As time passes

As baseball continues to explore a variety of ways to conduct the 2020 season, league officials are not ready to commit to one idea before the timeline of the nation’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic becomes clearer.



   Since a brief, initial conversation on April 6, officials from MLB and the players’ union have yet to resume talks about a plan to start the season in Arizona with players under quarantine and games taking place in empty parks, sources said.
The pause in the discussions should not be confused with a lack of activity. Both sides are speaking to medical experts, and MLB continues to investigate the Arizona plan, sources said.
   “Different plans require different levels of restriction for players, different economics associated with it, different start dates,” one league official said, explaining why conversations with the union were on hold.
   At one point last week, MLB signaled to the union it was preparing to move quickly. But a planned call between the league and the union produced only a basic message: The coronavirus had made the future too uncertain to advance the discussions. The two sides expect to remain in contact this week, though MLB has yet to bring a specific proposal to its owners.
The Arizona plan is drawing support from some federal officials, and might be the only way for baseball to return in 2020. The logistics would be complicated: Players would be tested for the coronavirus regularly and exist in a sealed environment of hotels and ballparks in the Phoenix area.      
  But over time, the quarantine might be relaxed as the nation gradually re-opens, allowing the plan to evolve.

   As league officials study all options, they say that staying nimble would enable them to pivot if state governments and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) begin to lift restrictions on social gatherings, potentially creating a different road map for playing in 2020. The CDC has recommended against assemblages of 50 or more through May 10, and every state with a major-league team currently is operating with a stay-at-home order for its residents.
    The possibility of fans attending major-league games might be remote until a vaccine for the coronavirus becomes available, a development that is not expected anytime soon. But even a gradual easing of restrictions might make it easier for baseball to adopt a plan less stringent than the Arizona quarantine, which could require players to separate from their families for an extended period.
For example, some in the game speculate that if government officials deemed the virus under control in certain cities with domed or retractable-roof parks, the sport might be positioned to resume in certain regional hubs. Six teams could be assigned to five areas – say, Phoenix, Miami and Tampa Bay, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston – then spend two to three weeks playing each other in round-robin style before relocating to another facility.
     Such a scenario is perhaps overly optimistic: The format, requiring less travel than a normal season but more than the Arizona plan, might be more realistic as a second phase of the season. The advantage of opening in Phoenix is that all 30 teams would be at a central location, enabling baseball to limit travel to bus rides and reduce the scope of workers in lodging, food preparation, transportation, security and television production, all of whom would need to be kept safe.
The Arizona plan, though, is fraught with obstacles.
    Temperatures in Phoenix in the summer months routinely soar over 100 degrees, making for less-than-ideal playing conditions. The city’s location potentially would reduce the size of night-time television audiences. The potential inclusion of families in the sealed environment – an idea many players advocate – would dramatically increase the number of people quarantined and tested.
   To implement the plan, baseball would need to reserve entire hotels, arrange for food service and ensure extensive testing for everyone under quarantine, all in advance. Such a commitment might turn out to be premature if a better alternative became available in 45 to 60 days. But the Arizona plan could morph into that better alternative as well.

Some of the 15 clubs that train in Florida, meanwhile, would prefer the league to explore playing in both that state and Arizona, sources said. Baseball is considering the two-state concept, but the training camps in Florida are more spread out than the complexes in Arizona, and some are in relatively remote locations, creating other challenges.
Television – which will be the sole outlet for fans to see games if they are prohibited from entering parks – is another issue the sport would need to address. If a quarantine was in effect, would broadcasts emanate from the usual on-site production trucks or off-site control rooms? Would the announcers be on location? Would robotic cameras replace individual operators? Whatever baseball decided, its local and national TV partners likely would need significant time to prepare.
    Time, for now, is not the biggest roadblock. The players and owners have agreed to extend the regular season through October, if necessary. The postseason could be played at neutral sites in November. The problem is that the spread of the virus makes it impossible to predict what route might be the most logical for baseball in 30 days, 60, even 90.

“It’s just not at all clear at this point what’s going to be feasible and what’s not going to be feasible,” one league official said. “Right now, very little is feasible. We’re all sitting in our houses.”