Jon Heyman of MLB Network set off a bit of a tweet storm earlier this afternoon with some updates on where things are at with what Major League Baseball is talking about with their current plans of getting the game resumed.
MLB and players union will resume talks about return scenarios and potential dates next week. Early July remains best case scenario, dependent on the virus, the data and availability of testing. Regular divisions remain the thought. Play at home parks the goal (where possible).
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) May 8, 2020
Let’s dive into the first tweet here. Early July remains a best case scenario for a start time. That’s still seven weeks away, and a lot of things can change between now and then. But Heyman lays out that testing capabilities are a big thing that needs to be there for baseball to return. What is also interesting here is that it seems the regular divisions, instead of the larger 10-team geographic divisions, are the thought they’d like to have.
Spring switch? Majority of teams favor spring training at regular home parks in franchise cities where possible (NY, Boston among potential exceptions depending on MDs, authorities). If so: intrasquad games. With only 1 field at home park, workouts likely staggered through day.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) May 8, 2020
A spring training in Cincinnati? That sounds like it could be what happens. This isn’t the first we’ve heard of this kind of plan, though it did seem to fade away a bit over the last month or so as other plans have been floated out there that didn’t involve games being played in home cities.
It’s also worth noting the whole “where possible” part of the report. Some cities and states aren’t at the point right now where it seems like there could be large scale team workouts, or even games. Making an exception for sports teams probably wouldn’t go over so well with the public, either. But as we noted above – things can certainly change between today and when teams could try to enact this plan.
More possible MLB changes for 2020: limited travel, no x-county flights, more divisional play, expanded rosters, taxi squads, expanded playoffs, more experiments (runner on 2B in extra innings?), more doubleheaders, fewer off days, high-fiving/spitting discouraged or forbidden.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) May 8, 2020
This was the final of the three tweets sent out by Heyman. The schedule is certainly going to be interesting if there’s going to be no cross country flights. Does that eliminate teams in the west divisions from playing anyone else? Or does Los Angeles or Seattle to Cincinnati or Pittsburgh not count as cross country? Will the central and east divisions play each other in non-divisional games?
The expanded rosters part isn’t new. We heard about that from the very beginning. The “taxi squad” thing has been speculated upon a lot as it just makes sense. Guys are going to get hurt throughout the season, and while no one is officially saying it, the feeling is pretty much that there’s not going to be any minor league baseball this season – so you need to have players to step in and take over on the big league roster when that happens. How many players make up that roster, and how many extra players are on the “active” roster isn’t yet known and is likely going to be something that the two sides (MLB and the MLBPA) are going to have to go back and forth on a little bit.
As things sit right now, Major League Baseball still hasn’t given a plan to the Players Association to actually look and and discuss, perhaps counter, and vote on. But that’s reportedly coming within the next week. Right now we’re still just getting rumors about what may be in there. Things are going to be different in 2020 if and when we get baseball. How different? We’re all going to have to just wait and see.
Even though the idea of the three 10-team regional divisions seems not to be the favorite idea at the moment, they may use interleague play between for example the NL Central and AL Central as a way to create a schedule that is more than just games against only your own divisional opponents. Creating as many travel opportunities as possible that can be done by bus rather than flying would seem to be a way for the teams to save some money.
Not sure why there is concern about cross country flights, other than financial considerations. It is not immediately evident why cross-country team charter flights pose any more virus transmission risk than a team charter flight between Cincinnati and Milwaukee, for example.
Cross country flights>
Players not segregated from general population could move the virus across the country more quickly on longer distance flights?
I also suspect with states forming geographical based regional alliances/ consortiums, there might at some point exist the greater possibility of quarantine issues moving teams from one region to another into or out of a region with different quarantine schemes.
Players not yet identified as positive but shedding virus have more time to cross infect teammates in confined environment on longer flights?
Almost certainly, anyone who tests positive will be quarantined away from the team in some way. Could have some interesting twists to pennant races as well if key players test positive during the “stretch run” or even the post-season.
The NBA commissioner is said to have conducted a virtual briefing open to all players sometime in the last several days. One of the things “sources” have leaked is that he told players 40% of league revenue was based on fans being at games (guessing that’s gate, concessions, parking, team paraphernalia etc.).
I have no idea how this stacks up for MLB; but, it seems a fair guess that economics are turning out to be a big factor in what they end up doing and how they do it, especially if there are teams tied to a high level of fixed costs (debt service for instance) independent of how many, if any games get played.
It’s been reported in the last two days that in baseball it’s 40-50%, though that varies by team. I don’t know that I buy those numbers, though.
The problem with that number is that it completely ignores “non-baseball revenue” that was generated simply because the baseball team exists. It’s been happening for a decade now, and it’s an easy way to “hide” baseball revenue. When teams get these stadiums built for them by the public, they also tend to get sweet real estate around the ballpark that “isn’t” baseball related that they make large profits on (see the Atlanta Braves books on this one). And 18 of the 30 teams also now own part of their regional sports networks as a part of the tv contracts they’ve signed. But only the money paid for the TV contract counts as “baseball revenue”. The profit/dividend paid to the team as part owner isn’t counted as “baseball revenue” even though the only reason they have that ownership stake was so the network didn’t have to pay as much up front for the TV contract. Estimates on how much that is each year vary per team, but it’s believed to be at least several million dollars per year for the lower market teams (how much ownership stake also matters here).
So let’s take that 40% number from Forbes and drop it off a little bit.
There’s a whole lot of money here, no doubt. The whole agreement with regards to player salary from late March that is a big sticking point right now is crazy to me. How can both sides believe they are correct in that one? It’s a contract. Either it spells out that it’s built upon having fans or it’s not. And if that isn’t in there, then it looks like the owners screwed up and they’re just going to have to bite the bullet – much like the players have had to when they’ve screwed up in the CBA negotiations the last two times. They don’t get to renegotiate after the fact when they realized what they agreed to didn’t work out the way that they hoped it would. #DougIsTotallyNotALawyerSoDontTakeThisAsLegalAdvice
Doug and company. thank you for the continuous updates. Nice to have something to read other than someecards and there 9 billion memes list.
I got a feeling if they get this going, universal DH will be one of those devils in the details. And I will be surprised if it ever goes away. That’s more than fine with me.
I also like the idea of a larger pool of players from which to choose a smaller active group for any individual game. No doubt there would be some sticky points to work out there with how to handle the pitching, mostly relating to starters and total allowed active for a game. Then of course there would be the business end of service time allocation and the like. Still, if it can be done for an emergency, it can be worked out long term.
Turn misfortune into opportunity for growth.
One benefit of a larger roster may be not having to make final decisions on players who are out of options, such as Cody Reed, Lucas Sims and Scott Schebler. Also, presumably it will allow the Reds to retain Rule 5 draftee Mark Payton for the full year.
Here’s one scheduling scenario:
15 games against each of the four opponents in your own division = 60 games
four games against each of the five teams in the other Central division = 20 games
Total of 80