Archive for COVID-19

This is the latest installment of a daily series in which the FanGraphs staff rounds up the latest developments regarding the COVID-19 virus’ effect on baseball.

With work in so many industries disrupted by COVID-19 and the efforts to limit its spread, many individuals have felt the financial pressure of work stoppages or even layoffs. Those in the baseball haven’t been immune to this pressure. Earlier this week, Major League Baseball and all 30 clubs agreed to relief for the seasonal ballpark employees that have been left jobless with the delayed start to the season, pledging $1 million per team. Yesterday, after a loud and persistent public outcry, we finally saw the financial situation of the league’s minor league players addressed, if only temporarily.

MLB Announces a League-Wide Initiative to Support Minor League Players

After a handful of teams announced earlier in the week that they would continue to pay their spring training per diems, the policy was officially adopted as a league-wide, temporary solution for all minor league players:

A league-wide initiative has been announced for Minor League players to receive compensation between now and the scheduled start of the Minor League season. @MLB will continue to work with all 30 Clubs on the development of an industry-wide plan for compensation beyond 4/8. pic.twitter.com/Ck8Lv9uuzp

— MLB Communications (@MLB_PR) March 19, 2020

Every team will provide each minor league player a lump sum equal to the allowances that would have been paid until the beginning of the minor league season on April 8. There are a few exceptions, and no solution has been announced for how to handle compensation between April 9 and the beginning of the upcoming season, whenever that might be. MLB and the teams are still working on a long-term plan. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, we introduced a few of our favorite games to rewatch, all of which shared a postseason theme. Today, we highlight six regular season contests, including a no-hitter, a perfect game, and a few more that either meant something special to the writer, or presented feats too intriguing to ignore. Enjoy, and be well. – Meg Rowley

Roy Halladay’s Perfect Game, May 29, 2010
One of the biggest influences in my life is my late grandfather, Pop-Pop. He had been a devout Phillies fan since 1950, and during the team’s late-2000s glory, I was lucky to share many joyous moments with him, including a championship in 2008.

I remember talking on the phone with Pop-Pop in 2009, when the Phillies had just traded for Cliff Lee. While he was certainly excited for another elite pitcher to aid in the postseason run, he felt that Philly had missed out on someone even better: Halladay. So when the Phillies ended up acquiring him that winter, my first move was to call my grandfather. My second was to order Halladay’s jersey.

In no time, the right-hander was my favorite baseball player. I tried to emulate his windup when pitching, wore his jersey every day he started, and begged my parents to let me stay past up past my bedtime when he was in the midst of one of his nine complete games in 2010.

I’ll never forget May 29. Naturally, I had donned Halladay’s jersey, and even oddly received a comment on it while my family was out shopping. “Are you a Phillies fan?” I was asked by a man trying to sell us furniture. “I love Roy Halladay. Nice jersey.”

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“Chaos, absolute chaos.”

That was the only way one agent was able to describe the current situation going on in professional baseball. Meanwhile, multiple minor-league players bleakly described their situation as being “an afterthought” — this after being sent home with no information on what their timeline for return might be, and whether they would be paid.

As Major League Baseball attempts to deal with the fallout from cancelling spring training, and the delay of the start of the season due to the spread of the COVID-19 virus, players across all levels are feeling the pain, as questions continue to mount. When will their next paycheck come? From where? What preparation needs to be taken for the delayed start of the season?

The recurring theme during conversations I’ve had with players across all levels of professional baseball — from the majors down to rookie ball — is the stark contrast between the amount of information being given to major league and 40-man roster players versus that being provided to minor leaguers. As one minor league player put it, “Minor league guys don’t know anything until it comes out on Twitter.”

Once the season was officially suspended by Major League Baseball, each club had different ways of dealing with their rostered versus non-rostered players. Across the league, players on the 40-man have been given three options: First, to stay at the complex and continue to receive their $1,100 weekly spring training stipend paid by the club, and retain access to the facility with minimal staff present; second, go to the club’s home city and continue to train at the ballpark, again with minimal staff, and receive their stipend of $1,100 per week paid by MLBPA; and third, return home and receive their weekly $1,100, also paid for by the union. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the latest installment of a daily series in which the FanGraphs staff rounds up the latest developments regarding the COVID-19 virus’ effect on baseball.

In yesterday’s roundup of COVID-19 news, Dan Szymborksi covered MLB’s fund for ballpark employees and the lack of clarity surrounding pay for minor leaguers, among other topics. The last 24 hours, not unlike every 24 hour period over the last week or so, has brought with it more news, including potential changes to the MLB draft and a Reds employee testing positive for COVID-19.

No MLB Draft?

