Coronavirus (Sports-Related and General)

andyb 2020-06-08 18:46:02 UTC #1185

Sounds like it. Hard to think of what incentive there is for the players to offer more if MLB is never going to budget on their salary demands until they get down to a 48-50 game season.

zambonir 2020-06-08 19:20:06 UTC #1186

I imagine work at the WFC will continue, if it hasn't already begun again (construction is allowed at this point I believe). And with no concerts or other events and no NBA or NHL season until December, they've got extra time too.

andyb 2020-06-08 19:26:27 UTC #1187

If I were the players I think I would call the MLB bluff and use this form for an offer that would be 76 games for 100% pro-rated salaries but hold back the last $400 million in case the playoffs are not played.

Unfortunately we have probably already passed the point where an 82-game season is possible unless they play into October. Could then even start Spring Training in a week? How difficult will it be to get International players back into the country. Hockey allowed lots of lead time for its players. It is likely that all these International players will need to do some sort of 2-week quarantine when they come back to the United States (like Seranthony is doing now).

andyb 2020-06-08 19:31:24 UTC #1188

More bad news in the playoff plan. 16 teams make the playoffs with all teams playing a first round best of 3 series. I can't think of a better way to produce a World Series winner that does not deserve it.

https://twitter.com/Joelsherman1/status/1270047397205487623

zambonir 2020-06-08 20:58:08 UTC #1189

I don't mind that kind of approach (obviously). Between the length of the regular season, the size of the rosters and the x-factor of injuries (which will both happen from coming back off this layoff and not happen from the season being so short), the crapshoot factor is higher than ever, and the difference in quality between your 4/5 seeds and your 7/8 seeds isn't likely to be that prounounced this year. Obviously it would be better if it was best-of-5, which still wasn't enough to help the Dodgers last year.

Plus, we're Phillies fans. Outlook is a lot better than it was three months ago!

zambonir 2020-06-08 21:24:34 UTC #1190

Another interesting note

https://twitter.com/kileymcd/status/1270041562593079296

(The trick of adding a ? and a letter to a tweet to make it render isn't working for me anymore. What it says is that if the season is less than 81 games MLB is allowed to make changes to the 2021 draft order procedure.)

andyb 2020-06-08 21:41:03 UTC #1191

Not sure that means quite as much in reality. Back in March I assumed that MLB just did not want to guarantee the 2020 draft order for 2021 in the event there was not a season or anything resembling a season. You don't reward a club for tanking 2-years in a row. I think moving the season number down from 82 was all about money to the players and them wanting to finish the regular season in September.

If there is no season I might actually think it would be fair to give every team the same pool. Give everybody $10 million dollars and let them sign any player they want. Now that would be fun.

zambonir 2020-06-08 22:59:24 UTC #1192

I don't think it has anything to do with MLB's plan, but if the clause is triggered (and there's 16 playoff teams) I predict a lottery. And probably re-ordering based on playoff success rather than regular-season finish.

zambonir 2020-06-09 02:12:39 UTC #1193

Lawman 2020-06-09 02:22:31 UTC #1194

Preliminary evidence from the earliest outbreaks indicated that the virus could spread from person-to-person contact, even if the carrier didn’t have symptoms. But WHO officials now say that while asymptomatic spread can occur, it is not the main way it’s being transmitted.

“From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said at a news briefing from the United Nations agency’s Geneva headquarters. “It’s very rare.”

LoneStarPhan 2020-06-09 02:58:12 UTC #1195

2020 is not a regular season regardless of what they do. I do hope they can come up with some games. I sure would like to see some baseball soon. We now have racing (NASCAR and horse), golf (in Fort Worth this week), and the NBA is about to kick off an extravaganza in Orlando. NCAA football teams can return to campuses and workouts and may well be on track for the regular fall season. Same for the NFL. Of course, nothing going forward is for sure, but most sports are moving in anticipation of improving conditions.

Baseball seems to be unable to get going. With June 9th coming up, they are about out of time for a July 4th weekend start of a special shortened season followed by an expanded playoffs that could salvage something this year. Failure to get this done would seriously hurt MLB in relation to other sports, especially if football is able to put on a normal (or at least close to normal) season in colleges and the NFL.

Come on MLB and MLBPA. Let's get this done and under way.

