouTube video) and, far more importantly, with rapid engagement in a critically important study designed to assess the true spread of the disease throughout the United States.

Fauci envisioned a scenario where indeed baseball is able to launch a season by the middle of the summer — sans live fans, of course. “If you could get on television, Major League Baseball, to start July 4,” Fauci suggested, ” … Well, I think you’d probably get enough buy-in from people who are dying to see a baseball game. Particularly me. I’m living in Washington. We have the World Champion Washington Nationals. You know, I want to see them play again.”

Getting there won’t be easy. Fauci spoke of “proposals” involving gathering and isolating players and others associated with putting on the sporting event “in big hotels” near playing sites. It would be necessary to utilize such isolation with frequent testing and other efforts to “make sure they don’t wind up infecting each other or their family.”

If that all sounds familiar, it certainly seems to dovetail with what we’ve heard from reports on MLB efforts to plan out a possible 2020 campaign. The league is known to have consulted with Fauci and other top experts. It’s an approach that carries some obvious (and probably some non-obvious) risks and limitations. But it’s at least somewhat encouraging that Fauci seems to believe it’s conceptually possible. And as he says, “it might be better than nothing.”

What Happens To The Mookie Betts Trade If The Season Is Canceled?

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If the 2020 MLB season is canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, players will receive service time equal to the amount they accrued in 2019.  That’s a win for any player who received a full year in ’19, as they’d remain on track for free agency as expected.  That includes Mookie Betts, George Springer, J.T. Realmuto, Trevor Bauer, and everyone else expected to be in the 2020-21 free agent class.

A canceled season would sting for someone like Dodgers second baseman Gavin Lux, who picked up 28 days of Major League service as a rookie last year but was likely to get a full season in 2020.  Lux’s free agency would have arrived after the 2025 season, but if this season is canceled, he’ll project to become a free agent after ’26.  And then there are others who didn’t get any MLB service in ’19 but were expected to in ’20, such as Wander Franco, Jo Adell, and Nate Pearson.

It’s worth considering how the balance would shift in recent major trades if there’s no 2020 season.  The Betts trade, where the Dodgers’ main acquisition was a star rental player, dramatically shifts toward the Red Sox.

Pre-coronavirus expectations of the Mookie Betts trade:

  • Dodgers get one year of Mookie Betts, three years of David Price, $48MM from the Red Sox and can make Betts a qualifying offer after the season
  • Red Sox get five years of Alex Verdugo, six years of Jeter Downs and six years of Connor Wong

Canceled season results of the Mookie Betts trade:

  • Dodgers get zero years of Mookie Betts, two years of David Price, $32MM from Red Sox and can make Betts a qualifying offer
  • Red Sox get four years of Alex Verdugo, six years of Jeter Downs and six years of Connor Wong

The Red Sox had been scheduled to pay $48MM to the Dodgers in 18 equal installments, starting tomorrow.  However, MLBTR has confirmed that all cash considerations will be adjusted proportionally to the salary reductions that end up occurring in 2020.  So if the Dodgers don’t wind up paying Price in 2020, the Red Sox won’t send money to them.  My $32MM figure assumes the 2021 season is played in full.

Price remains a useful pitcher, so it’s not as if the Red Sox gave up nothing of value.  And while they’d still pay the Dodgers $32MM in 2021-22, that’s only half what they’d have originally owed Price for his age 35-36 seasons.  The Sox might have accepted that arrangement with nothing in return from the Dodgers, but they still get to keep Verdugo, Downs, and Wong.  Though a canceled season would mean the Red Sox would lose the chance to reset under the luxury tax in 2020, that will be less challenging in ’21 given the Price trade and the fact that Jackie Bradley Jr. ($11MM) will be coming off the books.

The Dodgers, meanwhile, would find themselves without Betts, Verdugo, or Joc Pederson for the 2021 season (unless they re-sign Pederson as a free agent).  They’d lose a crucial year of control of Cody Bellinger, who would likely settle back in as the regular right fielder.  That would leave A.J. Pollock as the regular center fielder.  The Dodgers would have an even bigger question mark in left, where Pederson, Verdugo, and Pollock combined to take more than half of the innings in 2019.  Chris Taylor and Matt Beaty would be the main in-house candidates, so the Dodgers would likely have to make an outfield acquisition.

