glory

Regular season games with no fans probably won’t be that bad. Most stadiums look half filled/empty routinely anyway. I mean, no fans is going to suck, but is it really any different than 18,000 fans at Rogers Centre on a random Tuesday night? It’s not like the latter causes a great atmosphere. It’s just background noise until something happens for the most part. Where no fans is going to hurt is the playoffs. That’s when every crowd is crazy loud and can impact a game. Regular season, it will probably take a week to get used to it and it will seem common place. Basketball is a game that will look weird without fans.

I believe the tentative plan (based on Nightengale's article) is for spring training to happen in June, and the regular season to begin in the beginning of July. By then I would imagine every state in the USA and Toronto would have opened up, even if it came with heavy restrictions. With that said, if every game is going to have an empty stadium, then realistically the location doesn't even matter. There's no home field advantage with no fans, and teams don't build their rosters around their home stadium (though some will argue the Yankees do), so even if Toronto is still shut down in July, then play the games in their Dunedin complex. Play the games anywhere. As long as there are games and everyone involved is safe, then that's all that matters.

Man, I know MLB wants to save money, but a 5 round draft even in these circumstances sounds very light.

Even if play resumes with no fans, next year’s free agent crop is f***ed. No team is going to spend money. Lots of QO acceptance most likely, and Mookie’s not getting $400m. Time for the Jays to swoop in and sign Betts since the 2021 payroll figures to be minuscule.

I know nothing about amateur talent so I won't speak on the players themselves, but a 2B as a top 5 pick seems like a real bad idea. If it was a SS who had a chance to stick at short and had to move to 2B down the road, then that's more acceptable, but if it is strictly a 2B, there isn't much defensive wiggle room there. If offensive profile is similar, I'd take the CF over the 2B easily. Now, whether to draft a P or a position player is a different discussion. I hate pitching prospects (high volatility, get hurt easily, etc), but have to go with BPA.

I would guess that teams would be allowed to carry their entire 40 man rosters (or damn close to it) instead of 26 if they resume the season. With the amount of games they will want to cram in, combined with no minor leagues, there is no way they can rely on just 26 players for the entire length of the season. There will be injuries, doubleheaders, rest, heat exhaustion if they play in Arizona, etc. If they start the minors up as well then that changes things, but that doesn't look very likely. If the MLB season does begin in June/July, then I hope the Jays just call up Pearson and have him start in the bigs from the beginning. Will definitely miss the minors. The sheer volume of prospects the Jays have at every level would have been just as much fun to watch as the big leagues.

Agreed. I’d have to see the finished product before saying one way or another but there are too many rounds in the draft and too many minor league affiliates. Cutting it down might help somewhat. The only issue might be if it’s harder to make it to the minor leagues (much less the Majors), then it might make it less appealing of a sport to seriously consider for many athletes, but with Covid, Manfred is going to get his wish either way.

https://nypost.com/2020/04/16/salary-structure-likely-point-of-contention-if-mlb-goes-fan-less/ Man, even during a pandemic the MLBPA and MLB can't agree on money. I actually side with the owners here, and I'm usually always pro player. If they are losing a large chunk of revenue by not having fans then they'd be operating at a loss just to pay the players their full salary. It would make no sense. The owners would have no incentive to have a 2020 season at all in that case, and it would just end up hurting the MLBPA because no owner is going to spend money the following season (which might happen anyway) if they end up losing so much in 2020. Ultimately I think they'll agree to a percentage drop in 2020 salary when all is said and done, assuming they get the green light to play somewhere.

Amir Garrett wins on a bunt. I'll take it.

Nice rountable with Bichette, Donaldson, Judge, and Tatis Jr. If you go to the 15:15 mark, you will start to miss Josh Donaldson as a Jay.

I know he’s not popular on this site for some reason but this would have been a perfect place for Stroman. He’s outgoing, can appeal to a young demo, and would probably hold people’s attention by just being himself. Missed opportunity.

Yeah this is a nice move by MLB. Jumping on the Esports bandwagon especially at a time like this is only going to help the league. I would have liked some bigger names in this tournament, or at least more charismatic personalities (Baez, Lindor, Anderson, Harper, etc), but they do have some really young stars in there (Soto, Tatis, and Bichette) so it's a start. Agreed that 3 innings is too short. I think 5 innings would have been more reasonable. I remember reading MLB were setting up a Esports league in China, but they really should do one in the States (if they haven't already).

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29020150/sources-players-all-30-teams-form-mlb-show-league I doubt a network will air a gaming tournament like this, but MLB should plaster this everywhere they can.

