MLB 2019-2020 Offseason Thread

[Franklin_1]

13 hours ago, Mr. Meacon Moneybags said:

Let’s go Di-No’s! *clap clap clapclapclap*

The only team in the league as far as I'm concerned. Eui-Ji Yang is a damn legend.

[Your Mom]

7 hours ago, Lowerdeck said:

I'll just DVR games, I'll get to it when I get to it.

 

Not that I'll probably see scores on Facebook anyway.

Why didn't I think of that?  

 

Still really cool watching Live Baseball though  

[Your Mom]

I notice they aren't broadcasting any games with my beloved Lotte Giants this week  

[The Buscher]

MLB participated in a large antibody study three weeks ago.  10,000 employees (including players) across the country participated.

Only 1% came back positive for COVID-19 antibodies.

[gunnar hendershow]

 

 

[MalaCloudy Black]

Was Donald Trump good at baseball?

 

SPOILERS: no. 
 

his poem about it is something else though. 

[The Buscher]

MLB's expected to propose its re-opening plan to the owners today and, if they sign off, the players tomorrow:

-Return to spring training by June 10th
-Opening Day by July 1st
-Shooting for half a season (81 games) or as close to it as possible
-Season would extend into October with playoffs going into November in warm weather cities
-They'd use as many big league stadiums as available with spring training facilities and doubling up stadiums also possible
-Divisions would stay in place but you'd only play your own division or the division from the opposing league (ie NL East/AL East) to limit travel
-Universal DH
-Traditional roster rules suspended for the year as teams would instead name an expanded roster of 45-50 players.  No injured list, no call-ups/send-downs since there would be no minor leagues operating.  There might be a per game active roster limit but the whole point is you name your roster to get you through the whole season.  So you'd expect teams to do stuff like carry 4 catchers, 20-something pitchers, and all those minor league invites with big league experience will probably make the team for depth.

There is optimism that both sides would be happy with these parameters from a structural standpoint.

HOWEVER, despite all of this, a lot of MLB writers are extremely skeptical that the deal will close because the owners are expected to ask the players to take an even larger pay cut than the one they already agreed to in late March.  The owners are saying they'll lose a lot of money every time they run a game in the stadium without fans, the players will counter that they are billionaires who are still going to be raking in TV revenue at a time when people will be desperate to watch sports.

Objectively it's probably not a good idea to run sports at all in the current environment, but that they might've come up with a workable plan only to see the season die due to ownership greed is just...ugh.

[gunnar hendershow]

The player's union has a ton of power here, outside of perhaps guys on pre-arb deals everyone is able to sit out the season if they so choose. Athletes by and large have a ton in the bank since career-ending injuries can happen at any time.

There will be enormous hurdles to overcome once the season does start (if it does). The inevitability of a player testing positive, does the whole team go into quarantine for 2 weeks and forfeit every game? Do their recent opponents as well? I know they'll steal a ton of testing resources from the general population to make it happen but even so do they test before and after every game? They're thinking way too narrow here and I can guarantee at some point the season will wind up having to get suspended even after it starts.

[The Buscher]

17 minutes ago, damsher hatfield said:

They're thinking way too narrow here and I can guarantee at some point the season will wind up having to get suspended even after it starts.

I think everyone can agree that getting everything going only to have to suspend it again or possibly shut it down without conclusion would be a complete waste of time for everybody involved.  So I think their hope would be to quarantine anyone who tests positive, then do more aggressive testing/monitoring of their team in hopes that it didn't spread so they can keep on going.

But that's a terrible idea because even if you want to take the approach that most of these players fit the profile of those who will recovery quickly and have little to no symptoms at all...what about all the managers, coaches, and umpires who are in their 50s and 60s?  I'm sure they don't want to be in a clubhouse with a bunch of players who may have been exposed this thing.

Any league that tries to open pre-vaccine is going to have those same struggles.  The NFL remains the only league where time is on their side.  Not to say things will be all that much better come September but that's four additional months (possibly five since they've said they can push their whole timeline out a month if they need to) for more states and businesses to go "nope we can't stay locked down anymore" and open regardless.  I'm sure you'll get guys like Richard Sherman sitting the year out but considering the CBA passed despite the players making some really terrible concessions, I don't think there would be enough resistance from the union to prevent the season from happening.

[gunnar hendershow]

The thing with the NFL is it has the luxury of being able to say "our season is starting in November now and going through to April and we're going to stagger games across the whole weekend since there's no college ball" and having zero resistance, zero change to its popularity, zero change to anything. Every TV network will happily adjust accordingly.

MLB will run out of time, they can't push the World Series past November realistically so if they run into any hurdles then that's that for the whole season. The indoor sports (NBA, NHL) have a lot of freedom playing whenever they want but they're even more dangerous because they're entirely indoors and share the same facilities a lot of the time. You can't have the classic Lakers game then Kings game then Clippers game 36 hour stretch at Staples Center anymore.

[The Buscher]

RIP Frank Costanza
 

 

[Maxx]

Hmm, guess I ought to finish that draft

[Meacon Keaton]

3 minutes ago, Maxx said:

Hmm, guess I ought to finish that draft

You wanted me to play in your little fantasy league and look what happened when I finally did. Hope you’re happy.

[Maxx]

Everyone please blame Meacon for coronavirus

[SeanDMan]

Meacorona.

[Meacon Keaton]

That’s not a virus. That’s a catchy song and dance from the 90’s.

[The Buscher]

To the surprise of nobody, Tony Clark has already said that MLB's proposed plan is a nonstarter and the owners attempting to implement a salary cap since pay will be based on revenue.  The owners are of course trying to put a public spin that the players are the reason the whole season might collapse.

But as mentioned, even if they come to terms on a season, the odds of actually playing from June through November uninterrupted feel low.  Nobody can possibly know what the status of testing or a vaccine will look like in March 2021 so who the hell knows if they'd be able to start on time next year either.  All this uncertainty means the free agent class of 2020 is probably getting lowballed, making labor relations even worse.  And all of this with the CBA expiring in December 2021.

Going to be a very ugly couple of years for baseball.

[gunnar hendershow]

CC Sabathia deciding that he'll get in shape now that he's retired is extremely baseball.

 

[Meacon Keaton]

The last time he lost weight he pitched like shit, so there’s no better time to get in shape than in retirement.

[GhostMachine]

Too bad he wasn't dieting and pumping iron his entire career in New York, then.....