Betts could still wind up playing meaningful games for the Dodgers if the 2020 season is canceled, as they’d be a top contender for him in what could be a strange free agency period.  It would hardly be a shock to see the entire free agent market suffer due to teams’ lost revenue in 2020, forcing Betts to settle for less than he expected prior to the pandemic.

Could the Dodgers receive some sort of recourse on the Betts trade if the season is canceled?  I polled MLBTR writers Steve Adams, Jeff Todd, and Connor Byrne, and none of them find that likely.  As Steve put it, “If there’s an alteration to the Betts deal, that just seems like opening Pandora’s box. Every team in the league would be clamoring for compensation because almost everyone would be getting screwed to some extent.”  Whether it’s the Reds acquiring Trevor Bauer last summer with an eye toward 2020, the Diamondbacks losing one of their two years of Starling Marte, or the Rangers losing a year of Corey Kluber, many teams are dealing with a similar situation.

For more on this topic, check out my new video discussion with Jeff Todd:

MLB Participating In Coronavirus Study

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Major League Baseball is doing its part to find a cure for the devastating coronavirus. Twenty-seven of the league’s 30 teams are participating in a study which could test around 10,000 people for coronavirus antibodies, according to Jeff Passan of ESPN.com. Stanford University, the University of Southern California and the Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory are running the study.

“This is the first study of national scope where we’re going to get a read on a large number of communities throughout the United States to understand how extensive the spread of the virus has been,” Stanford Dr. Jay Bhattacharya stated (via Passan), adding: “Why MLB versus other employers? I’ve reached out to others, but MLB moved by far the fastest. They’ve been enormously cooperative and flexible. We’re trying to set up a scientific study that would normally take years to set up, and it’s going to be a matter of weeks.”

Bhattacharya hopes to get the results by week’s end, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic relays. It’s unclear which teams aren’t partaking in this study, but we have confirmation of some of those that are in the mix. The Pirates (via Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), the Mariners (Greg Johns of MLB.com tweets), the Tigers (according to Jason Beck of MLB.com), the Athletics and Giants (Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle notes), the Astros (per Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle) the Phillies (Scott Lauber of the Philadelphia Inquirer relays) and both New York clubs (Tim Healey of Newsday reports) are among those lending a hand.

It’s clear that the league would stand to benefit financially from baseball returning as soon as possible, but it doesn’t seem that’s its primary focus in taking part in this study. Rather, Dr. Daniel Eichner – the president of Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory – told Passan: “MLB did not partner with us for any selfish reason to get their sport back sooner. They jumped in for public health policy. That was their intention and their only intention.”

Manfred: Return Of MLB Depends Upon “Public Health” Situation

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In an interview this morning, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred discussed the enormously complex question of how and when the league can resume play. As Ryan Gaydos of FOX Business reports, the top baseball official expressed a strong commitment to the primacy of public health considerations.

In many ways, the interview represents an acknowledgement of undeniable facts. But it’s good to hear the commissioner address this worrisome situation in a realistic and reasonable manner.

Manfred emphasized that MLB has made only one real decision to this point: “that baseball is not going to return until the public health situation is improved to the point that we’re comfortable that we can play games in a manner that is safe for our players, our employees, our fans and in a way that will not impact the public health situation adversely.”

That last point is a key one. Even if it’s possible to stage games in a manner that isn’t a threat to participants, that might require a major allocation of resources (private and public) to accomplish. There are obviously higher needs that must first be met.

As we’ve discussed at length in recent weeks, any resumption of play is sure to require complicated logistics and come with the threat of interruption. Ensuring that the above-noted conditions are met before attempting a season will surely reduce the risk for negative outcomes.

It’s also undeniably important to do as much legwork as possible now to prepare for a potential return to action. Unfortunately, as Manfred says, “it’s largely a waiting game.” But the league has “engaged in contingency planning” and “thought about how we might be able to return in various scenarios.”

[RELATED: Watch our recent video on why MLB is right to keep working on plans for a 2020 season.]

Ultimately, getting back to action will require creativity, flexibility, and preparation. It’ll also involve waiting to see what is achievable as a fast-moving, highly uncertain situation unfolds before all our eyes.