According to an Associated Press story from Ronald Blum, among the issues the players’ union and MLB are discussing is what to do with the MLB draft, currently scheduled for June. With college baseball shut down and many high school teams following suit, scouting players for the draft is almost impossible, and the June date could come and go before the MLB season has even started. While the feasibility of holding the draft is one issue, the teams might also be angling to reduce costs by eliminating both the draft and international signings, per Blum.

In 2019, MLB teams spent $316.5 million on draft bonuses and another $100 million on international signings, per JJ Cooper. In Ken Rosenthal’s piece on the subject, he mentions the possibility of a combined draft in 2021, though working out the eligibility details could prove difficult, as currently eligible high school seniors will theoretically be freshman in college a year from now, and not ordinarily eligible for the draft.
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We’ve all entered a new condition. I’ve gotten a lot of questions in the last few days from friends, who are self-isolating in response to COVID-19 and newly working from home, about how best to get through the day. Some have struggled to maintain their productivity (I try to edit and take calls from a designated place, separate and distinct from both my bed and my couch), while others have wondered whether it really matters if you get dressed in real pants before you start your work (perhaps, though I’ve found it to be much less important than remembering to drink water). Everyone has their tricks and tips, and of course work has to get done, but I think it is important to recognize just how unusual a circumstance this is, how overwhelming it can feel. Sometimes, we’re going to need to set aside our work, and our real pants, and take a break. That’s a little harder to do while baseball, our usual distraction, is taking its break. So to help you pass the time, the FanGraphs staff presents a few of our favorite games to rewatch from the relatively recent MLB archives. Today, one game with playoff implications and four more that peppered the postseason landscape. Enjoy, and stay safe. – Meg Rowley

2013 NL Wild Card: Cincinatti Reds at Pittsburgh Pirates
It’s been a tough couple years to be a Pirates fan. It’s been a tough couple decades, in fact, but the last years have been even worse: after three straight Wild Card appearances from 2013-2015, it’s been downhill in Pittsburgh. The front office leadership that put those teams together is gone now, and a new group is trying to find a new way to construct a winner in western Pennsylvania.

There won’t be much joy in Pittsburgh this year. There’s no reason to watch the recent, futile Pirates teams, and no reason even to watch the 2014 and 2015 editions, who were both bounced in a single game. Instead, watch the glorious day when Pittsburgh broke through; the first playoff game in the city since 1992.

Even years later, the atmosphere in the stadium is electric. Knowing what’s going to happen doesn’t change the excitement. Is that Francisco Liriano pitching in the most important game the franchise has played in 20 years? It sure is. But don’t focus on how much of a flash in the pan Pittsburgh-era Liriano was. Focus on peak Andrew McCutchen, on native son Neil Walker, on wait-he-was-on-that-team Marlon Byrd. Read the rest of this entry »

Moms are scattered throughout the bleachers, using umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun; the rains that had flooded the outfields of Corona Del Sol High School and caused the cancellation of the first three days of the Boras Classic have passed, leaving the umbrellas free to resume their usual Arizona purpose. It’s almost just another March Saturday.

A few feet from the home plate stands, a group of teen girls huddle in short denim shorts and yoga pants, pony tails perched high on their heads, the day’s light reflecting back from sunglasses. Their grouping doesn’t seem especially concerned with the next pitch. Instead, they chitter about school gossip that is about to meet its own disruption.

On an adjacent soccer field, a group of boys, all of whom occupy that odd time in life when it is hard to tell exactly how old they are, goof around with a Wiffle bat and ball. One of those assembled comes set and pitches in; the batter he’s facing mimics charging the mound, but peels off a few feet before he reaches his friend. After all, their game isn’t serious.

Hand shakes pervade the scene, but they carry with them the air of habit, or good manners, rather than defiance. A few offer an elbow or a fist — “No one knows what to do” is uttered in an amused tone by one scout — but submit to an open hand offered by less bothered compatriots moments later.

The usual bad pop country pumps over the PA system. “Make ya wanna slide on in, like girl, what’s up. Yeah, tonight is bottoms up” intermingles with the announcement of the next batter. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the latest installment of a daily series in which the FanGraphs staff rounds up the latest developments regarding the COVID-19 virus’ effect on baseball.

While there’s no big MLB update on any start to the 2020 season — nor will there likely be for awhile — the hunkering down of baseball teams, along with the rest of the country, continues. MLB announcing there wouldn’t be any games for at least a couple months has moved the focus, as it ought to be, towards the mitigation of the current situation rather than practical questions about how many games will be played, where, or when.

