then coronavirus happened, 2020 baseball

i wish mlb, and to a greater extent the US, could get it's shit together. i'd be thrilled with 80 games played just in front of cameras.
but seeing that shitty offer from the owners and knowing that if they did start playing soon it would only be a matter of time before there were clubhouse out brakes. it really bums me out.
i'm slowly getting everything taken away from me. my job, my hobbies, my house, my mother... people have been so selfish and incompetent and stupid, i can't even watch a bunch of dumb meatheads hit balls with sticks.
this is going to go on way longer than it should have to and i don't know what will be left for me if/when it's done. i could just use some baseball.

the thing that sucks is that MLB is too concerned with the history books to do something fun like just starting the season with the playoffs like the NHL is considering

ya - this is the sort of thing that could shift me to a more hockey-centric person.

i have no idea how contact sports are going to re-open

i'd imagine the only way to do it safely (so probably won't happen) is to isolate the teams etc from everyone but themselves during the season.

yep, which understandably many players will refuse to do

I guess I'm in the extreme minority here, but I actually *don't* want to see baseball this year. There's something depressing about the prospect of these guy wearing masks and distancing in the dugout, not being able to use a ball that's been touched by more than two people (?!), policing all kind of personal habits, not to mention the eerieness of no crowds....

I'd much rather we all just relish a return to the game as we know it next sping.

same

yep

right - I just don't think you can do it unless something significant happens, like on the level of a vaccine or significant treatment. the US botched this so hard that there's just no chance of things returning to normal this summer. at this point it's hard to imagine them managing anything more than a 50-game season. I'd love to see them do something bizarre and unique but it won't be worth the trouble.

I think they're kind of in a good position to just write the season off, it really did start right when the pandemic was taking off so no one would blame them for punting until 2021. I'm more interested in what the NBA or NFL is gonna do. NBA has a season three quarters in the books & the NFL is gonna be starting right when we're (hopefully) at the "mostly under control, but still fearing a second wave" stage

in theory, i think MLB would like to be the first sport back in an otherwise sports-free environment, and having playoffs makes sense from a financial standpoint

in practice, none of it seems feasible and i think MLB is using the whole thing as a ploy to fuck over the players union

also, drink every time someone suggests that the return of baseball can help heal this wounded nation

first sport back

does tennis have any plans? i could watch some tennis right now

golf also seems like a relatively easy one to bring back

or knitting.

in lieu of the regular season maybe we can get a couple of guys to just chuck baseballs at the Houston Astros

there should be a national dunk tank, would pony up

i don't understand how the NHL thinks it can pull this off either

i mean there's no room on the bench for social distancing but everyone needs to be right there to make line changes. hockey equipment is absolutely disgusting under normal circumstances. the players literally sweat and spit on the ice then slide on/spray each other with it

there's not going to be social distancing of the players when these sports return. and they will inevitably return this year - there's too much money at stake. hub cities, players staying in campuses - whole resorts rented out, that kind of thing. regular monitoring for COVID. this will be the way.

NHL said they won’t play any games in Canada if they make the player quarantine.

I know it won't happen, but I like the idea of punting the regular season and just having a World Cup or Champions League style round robin tournament that runs for two months, with qualifying rounds, seedings, a knockout phase, etc. An 82 game season and expanded playoffs would be a joke, the season already has an asterisk, why not do something totally different.

bcz that's not baseball either?

I hate tournaments

if the season already has an asterisk, why put players through the risk?

NARRATOR: the poster knew why

There won't be "real" baseball this year no matter what, so we might as well go with the wacky tournament option and not have to deal with the "weight of history" and weird records being broken.

If they really wanted to get creative, they could include teams from international leagues (Cuba, Japan, Korea ...) to add prestige because it might be their one and only shot at doing a true Champions League.

i don't know if a pandemic is the best time to bring together teams from around the world...

All I'm saying is that if they want to have baseball in some form this year and are willing to deal with the risk, then there's not much point in trying to pretend that it's a real season with a World Series champion that nobody will take seriously.

xpost I know ... it's not realistic for plenty of reasons. But neither is an 82 game season with two thirds of the teams in the playoffs and 30 man rosters.

It gets worse.

This is rather amazing. MLB Network starting 64 consecutive hours of Derek Jeter programming tomorrow at 6 a.m. Bob Costas looks back on legendary moments from Jeter’s career throughout the weekend. Coverage includes 13 signature games.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) May 28, 2020

would rather catch the 'rona tbqh :-(

If they really wanted to get creative, they could include teams from international leagues (Cuba, Japan, Korea ...) to add prestige because it might be their one and only shot at doing a true Champions League.

I love this

This is a dumb question, but are all the players so rich that they can afford not to play this summer? Even the younger guys? And aren’t any of the really rich ones over mortgaged with their expenses? Or are all baseball players really good with money?

Major league minimum (anyone on the 25 man, basically, and a non-0 portion of the 40 man) is half million bucks. Hie thee to the minor league thred if you want to know true horror

The players aren't living paycheck to paycheck, but the owners are better prepared for a long work stoppage and they know it, which is why they're being such cheap assholes and trying to deflect blame onto the players. It's not much different than 1994, really.

