Major League Baseball Expected to Suspend Spring Training, Delay Season

[Parker Hageman]

According to Jeff Passan, Major League Baseball ownership groups expect Major League Baseball to join multiple sports leagues in canceling their events to limit the spread of COVID-19. It is not clear when the announcement will come, but would likely include immediate suspension of remaining spring training games and a delay of the 2020 season.The reports comes after MLB ownership groups had a league-wide conference call with Commissioner Rob Manfred this morning. This story will be updated as more information becomes available.

 

MLB's official statement:

Following a call with the 30 Clubs, and after consultation with the Major League Baseball Players Association, Commissioner Robert D. Manfred, Jr. today announced that MLB has decided to suspend Spring Training games and to delay the start of the 2020 regular season by at least two weeks due to the national emergency created by the coronavirus pandemic. This action is being taken in the interests of the safety and well-being of our players, Clubs and our millions of loyal fans.

 

MLB will continue to evaluate ongoing events leading up to the start of the season. Guidance related to daily operations and workouts will be relayed to Clubs in the coming days. As of 4:00 p.m. (ET) today, forthcoming Spring Training games have been cancelled, and 2020 World Baseball Classic Qualifier games in Tucson, Arizona have been postponed indefinitely.

MLB and the Clubs have been preparing a variety of contingency plans regarding the 2020 regular season schedule. MLB will announce the effects on the schedule at an appropriate time and will remain flexible as events warrant, with the hope of resuming normal operations as soon as possible.

Nothing is more important to us than the health and safety of our players, employees and fans. MLB will continue to undertake the precautions and best practices recommended by public health experts. We send our best wishes to all individuals and communities that have been impacted by coronavirus.

 

 

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[SF Twins Fan]

This is the correct thing to do, but man, does this just feel like the typical thing to happen to MN sports. Twins finally have a projected top 5 team in the MLB and a ****ing worldwide pandemic happens that is going to screw up the flow of the season.

[jkcarew]

Of course. Tents folding everywhere. Good luck to everyone trying to stay solvent...especially you small business owners out there, and wage-earners...again, especially of small businesses. In the meantime, take care of each other as best as you can.

[John Bonnes]

Agree that this is the correct thing to do. I'll list a couple of pros and cons from the Twins perspective:

 

• Every game missed is a couple of days in which Byron Buxton and Rich Hill get closer to healthy.
• On the other hand, Pineda gets pushed back - there is no way these missed games impact his suspension.
• There's a good chance the Twins miss all seven games they would have played against the Athletics, who are an awfully good squad. 
• On the other hand, the only other non-division team they would play in the first four weeks are the Blue Jays (3 games) and Mariners (3 games), both of whom should be pretty beatable. 
• Second homestand starts April 17th. I wonder if the suspension lasts that long. 
• I also wonder, when the suspension ends, if MLB has another abbreviated spring training or turns some of the regular season games into exhibition games until the players are at full speed. 

This is pretty new territory. The only thing I can think to compare it to is some of the labor disruptions that delayed seasons in the past. 

[jkcarew]

 

This is the correct thing to do, but man, does this just feel like the typical thing to happen to MN sports. Twins finally have a projected top 5 team in the MLB and a ****ing worldwide pandemic happens that is going to screw up the flow of the season.

Could work to the Twins benefit...Hill, Buxton, fewer innings for Berrios, etc., etc.. But, yes...still very weird and disappointing to have the entertainment value of the ride be impacted like this.

 

I'm still a buyer that this thing will settle down enough to have a meaningful season. (But then, I've been a buyer of S&P ETF's the last several days, and look what that's done for me )

[jkcarew]

 

Agree that this is the correct thing to do. I'll list a couple of pros and cons from the Twins perspective:

 

• Every game missed is a couple of days in which Byron Buxton and Rich Hill get closer to healthy.
• On the other hand, Pineda gets pushed back - there is no way these missed games impact his suspension.
• There's a good chance the Twins miss all seven games they would have played against the Athletics, who are an awfully good squad. 
• On the other hand, the only other non-division team they would play in the first four weeks are the Blue Jays (3 games) and Mariners (3 games), both of whom should be pretty beatable. 
• Second homestand starts April 17th. I wonder if the suspension lasts that long. 
• I also wonder, when the suspension ends, if MLB has another abbreviated spring training or turns some of the regular season games into exhibition games until the players are at full speed. 