Accordingly, per Manfred, the league doesn’t “have a plan” so much as “lots of ideas.” He went on:

What ideas come to fruition will depend on what the restrictions are, what the public health situation is. But we are intent on the idea of trying to make baseball part of the recovery – the economic recovery – and sort of a milestone on the return of normalcy.

Innumerable considerations will ultimately shape the outcome. Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic discussed the behind-the-scenes activity today (subscription link), including the many logistical factors at play. Jeff Passan of ESPN.com (audio link via Twitter) suggests that the primary importance of TV-viewing (at least initially) could drive the league to innovate in that area.

MLB Player Contracts In A Shortened Or Canceled Season

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It seems there’s still a good deal of confusion out there surrounding just what will happen to player contracts given the disruptions to the 2020 MLB season. We’ll do our best to explain the situation in this post, based upon what has been reported to this point.

Background

In the wake of the suspension of Spring Training and the 2020 season, MLB and the MLB Players Association wisely engaged in immediate bargaining to address the massive and sudden changes to the expected state of affairs. The sides have already agreed upon modifications to the Basic Agreement governing league affairs. The full agreement hasn’t yet been released, but the key parameters are largely known (see here and here).

Related Matters

Numerous player salary determinations have been reached that do not specifically bear upon MLB contracts as typically covered here at MLBTR. The union has authorized stipends to certain players and the league has announced team payments to minor-league players. Other employees and contractors have also been addressed, if not fully accounted for on an ongoing basis: league staff, salaried team employees, and hourly employees. At least some teams have also provided some manner of financial assistance to independent contractors that have lost anticipated wages. There are numerous changes afoot to the 2020 amateur intake process (draft and international signings).

MLB Service Time

The key union bargaining priority, by all indication, was to preserve the anticipated player movement through arbitration and into free agency. That was secured in the aforementioned agreement, which assured players of the chance to accrue a full year of MLB service in 2020.

In the event of a shortened season, players will be awarded service time on a pro-rated basis. Players that accrue service for the entirety of the truncated campaign — those on the active roster and/or MLB injured list — would still get a full year of service. In the event of a canceled season, players will be credited MLB service in the same amount they accrued it in 2019.

The agreed-upon system is obviously far from a perfect approximation of what would theoretically have occurred had the 2020 campaign been played as planned (to the extent that can even be guessed at). But it does largely preserve what we’d have anticipated before the pandemic arose, at least in terms of the overall volume of service that will recognized. And while the distribution of service time will differ, it was surely necessary to utilize some sort of crude-but-objective mechanism.

As a practical matter, then, we will still see the same 2020-21 free agent class that had been expected — with Mookie Betts leading the way, even if the Dodgers never see him play a game in their uniform. Those that missed time in 2019 on the 10-day or 60-day MLB injured list will still get full credit for another year of service. Players will qualify and move through arbitration as normal, with Walker Buehler and Juan Soto among the potential Super Two qualifiers.

The major impact, in the event of a cancellation, will be on certain recently arriving big leaguers that had less than a full service in 2019 and on prospects who had expected to debut in 2020. Keston Hiura may actually not be hurt at all — with 114 service days last year, he wouldn’t have been a likely future Super Two qualifier and will still go into the 1+ service class. But Bo Bichette logged only 63 days in 2019, so he’d end up well shy of a full season if there’s no 2020 campaign. That would push back his eventual arbitration and free agent qualification by a full year. Top prospects such as Jo Adell wouldn’t have a chance to break into the majors in 2020.

MLB Player Salaries

Under the very same agreement that sorted out the service-time issues, the players gave up an immense amount of potential earnings in the 2020 season. In the event of a season cancellation, MLB players will receive just $170MM in total from teams — less than one-twentieth what their contracts would otherwise call for.

Should a partial season take place, players will earn on a pro-rated basis. Whether that’s based upon days of the season or games played isn’t entirely clear; that would make a difference if a compressed schedule is attempted. Regardless of the details, the main point stands: a player’s actual 2020 earnings will be quite a bit lower than expected if the season is shortened. But players would still earn a typical check for that portion of the campaign that is staged — if, at least, fans are in attendance. Since this post was originally published, a disagreement between the league and union has emerged. The league claims that the original agreement does not cover a situation in which games are played without spectators; the union contends that the pro rata system should hold regardless.