MLB Clubs Establish a Fund for Ballpark Employees

MLB clubs have committed $30M — $1M apiece — to assist the ballpark employees affected by the delayed start to our season. pic.twitter.com/ZzJOkxGt2e

— MLB (@MLB) March 17, 2020

Ballpark employees are some of the people most affected by the suspension of the 2020 season. There’s no telecommuting or even a skeleton crew still working as you see in many customer-facing businesses, so these employees are suffering de facto layoffs, even if hopefully temporary. With the hospitality industry one of the sectors suffering the quickest in this environment, simply finding another job isn’t an option for many of these workers. These employees tend to make up a very small percentage of a team’s costs, and keeping the team’s trained workforce around is at a minimum an exercise in enlightened self-interest. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the second installment of a daily series in which the FanGraphs staff rounds up the latest developments regarding the COVID-19 virus’ effect on baseball.

Given the speed with which national guidelines on COVID-19 are changing, you could be forgiven for not keeping up with its implications for baseball. Since last Friday, the CDC has recommended avoiding gatherings of 50 or more people for the next eight weeks and the White House asked the country to avoid groups of 10 or more, keep kids home where possible, and avoid eating and drinking in public for the next 15 days.

Meanwhile, major metropolitan areas are settling in for the long haul. The Bay Area announced a Shelter In Place policy on Monday, and New York closed restaurants, bars, and schools until at least April 20; Washington state has announced similar closures of gathering places, with schools set to remain closed until at least April 24. The state of Ohio did the same on Sunday, and Oregon has already followed suit.

So what’s a roundup of baseball news items against that backdrop? It’s insignificant, really. But here we are, on a baseball website, and COVID-19 continues to affect the game. Here are the baseball-related coronavirus stories from the past day. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the first installment of what we plan to make a daily series in which the FanGraphs staff rounds up the latest developments regarding the COVID-19 virus’ effect on baseball.

With thousands of players in major and minor league camps this spring amid what has grown into a pandemic with nearly 170,000 confirmed cases worldwide, it was only a matter of time before professional baseball had its first player test positive for the novel coronavirus. That came to pass this weekend; on Sunday, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that a Yankees minor leaguer has done so. The player in question, who did not spend any time this spring at the team’s major league camp a mile away in Tampa, Florida, has not been publicly identified, in accordance with HIPAA Privacy Rules.

Thus far among professional athletes, three NBA players — the Utah Jazz’s Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell, and the Pistons’ Christian Wood, the last of whom played against Gobert last Saturday and was diagnosed over the weekend — have tested positive. Gobert’s positive test led the NBA to suspend its season and set off a domino effect that led to other leagues and organizations suspending play as well, as governmental authorities moved to limit the size of gatherings well below thresholds that would allow sporting events to take place.

Per The Athletic’s Lindsey Adler, the minor leaguer in question was symptom-free as of Thursday, but woke up Friday feeling feverish and fatigued. After tests for influenza and strep throat came back negative, the player in question was quarantined. The team learned that his COVID-19 test was positive late Saturday night. Meanwhile, the minor league camp, which has been used by more than a hundred players on a daily basis this spring, was closed on Friday morning and underwent a “deep cleaning” on Sunday — not its first of the spring, according to general manager Brian Cashman. The major league facility will receive another such cleaning as well. Read the rest of this entry »

With the announcement last week that MLB would suspend spring training and delay Opening Day by at least two weeks, to say that the season’s future is uncertain would be an understatement. The most optimistic of scenarios — one in which the United States’ response to COVID-19 is suddenly and remarkably better than that of other, similar countries — had major league baseball resuming on April 9. The CDC has now recommended the postponement or cancellation of events with 50 or more people for the next eight weeks, which would prevent even spring training games. Update: MLB has announced further delays with a mid-May start the earliest possible date to begin the season in abiding by CDC guidelines. The two-week delay was merely be the first, with an unknown number of weeks of the season lost. The league’s announcement that spring training facilities would be shuttered, and that many players would be returning home, points to a much longer delay; a second spring training will almost certainly be required to allow players time to ramp back up. Some executives are simply hoping for games at some point in May, per Jon Heyman. We don’t yet know how many games the league will play this season, but we can use potential start dates, with a few October regular season weeks and some summer doubleheaders baked in, and attempt to determine how many games the sport might lose as the country attempts to contain this pandemic.

Shorter regular seasons in baseball have been incredibly rare. While the work stoppages in 1994 and 1995 might be fresh in the minds of some, 23 MLB seasons have been played since then. Ronald Acuña Jr., Cody Bellinger, Rafael Devers, Jack Flaherty, and Juan Soto weren’t even born when the start of the 1995 season was delayed. The graph below shows the total number of MLB games played in every year since 1903, the year of the first World Series:

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