This is pretty new territory. The only thing I can think to compare it to is some of the labor disruptions that delayed seasons in the past. 

You raise a good question regarding schedules. I would think that if the suspension lasts very long, there would be incentive to re-do schedules to maintain fairness within divisions and leagues.

 

The precedent for many of these questions is 1981. The season was 're-started' late. I can't remember how 'practice' games were handled...nor can I remember if the schedules were re-calculated...and under what criteria, if they were. Presumably it would be much easier, with less impact to fans...less impact to everyone...to re-calculate a schedule in 2020 than it would have been in 1981.

 

(In 1981, about two months of games were cancelled...about 50-55 games;...of course, that included the time for 'warm up' activities prior to resumption of play.)

 

Another precedent would be 1995 after the strike/lockout that eliminated the 1994 post-season. But, games commenced before the end of April...and players, more-or-less, reported for a 'normal' spring training once the new CBA had been done. I'm pretty sure that that was a 'custom' schedule build for a 144-game season....but, of course, without the complication of a 162-game schedule having been previously published.

[zwiefz]

I can't see the games being rescheduled.  Too many variables go into making schedules, namely stadium usage and other large events in played in cities. 

 

If they did rearrange the schedule, I can't imagine the nightmare that would ensue refunding every ticket, hotel room, etc that has already been purchased and then having to resell them again with the new schedule.

[bighat]

 

I can't see the games being rescheduled.  Too many variables go into making schedules, namely stadium usage and other large events in played in cities. 

 

If they did rearrange the schedule, I can't imagine the nightmare that would ensue refunding every ticket, hotel room, etc that has already been purchased and then having to resell them again with the new schedule.

Very good point. I initially thought they'd just re-do it, but considering the flight changes, date changes, etc it could be a mess.

 

Season ticket holders: ouch.

 

FWIW I agree this is the right move. Slowing down the spread of Covid-19 is what's best for our citizens right now. Hang tight everyone, stay calm. I know it's hard with the news, especially with all the yelling voices out there. Deep breaths.

[SF Twins Fan]

 

I can't see the games being rescheduled.  Too many variables go into making schedules, namely stadium usage and other large events in played in cities. 

 

If they did rearrange the schedule, I can't imagine the nightmare that would ensue refunding every ticket, hotel room, etc that has already been purchased and then having to resell them again with the new schedule.

 

The only way I can see this happening is if they schedule doubleheaders. Since this is the beginning of the season they could find dates later on in the season and have teams play multiple doubleheaders in a series.

[jkcarew]

 

I can't see the games being rescheduled.  Too many variables go into making schedules, namely stadium usage and other large events in played in cities. 

 

If they did rearrange the schedule, I can't imagine the nightmare that would ensue refunding every ticket, hotel room, etc that has already been purchased and then having to resell them again with the new schedule.

Maybe. Although, what you describe is happening everywhere around us already related to other aspects of society...spring vacations, other sports, business trips. But, if not, maybe an immediate tweak to the post season to allow more teams. Something to satisfy the teams that missed 15 games against Seattle and Baltimore while their rival missed 15 games against the Angels and the Yankees. I guess you could even split the remaining games into halves to mitigate for imbalance in the remaining schedules (again, along with probably more teams qualifying for the post season tournament). It will depend on how long this takes. It will be both interesting and very frustrating to see how it plays out.

[howeda7]

There will probably be a season, but since they're going down this path, I can't imagine it starting before June 1st at the earliest. Based on what's happening in Italy this is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

[Halsey Hall]

That figures, most of us here are paid up til April 1st.  I'm not staying around with no baseball.  

[DannySD]

The bigger nightmare would be doing nothing and finding out after the fact that doing nothing caused the virus to spread and kill people. Pretty sure they can figure out a way to reschedule things, especially now that they have the time. The world economy is going to have issues for awhlie, and every business including MLB will be affected financially regardless. 

 

I can't see the games being rescheduled.  Too many variables go into making schedules, namely stadium usage and other large events in played in cities. 

 

If they did rearrange the schedule, I can't imagine the nightmare that would ensue refunding every ticket, hotel room, etc that has already been purchased and then having to resell them again with the new schedule.