Future Earnings

There are some initial agreements already in place that will impact the near future. The word on 2021 arbitration salaries remains ambiguous. ESPN.com has reported that “The arbitration system will be adjusted to consider lessened counting statistics because of the shorter season, and salaries secured during the 2021 offseason through arbitration won’t be used in the precedent-based system going forward.” It sounds as if there’s an anticipation of a reduction in raises, though precisely how it is expected to work just isn’t evident.

There’s greater clarity with respect to the luxury tax. No penalty payments will be owed if the season isn’t played. If there’s a partial season, competitive balance payments will be prorated. But the luxury tax system will not automatically reset in the event that the 2020 season is canceled. We recently explored the ramifications of that here.

Of course, the competitive balance system operates primarily to constrain player spending by large-market teams … in a typical market setting. There’s little question that the immediate and long-term economic impact of the pandemic will have an even greater impact on free agent spending. Precisely how the coronavirus will impact the future is still largely unknown, both broadly and with respect to Major League Baseball.

As more is learned about the virus and the international response to it, that information will surely impact negotiations. The sides have much to discuss — not only about 2020 and 2021, but beyond, as the Basic Agreement expires after the 2021 season. At this point, there is no indication of an effort to reduce previously guaranteed salaries for future seasons, but they represent a major future liability to teams and could play an interesting role in the bargaining to come.

MLB Informs League Staff Of Payroll Commitment

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As the coronavirus pandemic continues to cast a shadow over the game, Major League Baseball has made a commitment to its employees regarding their near-future earnings. Commissioner Rob Manfred issued a memo today assuring league personnel of their salary through at least the end of May, Jeff Passan of ESPN.com reports (Twitter links).

As ever, this sort of news is both reassuring and worrisome. While it’s nice to see the league providing staffers with a clear commitment in an uncertain time, it’s also yet another acknowledgement of the ongoing uncertainty regarding the staging of professional sports contests.

MLB and its teams have obviously experienced a drastic reduction in revenue owing to the suspension of the 2020 season. Even if it’s re-launched, it’ll be far less lucrative than anticipated. And it is fair to wonder about expected earnings in coming campaigns as well.

In recognition of the economic realities, Manfred indicates that the league’s top executives have accepted pay cuts of approximately 35%. Presumably, the intention is for those reductions to be temporary.

The league’s belt-tightening effort will help enable it to carry on with the expected team distributions over the first two months of the season, Passan notes. Manfred explains that those funds will be utilized in part to pay out the previously negotiated player advances ($5.67MM per team). That’s all that players are entitled to in 2020 if the season ends up being cancelled.

MLBTR Poll: Potential Season Length

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With the coronavirus continuing to wreak havoc across the globe, nobody knows whether a Major League Baseball season will take place in 2020. Even if it does, it’s just about guaranteed that it will span for fewer than the customary 162 games; beyond that, it’s entirely possible the contests will happen at neutral sites with no fans in the stands, and that the National and American Leagues will go away for at least this season. At what point, though, would it be worthwhile to simply give up on a potential 2020 campaign?

MLBTR’s Jeff Todd spoke on the subject of a potentially canceled season Monday, arguing that it’s too soon for the league to make such a decision. I agree, but there may sadly come a time in the next few months when MLB will have to shut down completely until at least 2021 because of this pandemic. Granted, that sort of doomsday scenario should be at least a few months away from coming to fruition. If we’re lucky, for example, things will restart by June or July. That should enable the league to squeeze in at least half of a typical 162-game schedule, and that doesn’t even factor in the possibility of an increase in doubleheaders or a season taking longer than usual on the calendar.

Unfortunately, the way things have gone of late, it seems just a 100-game campaign would be a welcome outcome for everyone with a real interest in MLB. Even that would be a historical occurrence, however, as Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci noted a few weeks back that the shortest year on record is the 1981 season. A strike cut off around a third of that season and limited teams to an average of 106 games apiece.

There isn’t much doubt that the shorter a season goes, the better the chances are of strange results. The cream tends to rise to the top over a full 162, but if we’re guaranteed to see 100 or fewer games in 2020, teams that never would’ve been looked at as realistic contenders in a whole season (or those that were supposed to push for glory) could finish far from expectations. Would that be good for the game, though, or would it would tarnish the results? Feel free to vote in the poll (link for app users) and share your thoughts in the comments section…

Stan Kasten On Potential Paths To 2020 MLB Season

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We’ve seen some interesting potential proposals floated for getting the 2020 season underway — including an All-Arizona Plan and a Grapefruit/Cactus League Variation. Those may just be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the possibilities.

