My Prediction: In 2020, MLB Will Return With Fans or Not at All

The way I see it, one of two things is going to happen with this year’s MLB season. Either MLB will return on approximately July 1 with an abridged but otherwise normal (fans in the crowd, minimal to no Covid-19 testing of players, etc.) situation, or there will be no 2020 MLB season at all. What do I think SHOULD happen? Option 1. What do I think WILL happen? Option 2. Please allow me to discuss…

Over the past two months, some of you might have viewed some of my five anti-lockdown blog posts/videos.  My core belief this entire time has been that we should be allowing the at-risk – the elderly and those with key pre-existing conditions – to self-quarantine while allowing the rest of us to live our lives, to develop herd immunity for Covid-19, and to keep businesses afloat. Clearly, the ship for my plan sailed away two months ago, but the logic remains for my baseball discussion here.

I can be a very long-winded person, but sometimes I hear an idea that is so far-fetched, so improbable, or so ridiculous that my answer is a simple, one-word “No”. Well, when MLB first floated the idea of playing the full season in Arizona with only the players themselves in the crowd and with massive amounts of testing, my full answer was a one-word “No”. Now, the latest proposal for MLB would have teams playing in their home stadia but with the following caveats: 1) Fans would not be in attendance. 2) Players would be tested frequently for Covid-19 (I do not have the specifics here.). 3) Players cannot use Ubers nor other ride-sharing apps. 4) Players cannot high-five. 5) Coaches have to keep 6 feet from players. There is much more on this list, but you get the idea. My answer to that proposal: “No, but with explanations.”

While I find that whole list above to be rather ridiculous, my key sticking point is #1. The MLBPA is, by most accounts, the strongest players’ union in the four major North American sports leagues, and this union is the only one that has avoided a salary cap to this point. In fact, the salary-cap issue might be the financial issue about which the MLBPA is most passionate. This issue is especially relevant now, because owners have made a proposal to players in which the two sides – owners and players – would agree to split the 2020 revenue in defined percentages. However, many players see these defined percentages as the gateway to a true a salary cap, in that a team’s salary cap would hypothetically be set as a percent of league-wide revenues. In MLB, you never hear of such percentages because teams can spend as much of their revenue for players as they want. (Granted, the luxury tax acts as a fairly strong de facto salary cap, as the Mookie Betts trade proved, but the MLBPA has nevertheless remained vehemently against a true salary cap.)

Why are owners suddenly suggesting a revenue split? It is because players and owners are looking to agree to a deal for a situation in which there will be no fans in the seats. The entire collective bargaining agreement (CBA), I believe, assumes that fans will be in the seats for games. Thus, there is no answer in the current contractual language for how players and owners should handle revenue and salaries with no fans. As a result, these two sides, who often have a contentious relationship, have to figure out an answer on the fly. This is a rough, rough place in which the owners and players find themselves. Do not get me wrong though. I feel much worse for the tens of millions of people who have lost their jobs or businesses over the past two months than I do for these players and owners. However, this is a sports blog, and I am here to talk sports. Plus, just because someone else is in much worse pain than you are does not mean that your pain goes away.

We find ourselves in a position where players look bad if they worry about making only $3 million this year instead of $12 million. We also find ourselves in a position where owners look bad if they complain about losing out on much more than $12 million this year in profit. However, just because those optics are bad does not mean that either side – players or owners - is eager to give in to the other side. Plus, if you are expecting to earn several-million dollars more than you end up earning in a given year, it is quite possible that you could end up in rough financial shape. People make financial decisions based upon current wealth and expected income, and, with baseball having guaranteed contracts, I am sure there are plenty of players and owners who have already spent money that they figured (incorrectly) to be earning in 2020. Thus, because of that logic, I do not begrudge either side – players or owners – for trying to earn the best financial deal that they can with each other.

I do begrudge Blake Snell for complaining about the hazards of playing baseball in the Covid-19 era. I have read, at this point, probably 500 articles about Covid-19, and all data points show that, unless you are in an at-risk group (elderly, obese, of major heart condition, etc.), your hospitalization and fatality risks of Covid-19 are at or below the risks of suffering those outcomes from the flu. MLB players are not in these at-risk groups; they are some of the healthiest people in the world. If Blake Snell is risking his life by playing, then he is risking his life anywhere he goes in winter, given that he could contract the flu, which is slightly more dangerous than Covid-19 for someone of his age and health. This is why, while I have been promoting a quarantine of solely at-risk individuals, I have also been extolling the virtues of having pro sports keep playing to keep up our morale. Having an NCAA Tournament in which players honored loved ones who were quarantined and having NBA and NHL seasons and playoffs doing the same would have been a nice, logical thing to do. MLB absolutely should have also opened its season with this approach….but alas, none of these organizations actually listened to me, and here we are.

