MLB plan has pros and cons
Empty stadiums, 80-game season, frequent testing and regionalized scheduling all possible
No fans may neutralize sign-stealing hecklers, but travel may increase.
After Major League Baseball owners approved a return-to-play proposal earlier this week, the league and its players union began a lengthy negotiation process centered around player safety and salary.
Commissioner Rob Manfred told CNN on Thursday night there’s “great confidence” the two sides can reach an agreement. Getting there does not seem imminent. Owners are asking players to take another pay cut and participate in revenue sharing — something the union has resisted for years. That players already agreed to slashed salaries in March — and are being asked to again — is another source of frustration.
If a return occurs, baseball will look nothing near normal. Stadiums will be empty, players may not spit or high-five and familiar opponents will take a year off from meeting. The Astros are nonetheless equipped to chase an American League pennant. The season presents perhaps their last best chance before free agency crushes in 2020 and 2021.
Here are four aspects of the league’s proposal and how they impact the Astros:
Testing and protocols
Though obvious skepticism still remains regarding safety, Manfred answered some long-awaited questions on Thursday night. He outlined how the league plans to procure tests, the frequency with which they’ll be used and, perhaps most importantly, how the league will react if or when a player tests positive for COVID-19.
Players will be tested multiple times a week with a PCR test — one that determines a positive or negative result. Antibody tests will supplement it. All results are expected within 24 hours.
Health experts advising the league told Manfred that, in the event of a positive test, a 14-day, league- or team-wide quarantine is not necessary. The Centers For Disease Control, however, recommends a 14-day quarantine for all who have “recently had close contact” with a person who tests positive for COVID-19. Given the normally close quarters of a baseball clubhouse, charter plane or dugout, that directive could wipe out an entire team.
Major League Baseball plans to quarantine the positive player while performing contact tracing and point of care testing on those with whom the player had contact. Players who test positive would remain quarantined until testing negative twice in a 24-hour span.
Players more susceptible to contracting the virus are understandably uneasy. Manfred said Thursday the league would “never
force or try to force” any player to return to work.
No Astros players have publicly shared any underlying or preexisting health conditions that put them at higher risk of contracting the virus. Their manager, 70-yearold Dusty Baker, and pitching coach, 71-year-old Brent Strom, are among a group at the highest risk.
On Thursday, however, Manfred curiously only addressed concerns about players. Neither Baker nor Strom expressed concern earlier this week. Baker, a cancer survivor who’s also suffered a stroke and heart problems, said “worrying does no good.”
“It’s going to be impossible not to take a risk, but a calculated risk,” Baker said.
Regionalized scheduling
The proposal plans to keep the two-league, six-division structure, but allows teams to play only their divisional opponents and their geographic counterpart in the other league. It’s been termed “regionalized scheduling” and described as a way to lessen travel — for seemingly everyone but the Astros and Rangers.
Prior to the pandemic, Houston was scheduled to play 30 regularseason games in either Mountain Time or Pacific Time. Presuming that each team can play in its home ballpark and host every team on its schedule in 2020, the Astros could encounter far more West Coast trips, leaving them ostensibly more vulnerable for travel-related susceptibility to the disease.
Trips to National League West cities San Diego, Denver, Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles could accompany normal journeys to Seattle, Oakland and Anaheim. That California has demonstrated more restraint than other states in reopening invites wonder whether a majority of the games could be hosted. Gov. Gavin Newsom said last month it’s “unlikely” live sports return with fans this summer.
During his Thursday interview on CNN, Manfred said he’s spoken to all 18 governors with states that house Major League Baseball under the assumption that games could restart in the “first half of July.” Most, according to Manfred, “expressed hope we’d be able to use facilities.” Contingency plans do exist for teams to play elsewhere if problems arise in their home state.
From solely an on-field perspective, the Astros’ National League West interleague slate offers a matchup most have craved since January. Houston could face the Los Angeles Dodgers as many as six times, a rematch of the nowcontroversial 2017 World Series.
The Astros electronically stole signs throughout the 2017 season and postseason, revelations that enraged many Dodgers and led to a spring full of vitriol that — until the pandemic — was primed to continue.
Playing in empty ballparks
However faint it may be, hope remains for fans to return at some point this season. Stadiums surely still won’t be full, affording the Astros an obvious reprieve on the road.
Prior to the pandemic, the team’ most pressing question surrounded its mental state and how it would handle an avalanche of hate unlike any team would ever experience. After their trash can banging scheme was unmasked in January, the Astros were reviled across the league, the target of brutal verbal treatment from fellow players and executives.
Fans in spring training were more merciless, booing members of the 2017 team in any venue and after any action. Carlos Correa and Josh Reddick said they received death threats, prompting the team to schedule enhanced security detail on its road trips.
Perhaps the pandemic has offered proper perspective for all and lessened the visceral hate present two months ago. But the Astros must still live with their wrongdoing for however long the franchise exists. The 2020 season was going to be the toughest of all to navigate. That few, if any, fans are there to watch it live is undoubtedly a benefit.
An 80-game season?
The Astros return the core of a team that won a franchise-record 107 regular season games. They’ve reeled off three straight 100-win regular seasons. Adding a fourth is now impossible, but the talent remaining is unmistakable. A season of any length should — barring injury — be successful.
Here’s a look at the last three Astros teams after their first 82 games:
• 2017: 55-27
• 2018: 54-28
• 2019: 50-32
All of those teams finished as they started and appeared in the playoffs. Such consistency is sometimes the exception to the norm. Look no further than the 2019 World Series champion Washington Nationals, who were 19-31 after 50 games before finding their footing. In an 80-game season, that team may not make the playoffs — even with the four-team expansion.
More intrigue arrives from an individual, statistics-based perspective. How will the league modify its requirements for awards or league titles? To qualify for an ERA title, a pitcher must throw one inning per game his team plays — 162 innings in a normal regular season. Hitters must take 3.1 plate appearances per game (502 total over a 162-game season) to qualify for the batting title.
The 2020 All-Star Game, scheduled for July at Dodger Stadium, appears in serious peril. If there’s no All-Star Game, will the league still elect All-Stars? The question seems frivolous now given the world’s issues, but for career resumes and defining legacies, it seems legitimate.
Awards like the Most Valuable Player and Cy Young are voted upon by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Voters take different accomplishments into account and most are wise enough to assign this season’s numbers in proper light. Will fans do the same?