Dodgers president Stan Kasten discussed the matter in an appearance on the Petros & Money Show on AM 570 LA Sports (h/t Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register, on Twitter). He gave clear indication that Major League Baseball has yet to fix its intention on a particular approach.

Indeed, per Kasten, the expanded Spring Training approaches floated to date are just some of many ideas under consideration. What is known publicly represents “just one percent” of the logistical modifications that have received some degree of consideration, according to the long-time baseball exec.

As for how things will turn out, Kasten wasn’t interested in making predictions as to whether and how a season will be staged. “The truth is,” he said, “we just don’t know.”

The coronavirus shutdown has created a quandary for MLB. Like any business, the league is understandably anxious to get back to action and is rightly planning for different possibilities. But putting on sporting events — even without fans present — is an awfully tricky proposition in the midst of a pandemic, as Stephanie Apstein explored today at SI.com.

Somehow, it still hasn’t quite been a full month since Spring Training was halted. We can only hope we’ll be in a much better place when we look back thirty days from now — perhaps even such that it’s possible to re-engineer the 2020 season.

MLB Has Discussed Realignment For 2020 Season

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In another example of the radical measures that Major League Baseball is contemplating as it seeks to play as many games as possible in a truncated 2020 season, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reports that one proposal would see the traditional American League and National League scrapped for the 2020 season only — and replaced by the Cactus and Grapefruit Leagues in which the clubs play during Spring Training. The 15 teams with spring facilities in Arizona and the 15 with spring facilities in Florida could each call their spring parks home, playing games in empty parks in realigned divisions.

As with the all-Arizona plan that was reported on earlier this week, a Cactus/Grapefruit arrangement is an intriguing concept but one that is also wrought with potential pitfalls. Securing ample coronavirus testing capabilities is still a challenge on a national scale, and Florida in particular is a problematic area with regard to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

While the idea of empty parks ostensibly caps the number of people present for a given contest, it may not do so quite to the extent one would initially think. In addition to hosting a pair of rosters that would likely be expanded to 29 or more players, empty-park games would still need to have coaching staffs on hand in addition to umpires, medical/training personnel, camera crews, a production team and security staff for the facility in question (to say nothing of the potential for scouts and other front-office personnel as well).

Securing temporary housing for that many players, too, could be problematic. And as with the all-Arizona plan, the Florida-Arizona plan carries questions about weather conditions — playing primarily in open-air stadiums in the dead of an Arizona or Florida summer is clearly sub-optimal — and prolonged separation of players and their families. The looming issue of how to proceed if (or more likely when) an active player tests positive for the virus remains perhaps the most notable obstacle to address.

All of that said, it’s nevertheless fascinating to think about a season played out under such radical conditions. Nightengale suggests, for instance, that with the AL and NL designations scrapped, a universal DH could be implemented for one season. That’d seemingly put would-be NL clubs that hadn’t prepped for that change at a bit of a disadvantage, although concessions will surely have to be made by many parties if a season is to be played at all.

The potential for divisional realignment creates myriad new rivalry possibilities and shuffles the deck such that we might see some current postseason long shots gifted greater hope at the playoffs. Nightengale runs through one preliminary realignment scenario that would see the “Cactus League Northwest” division comprised of the Brewers, Padres, Rangers, Mariners and Royals. Over in the “Grapefruit League South” division we’d see a hyper-competitive trio of the Braves, Twins and Rays joined by the Red Sox and Orioles. Obviously, that’s merely one hypothetical alignment in a larger-scale hypothetical undertaking that may never even come to pass.

But at this juncture, as MLB joins the rest of us waiting for more robust testing/treatment and the blessing of public health experts and government officials to relax our social distancing measures, there’s no reason for the league not to cast a wide net in dreaming up creative solutions. To the contrary, thinking outside the box is arguably their best course of action right now. This, like the Arizona plan, is likely one of dozens of scenarios that has been or will be discussed by decision-makers as they seek to find a way to restore some sense of normalcy — to whatever extent is possible while maintaining the broader health of the general public.

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