Gonna just gesture at the past six months in defense of the idea that planning and organizing during a fluid situation kind of feels like a waste of time. On the other hand, what's time for besides wasting?

MLB is going to start in a week and a half. Unless somebody important decides to pay attention to the combination of red flags and administrative incompetence that's making their pretty barebones "Summer Camp" ramp-up look like a Mars expedition, logistically. It's hard to get that excited about something that seems likely to fall apart, but I cheer for a team that may be pretty good and which I actually got to see during spring training this year.

So draw me your feelings on the baseball season.

Poll question: This MLB season going to start? Finish? Should we talk about it?

Poll result (9 votes) No/NA/No (2 votes) Vote Yes/No/No (0 votes) Vote Yes/Yes/No (1 votes) Vote Yes/No/Yes (2 votes) Vote Yes/Yes/Yes (2 votes) Vote No/NA/Yes (2 votes) Vote

.

now I realize that no sport can really plan around the complete non-response that the US Government enacted towards the pandemic.

fuck all the owners though. they love their stadium tax breaks and exponential valuation growth, but now it's on the players, employees and fans to deal with their revenue losses. we aren't shareholders -- fuck you. all of you.

We are a fucking joke right now with the amount of people who think they will be fine. Meanwhile Golbert still cant smell shit properly. Why are people training in Florida. Get the fuck out of there. Have people commit to a bubble or dont play at all.


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IG @erichrigonan

The suggested spots for a bubble league were Spring Training complexes, which makes a lot of sense to reduce travel time and would probably be more convenient to the players because a lot of them already have housing in the area of their ST facility.

But, to your exact point, Florida and Arizona are like two of the worst places in the world to be right now. Fucking oops.

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IG @erichrigonan

Is those countries are doing fine. This country is fucked, so our sports leagues will be too.

On the plus side, they’re not trying to run everything in Florida like NBA or MLS. Florida is a mess.

On the minus side, WAY too much travel. There’s just too many variables here.

I think they get started but halt things within a few weeks. Same with NBA and MLS. Actually Florida is so messed up I’m not convinced those even start.

Before a likely “second wave” in late fall. If that was the case, these seasons would probably go fine.

But we never even got past the first wave because half the country didn’t participate and the leadership is nonexistent. What a ridiculous shitshow.

Cause there was a dip, but not a flattening of the curve... but it’s also worse than it was before, so it’s sorta a second wave???

God we’re so fucked.

Can’t even imagine how screwed we’ll be by that point.

I love baseball, but not so much that I want people to die. Or get sick or even durably uncomfortable because baseball should be fun. This feels like a pretty normal position to take about a game and therefore we should really only have it when and where it's absolutely safe.

Hoping my beloved Kiwoom Heroes can keep the momentum going.

>I love baseball, but not so much that I want people to die.
>Or get sick or even durably uncomfortable because baseball
>should be fun. This feels like a pretty normal position to
>take about a game and therefore we should really only have it
>when and where it's absolutely safe.

Right. I would LOVE to watch some baseball and basketball, but this feels like watching a car wreck in slow motion.

if it happens. Even if I know it’s a bad idea, and kinda think they should call it off. Still, I’m watching. I’m watching and loving TBT too.

November-December when there’s no sports of any kind, it’s dark at 4:30, the weather is shitty, and the second wave of COVID is really hitting is going to be so fucked. It’ll make last March-April look like a good time. I’m enjoying the things that I like while I can.

I don't think it should start. At this point, I think it probably will, but I don't expect it to finish.

I think Sean Doolittle summed it up with, "Sports are like a reward for a functioning society." I don't think that's where we're at. We haven't earned this. It's dessert before dinner and I'm mostly just hoping that nobody is going to die.

Feels relatively significant because 10 years into it, he's on a HOF path and still has another year with an option. Had a down 2019, but I feel like there's gas in the tank especially if he fades to a C/1B/DH hybrid. I think the current list is:

Welington Castillo
Ian Desmond
Felix Hernandez
Mike Leake
Nick Markakis
Hector Noesi
Buster Posey
David Price
Joe Ross
Tyson Ross
Ryan Zimmerman

There are basically two categories here:

Tyson Ross didn't have a job with a team to opt out of. I think American baseball was in the process of opting out on Hector Noesi in general. Welington Castillo was probably looking at taxi squad catcher until/unless somebody got hurt.

Price, Desmond, Posey, Markakis, Hernandez, and Zimmerman are all mid-30s with distinguished marks having made 9 figures and in the twilight of their careers. Mike Leake is similar in age but a cut below in terms of esteem and earnings.

But I believe that Joe Ross so far is the only player under team control and in his 20s, seemingly with more to play for trying to play a "full" season after coming back from injury and having "only" made a few million on the cusp of arbitration.

>Tyson Ross didn't have a job with a team to opt out of. I
>think American baseball was in the process of opting out on
>Hector Noesi in general. Welington Castillo was probably
>looking at taxi squad catcher until/unless somebody got hurt.

Have to wonder if these guys aren't kicking themselves for not being more open to a deal with a Korean or a Japanese team. Safer situation that's probably more congruent with their skillset but in an abbreviated and weird season, probably wouldn't cover them with any kind of "couldn't get an MLB deal" stigma, to the degree such a thing exists.

>Price, Desmond, Posey, Markakis, Hernandez, and Zimmerman are
>all mid-30s with distinguished marks having made 9 figures and
>in the twilight of their careers. Mike Leake is similar in age
>but a cut below in terms of esteem and earnings.

Easily the most relatable set of decisions. Bunch of dudes with nothing left to prove shrugging and saying they'll catch the next wave, unless they retire first. It's true that Leake's lifetime earnings, but he's still on that silly contract St. Louis gave him, right? So it kind of looks the same if you squint.

Unrelated, I'm kind of shocked that he never really imploded. Never really rose to anything beyond "nearly adequate" like that contract imagined, but I really expected there to be a year where he just got, like, destroyed. Though I guess you don't leave pitchers in to get destroyed for a full workload anymore unless you're the team that paid them like a solid mid-rotation workhorse, so maybe last year's atrocious sixty innings were what I was waiting for?

>But I believe that Joe Ross so far is the only player under
>team control and in his 20s, seemingly with more to play for
>trying to play a "full" season after coming back from injury
>and having "only" made a few million on the cusp of
>arbitration.

Did he give a reason? I see both Ross brothers opted out. Maybe somebody in the Ross family that needs the additional protection?

>Did he give a reason? I see both Ross brothers opted out.
>Maybe somebody in the Ross family that needs the additional
>protection?

I had not heard anything. I'm hoping somebody just goes off and says it's because of the extra innings rule.

Now with Michael Kopech opting out we may be seeing a new category? 20-something late 1st round pitcher who had TJ and traded from their original team? Somebody better make sure Marco Gonzalez is 100% on board with the Mariners in 2020

has mild symptoms.

.

Suero & Elias

the pot, just to get through this truncated season.

not saying it's easy, just the easiest. players already socially distance.

I'm terminally behind on these things, so it wasn't until this morning that way of describing things dawned on me. There are activities that are more and less safe with COVID and apparently "living in the United States" is more dangerous than playing most sports, even contact ones.

https://twitter.com/JeffPassan/status/1286365378067783683?

Cancel the season.

Passan was on LeBatard, today...about to grab some lunch and listen to the pod...interested to hear what he thinks, overall.