In the March agreement, MLB agreed to advance players $170 million. In the event that the season was played, that advance would count toward players’ season salaries. If no season took place, the money was for the players to keep. Established players who had reached arbitration were to receive around $287,000 in April and May regardless of salary level. Younger players like Juan Soto were to receive around $60,000 for the first two months.

legit major leaguers are fine. low-level minor leaguers are screwed, but then they barely made anything before either. the quad-a guys are fucked, because even a week or two as a big-league fill-in would be enormous to them.

the latest MLB proposal seems to have been designed to drive a wedge between the stars, who would take the most drastic pay cuts, and the rank-and-file dudes. but because of the march advance, the latter wouldn't really make a ton more by playing -- maybe not enough more to be worth the risks.

presumably the union also has an emergency fund if anyone is truly struggling

turned on the a/c for the first time just now and man is it weird there are no ballgames

Our man Dayton Moore!(?):

In a conference call with local media members today, Royals GM Dayton Moore said this about the club's decision to stand by their minor league players: pic.twitter.com/8ZfWWx95Jh

— Alec Lewis (@alec_lewis) May 29, 2020

twins did too <3

Sources say there is a group of owners perfectly willing to shut down the season, to slash payroll costs and reduce losses, and the disparate views among the 30 teams have been reflected in the decisions to fire and furlough. The Pirates' Bob Nutting used the shutdown as an avenue to suspend team contributions to employee 401K plans -- savings best measured monthly in the tens of thousands of dollars rather than the millions that would actually be difference-making for a franchise probably worth at least $1 billion. The Oakland Athletics' John Fisher decided to eliminate the $400 weekly salaries of minor leaguers, which might save the franchise about the amount of the team's unpaid stadium rental bill.

also the nationals cut 30 minor leaguers and will reduce the others' weekly pay to $300 a week, which is maybe even more stunning than stopping altogether. the lerner family is worth $5.5 billion.

these people will burn it all down rather than see year-over-year profit fall

entirely predictable behaviour from these jackals but still somehow i’m shocked

Wow, I actually didn’t know minor leaguers made that little. And that’s pre-tax I assume.

lol good job

Public pressure applied by the Nationals’ major league players forced the organization to do what it should’ve done without hesitation in the first place. https://t.co/oehdHWpCIQ

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) June 1, 2020

haha so the owners' response is 'we will only pay you for 50 games pro rated; if you want to play more games for free then fine'

guess we'll see how many pitchers want to put their elbows on the line for nine starts during a pandemic

Putting aside specifics--I'm quite sure, as always, the owners are being ridiculous--it's unbelievably tone-deaf that they're squabbling over money. As indicated by a sampling of the posts here, most of us could care less whether they resume or not. If they really do want to have a season, every last bit of their energy should go into selling fans something they're not the least bit interested in.

(Ha, one of my pet annoying phrases--I meant to say couldn't care less.)

i get the feeling this all has as much to do with the next CBA than the current season. both sides are puffing their chests out. you don't want to be the side that compromises right before the most contentious bargaining in decades.

chris archer out for the 'season'

cannot imagine that the pirates will pick up his $11m option for 2021, so

welp, that deal didn't work out very well

Baseball is fxxked. The minor league story is the one that is not really registering as much it should. It's basically going to cause possibly upwards of 40% of all minor league teams to fold with MLB abandoning the clubs.

I do not think any of this bodes well for the national game.

A problem with describing MLB's labor dispute as a fight between billionaires and millionaires is that the majority of players have netted less than $1 million in ML earnings https://t.co/vxqzpnsrQ1

— Travis Sawchik (@Travis_Sawchik) June 5, 2020

Former pitcher Rob Scahill played for the Rockies, Pirates, Brewers and White Sox over parts of seven seasons in the majors. He accrued two years and 162 days of service time and made $1.31 million in major league pay.3 He said the $110,000 signing bonus he received as an eighth-round pick in 2009 was eroded by the “huge negative cash-flow” of living on minor league wages. He didn’t sign his first major league contract until 20134 — a one-year deal for $490,000 — but he split his time that year between the Rockies and their Triple-A club, so he earned $203,497 from the big league club.

Scahill’s last game pitched was in 2018 as a 31 year old; after his final attempt to make a team, he entered real estate. “Your average major league player needs a job after baseball,” he told FiveThirtyEight.

Scahill said if a player is savvy, he could save 25 percent of what he earns after taxes. If a player has $1.31 million in major league earnings,5 like Scahill, and is able to save a quarter of take-home pay after taxes and union fees, he would leave his career with $156,200 in cash savings from his major league salary. If such a player instead saved about 8 percent, the average U.S. savings rate before the coronavirus pandemic, he would finish his career with just $50,000 in the bank from his baseball career.

“Most grind out on a split career between Triple-A and the majors unless you’re a contract guy,” Scahill wrote via text. “For the vast majority of players, every dollar counts for the rest of their lives.”

I imagine the basketball and hockey re-launches have MLB scurrying around frantically right now.

"Impending" I should have added.