 

[adjacent]

I guess all depends on the numbers, and not precisely baseball numbers. More like, number of new cases per day, number of people recovered, number of deaths, etc. Baseball is going to take a back seat for a while.

[bobs]

Well, see y'all in a month....

[Cap'n Piranha]

 

There will probably be a season, but since they're going down this path, I can't imagine it starting before June 1st at the earliest. Based on what's happening in Italy this is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

 

Or it could be like China, which is now (if Chinese sources can be trusted, which I'll grant is a big if) in steep decline--only 24 new cases for the entirety of mainland China yesterday.  China had to keep things under lock for about 6 weeks to get this result, but it's a good result--80k total cases and 3.2k deaths; the US equivalent would be 19k cases and 760 deaths.  That would be a 0.005% chance of a US citizen being infected, or one out of every 17k people, and a mortality chance of 0.0002% (1 out of every 434k people).

 

The coronavirus should certainly be taken seriously, and suspending sporting events is part of that, but from an infection/death standpoint, the coronavirus is likely to be of far less impact than the annual winter flu is every single year.

[jimbo92107]

Here's a website with the current COVID 19 numbers:

 

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

 

If you must hole up inside for a while, consider purchasing a large bag of rice or some other starchy dry goods. Don't forget to buy some salt, too. And sugar. 

 

Black elderberry supposedly has some antiviral action. A bottle of 100 pills is about $8 bucks on Amazon. 2 capsules, twice a day. You can get the juice, too.

 

I love baseball, even though I haven't played it since I was a kid. Can't even throw a ball decently now, with my crap shoulder. But I love the game, just like y'all do. I hope we make it through this reasonably intact. The beauty of baseball needs to be witnessed by big, raucous crowds of people on warm, sunny days. I hope we all get back to that. I miss it already.

[AdoreAdorno]

If the Twins are indeed as good as they are being projected to be, every game lost is to their disadvantage as it increases the odds of lesser teams playing above their heads and benefiting from a shorter sample size. Think of all the teams that fell apart with 1-2 months left to go. Really good, really deep teams like the Twins are all hurt by this.  

[MMMordabito]

Great, those seven games against Seattle will come back to bite.

[MMMordabito]

 

This is pretty new territory. The only thing I can think to compare it to is some of the labor disruptions that delayed seasons in the past. 

 

We'll get to enjoy that in 2022.   Can't have nice things.

[21bdp21]

My biggest question is the strength of schedule, but the most important is when are they scheduling a double header against the Seattle Mariners so I can watch two baseball games in a row when it isn't March.  

[Otwins]

Are the minor league games and practices shut down also?

[21bdp21]

 

Are the minor league games and practices shut down also?

Yes

[MMMordabito]

WBC qualifiers getting suspended as well.  If that tournament ever gets played, I hope the US gets bracketed with and kicks the living bejesus out of China.

[Dantes929]

Since this is unprecedented it probably wouldn't hurt to start lobbying now for Pineda's suspended games to decrease at least on a ratio to the shortened season or even better, to just count for every game not played.

[mikelink45]

Let's assume everyone is harmed the same way - there is no option - imagine if a group of fans gets the virus at a game or some of our players go down.  Lets just assume this is another season with a different story line.  The only winner in this might be the Astros.

[howeda7]

 

Or it could be like China, which is now (if Chinese sources can be trusted, which I'll grant is a big if) in steep decline--only 24 new cases for the entirety of mainland China yesterday.  China had to keep things under lock for about 6 weeks to get this result, but it's a good result--80k total cases and 3.2k deaths; the US equivalent would be 19k cases and 760 deaths.  That would be a 0.005% chance of a US citizen being infected, or one out of every 17k people, and a mortality chance of 0.0002% (1 out of every 434k people).

 

The coronavirus should certainly be taken seriously, and suspending sporting events is part of that, but from an infection/death standpoint, the coronavirus is likely to be of far less impact than the annual winter flu is every single year.

Even if that's true, that would put us where they are today around May 15th. The season wouldn't start before June 1st.

[DocBauer]

Sure this will change, but saw on TV that the start of the season is now delayed 2 weeks.

[DocBauer]

And I virally attacking a couple Coronas as I type. My personal statement.

[Homerhankie]

Why do every and all viruses come into the United Sates. It's just sucks we allow them all in. None of them, ever have originated here.