What do you guys think?
I have been thinking that the unlikelyhood of there being a season would be 60%. The more I hear, I think that is going up everyday that we hear no news and radio silence from the players.
If the rumors are true that they dropped the MiLB season, that is a telling sign. Teams will not want their top prospects not going two years without playing. Those same penny-pinching teams will not want to start the service time on their top prospects by promoting them to the Majors.
It's a current power-struggle between owners and players, all about money and a little about health and safety for those involved with the game.
I think they'll figure out a way to get in 83+ games, beginning in early July at select fields near one another with very limited fans in the seats, growing as we get closer to September/October. Call it the Eddie Banks season. I think people in general will begin to rebel against the social distancing panic BEFORE the world series rolls around and the pressure on the CDC guidelines to lighten up will result in large crowds again. I believe the number of deaths being reported is inflated and will look like a bad flu season when it's all said and done. Distrust for the WHO and the CDC will hit an all time low. And we'll be smack in the middle of a Cold War with China. But Major League Baseball will serve this country much like it has in national crises in the past, and be a welcome sight come November.
That said, I haven't watched MLB Network in many weeks - no TV hardly at all since March 15. I'm not paying close attention to the baseball decision makers. I'm just reading the tea leaves of country's evolving response to COVID-19.
Let's PLAY BALL!
I actually think the silence is a good sign that we'll have baseball this year. If they were negotiating in public, that's a bad sign, since they are trying to signal to the public who the good or bad guys are in this situation. In the end, there is too much money at stake for both the owners and players to walk away from having a season (or course, I thought the same in 1994, and that didn't work out well). I also think that Kyle's comment about not watching MLB is on the minds of lots of people knowing that if sports comes back, people are going to watch it in droves.
So, I feel like they'll figure something out. I'm guessing about half a season, but my concern is what happens if a player or team comes down with COVID-19 in the middle of the season. Is that going to shut down the entire thing? I'm hoping the season happens without any problems, but we'll see.
Why did you select 82 games all by itself?
I wondered that, too, but I think I know why: If he'd have put 0-81 and then 82-131, it would have been a no-brainer for anything thinking "YES, we'll have a season to vote for 82-161." Simply due to all the "at least a half a season's worth of games" talk we've been hearing since March. But 82 is a near perfect number of games to plan on if the season starts in the first week of July. It made my vote that much tougher, anyway.
Well, duh guys. Isn’t it obvious? 82 is exactly half of...wait a second. Nope it’s not half of 162, that would be 81 :)
In reality it’s because of this.
82 game proposal (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/05/11/sports/baseball/coronavirus-baseball-mlb-restart.amp.html)
I have felt pretty strongly that a season of some kind will happen. I voted for the 83-161 option. However, I've begun to waiver of late. To me the Covid-19 issue is more the catalyst than the real issue for my change of heart. It's the labor issues that have been pushed out into the open that is really our biggest issue for a season.
The owners seem to be winning the PR battle, though I think that's beginning to change, but both the players and owners have taken us into the absurd. I probably side a bit more with the players (show me the books before I bow to your demands) way of thinking, but the fact that they are spending this time debating labor issues while the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLS, Premier League, Championship and others talk about the logistics of seasons or even begin play like the Budisliga, is an absolute shame and complete turn off for me.
Baseball at it's purest form has always been a love of mine, but millionaires bitching about billionaires and vice versa has turned me off more and more. At times I've wondered, if I prefer Sim baseball to the real thing. On purity alone, I might actually lean to a pretend league than real life. That's a sad state of affairs.
Ok, rant over. Just had to get my frustration out into the mutinysphere.