I guess I am getting restless. I went inside a Sam's Club today. Modest number of shoppers in the early afternoon. First time in a store for me in 80 days. I wore a mask, although many did not. All employees were masked. Multiple self checkout stations empty and available for checkout. No waiting. No lines. I had my Clorox wipes and hand sanitizer with me and used them. Overall, I felt reasonable safe. I need some return to normalcy in my life.

zambonir 2020-06-09 04:01:00 UTC #1196

From what I gather this was one person responding to a specific question, based on no actual research or policy. Also, "asymptomatic" here means someone who is 100% healthy and has no minor issues that may otherwise indicate they have COVID-19... and in fact, probably doesn't have it. That's very different from someone young and healthy or not severely affected by the virus who actually does have it without showing symptoms to the point where they might identify themselves as not feeling well, which is a lot of people.

rpmcmurphy 2020-06-09 13:22:15 UTC #1197

This is what could have happened here, if we would have had a competent federal response.

New Zealand has has 22 deaths in a country of over 5 million people. I know we cannot do a direct extrapolation to our country, but a similar death rate here would translate to a total death count here of around 1,500. Even if we did 10-20 times worse than New Zealand we’d be looking at 15,000-30,000.

Instead, we never really did shut down in a consistent manner nationally, and we opened up too early by at least a month.

There will be at least 200,000 dead until we have a vaccine. All those deaths for the sake of the almighty “economy” - which tragically and ironically would have been far better off if we would have followed the New Zealand model.

Lawman 2020-06-09 13:40:34 UTC #1198

Weird. I've been in multiple stores here in NY. ShopRite, Lowe's, Home Depot, WalMArt, Costco, etc....masks were required by all stores, and at least in WalMart they had people going up and down the aisle checking that people were wearing.

BostonRoss 2020-06-09 15:07:59 UTC #1199

I think it would have been weirder if they were wearing masks in Texas and not in New York.

Lawman 2020-06-09 15:17:56 UTC #1200

Just illustrates the divergence of how to deal with this in different locales across the country.

BostonRoss 2020-06-09 15:38:21 UTC #1201

Yes, and that is a problem. New York has been able to relax some of the restrictions because of the drop in infections. But in many states, cases are still increasing.

I worry that when interstate travel starts to ramp back up, places that have been more successful at controlling the spread may see infections start to go back up.

Lawman 2020-06-09 15:55:04 UTC #1202

Well, I think opening up will give rise to a spike in cases. Go take a look at what is happening in Israel. Schools opened ad now they are shutting them down again as kids test positive.

The plans to open have to include, even behind the scenes, how you close down on a limited, narrow, temporary, basis positive test sites.

My son's school, small, private, HS, is opening up again for the remaining few weeks. Classes will be held not in class rooms but spread out across the building. He is in 10th grade - they will be having class in the lunch room to allow social distancing. Each grade will be separate from the other grades. If one kid tests positive at any point, only that class will be shut down, not rest of school.

Day camps here in NY are opening up. Good. Gotta to do so at some point. Question becomes what restrictions the camp will put in place. We shall see.

andyb 2020-06-09 19:06:31 UTC #1203

More analysis of the MLB claim that they lose $640K to play each regular season game. Of course it is not even close to true because it does not count national revenue sources. The final chart in the article shows that just about every MLB team could make a profit on the latest MLB offer. Not break-even but profit. I don't fully buy that scenario, but it is clear that MLB is not negotiating in good faith here. The players have every right to be pissed off. The owners really need to take some of the risk here.

zambonir 2020-06-09 19:20:48 UTC #1204

What I've started to realize is a big factor in how people deal with this, more than politics or the culture of place (even if that's also clearly an issue when it comes to NYC vs. Texas), is proximity to death and illness. I have dozens of friends (some of just the Facebook variety, granted) in the tri-state area who have lost someone to COVID-19, with the people they lost ranging in age from 52 to 70-something to 90 (the latter in a nursing home). I also know people in their 40s and 50s in NY who have been knocked down hard by getting it. When that happens, even if it is still just anecdote (and a person in their 50s dying unusual), you certainly feel a lot differently. And you wear a mask, whether to protect yourself or others.

As for baseball, the owners really continue to deserve its erosion of status in the national imagination. I'm sure they will still get something done but we're going to have three years of labor strife, and when it's over, the game's fan base won't be any younger or bigger. So long as the owners don't feel their franchise valuations or ancillary revenues are threatened, they probably won't care.