Twitter timeline is talking about Game 3 of the 1993 World Series. I completely forgot that Cito benched John Olerud in that game so that Molitor could play 1B and Sprague could stay at 3B when THE VERY NEXT DAY he put Molitor at 3B and Olerud back at 1B. In other words, he intentionally benched one of the best hitters in the game that year for Ed freakin Sprague. 1993 Season Olerud: 8.1 WAR, 179 wRC+, .363/.473/.599, 24 HR, 107 RBI, 679 PA Sprague: 1.4 WAR, 85 wRC+, .260/.310/.386, 12 HR, 73 RBI, 596 PA I included the traditional stats in there as well because those are what Cito (and to be fair most of the league) was looking at during those days, and it's still not close. They were facing a lefty that game, so Cito likely went for the platoon advantage, except for this: 1993 vs LHP Olerud: 213 PA, .291/.413/.424 (.838 OPS) Sprague: 158 PA, .247/.304/.363 (.667 OPS) I mean, we won the World Series that year (and won that game) so it's not a big deal but can you imagine that happening today? The Brewers benching Christian Yelich in a playoff game so Ben Gamel could stay in the lineup instead? Insanity. Luckily that 1993 lineup was deadly even without Olerud.

The problem with Vlad is defence, base running, and GB rate. He can fix the latter and become one of the best hitters on the planet but the other two are going to hurt his value for the rest of his career.

Was listening to a sports radio show and one of the hosts made a point that some teams may lose more money if the Arizona plan happened (since they would have to pay the players their full salary without ticket sales to help with revenue) as opposed to if the season was cancelled. I don't know how true that would be but thought it was interesting. In theory, networks should value MLB's content more highly if they came back and nothing was on, but that would also depend on advertisers wanting to spend money on ads. If everyone is at home and not spending money on non essentials, then many advertisers wouldn't even benefit from their ads being on during the games. I'm curious to see how far this goes. Passan's report might have been leaked intentionally to gauge public reaction, or leaked prematurely.

Yeah people are craving any type of sports content right now. TV ratings across the board are up during this lockdown. The game would benefit greatly both regionally and nationally if they were able to come back by May or early June. They would have a shitload of games to provide to TV networks, and as you said people who generally wouldn't watch baseball would watch just because there's nothing else on. Give players mics during games. Give the audience every reason to keep watching and get to know the players more. It would be a real opportunity for baseball to grow as a brand, which is crazy considering what is going on in the world. They need this more than the NBA does.

Seems like it will either be Arizona baseball or no baseball in 2020. I can't imagine a scenario where if this plan fails that there is any sort of contingency. Most likely they have been told that even if restrictions on non essential businesses are removed in a month or two that having large gatherings of people in stadiums is still not going to be feasible for a while. The biggest issue is probably going to be testing and the number of tests they can have without impacting testing for the general public. Players being isolated for 5 months in Arizona seems like something players would be against, but I can think of a few rea$on$ why they'd eventually warm up to the idea. If MLB can keep players, coaches, etc, safe, and everyone is on board with it (CDC, etc), then I'm 100% down for it. Arizona baseball is better than no baseball. Plus, even though they'd lose revenue due to no fans in attendance, it might actually help grow the game if they mic up players for TV broadcasts and they become the only live sports content available. Still a long ways to go though. Not getting my hopes up to avoid disappointment if it stalls.

Key parts of the article:

1992 Deion Sanders: 3.3 WAR, 136 wRC+, 325 PA Then in the World Series he goes 8-15 with 2 walks and 5 steals. He was actually a really good baseball player, even when he was half committed to it. If he was 100% committed to it, who knows how great he could have been. Obviously made the right choice with football, though.

Of course every team will face this issue, I was just looking at it from the Jays perspective. I'm not worried about Vlad/Bo/Biggio in terms of development, more so the lower minors players who live off food stamps and don't get to face live batters/pitchers all season. Whatever plan the Jays had as far as sprinkling in a Manoah or SWR into the 2021-22 teams might be altered now. Again, same issue every team will have, but who cares about other teams!!??

Hypothetically, if 2020 is lost, what would be the significant ramifications for the Jays? - Bichette becomes controllable through 2026 instead of 2025, so luckily don't lose a year on him. - Lose a year on both Vlad and Biggio who will remain controllable through 2025 due to 2019 service time carrying over. Lose a year on Jansen as well, who I think is going to be better offensively when games begin again. - Won't be able to trade Giles. - Pearson shouldn't throw another pitch in the minors at this point. A shortened 2020 means they can limit his innings in the Majors, and a cancelled 2020 season means he'll be on the 40 man prior to 2021 anyway so just let him develop/build stamina in the Majors. There are only so many bullets on a 102 mph arm. - Ryu would get a full year off, but come back when he's 34. Not sure if that's good or bad given his injury history and age. - Our next wave of prospects are all in low A to A+ (SWR, Groshans, Moreno, Kirk, Martinez, Manoah, etc). They all lose a season of development, and with losing a year of Vlad, that means the timelines become all screwed up. There might be a lag now between the Vlad years and the next wave, depending on development timing.