We are now at a place where MLB is trying to resuscitate a season that might be lost for dead. We are also at a place where owners are trying to persuade the players to accept a deal containing the #1 thing – revenue-sharing – that players have always resisted. I understand why the players do not want this. If you think about the #1 thing that you do not want to give up under any condition, that is what the players are being asked to do here. I understand their point. However, every day that passes without the players and owners agreeing to a plan brings us closer to completely losing the 2020 season.

Thus, what is the solution? I see only one: Fans in the seats. As I have been saying all along, rather than locking down the world, we should be allowing people to assess their own risk and decide where to go. Let people decide on their own if they should go to baseball games. Many of the people who would be at a health risk attending games this season ALREADY choose not to go to games…..because of those very same risk factors! Sure, there would be some at-risk people who would have gone to games in the past but would not anymore. However, that is probably not a huge group. Sure, there would also be some people who are not in at-risk groups who would fear going to games. That is fine; nobody is forcing those people to go to games. However, regardless of the sizes of the 2020 crowds, having fans in the seats would presumably allow the owners and players to play more or less by their standard CBA, albeit with some type of prorating of salaries to account for the abridged schedule.  Plus, with fans in the seats, the amount of revenue (which could become owners' profits and parts of players' salaries) would be much greater than in a scenario without fans.  That would obviously be good for both players and owners.  Of course, I should add that, from a fan's perspective, pro sports are much more enjoyable to watch - even on TV - if there are fans in the seats.

Let us now move on to another issue that I have with the owners' proposal. I do not believe that this testing thing is going to fly. Far more people who test positive for Covid-19 are asymptomatic than are symptomatic. We know that; that was the premise behind the lockdown in the first place. Thus, what happens if a seemingly healthy Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, and Gleyber Torres all asymptomatically test positive for Covid-19 at the same time? Are we really going to expect them to quarantine for 14 days? Yankees fans, you can tell me right now, “Of course we should expect that!”, but I would believe it when I hear it out of your mouth in July or August, and you are left watching Tyler Wade bat cleanup.

Of course, I would not be making this point if I felt that these asymptomatic people were of danger to those around them. To the contrary, the players are going to be around only others who are not at risk of a serious bout with Covid-19. Thus, these players are not of danger to others, as long as the at-risk people are self-quarantining. (Yes, this does mean that some managers and clubhouse staff would have to work remotely, but I would rather handle that issue than try to handle all of the other issues that MLB is proposing) Thus, as long as the players are not visibly sick, let them play. Moreover, unless a Covid vaccine is developed (not a guarantee), herd immunity is the way to handle Covid-19. Allowing healthy players and fans in stadiums can contribute to this herd immunity. I should add though that, if a player WANTS to be tested and quarantined (if he has Covid-19), that would be fine. I am thinking here of a hypothetical case in which a player has an at-risk family member and would not be able to have that family member quarantine away from the player.

Moving on, another reason why I do not foresee the players collectively agreeing to Covid testing is that all steroid testing is collectively bargained. I do not buy that players will so easily agree to additional testing, especially when it could lead to a situation in which they feel healthy but have to self-quarantine. Additional testing also gives owners more control over players, and that is not something that sits well with players.

Thus, to me, the answer is simple. MLB should go back to normal, albeit with an abridged schedule. All arguments to the contrary are made out of panic, not logic, which is ironically how we ended up here to begin. One has to remember why pro sports shut down in the first place. The NBA, NHL, MLB, and NCAA panicked and shut down because of the Rudy Gobert incident, when I feel that these leagues should have instead advocated the “at-risk self-quarantine” and continued operations. Instead, the pro leagues backed themselves into a corner, because they did not give great indicators for why they shut down nor when they would restart. They did not shut down “for two weeks to flatten the curve”. They shut down out of panic and a strong risk aversion, and, since they did not give metrics on why they shut down, they also did not give any metrics for when they would restart. I believe that this is why the league is now afraid to restart.

If MLB is afraid to return to business as usual, what metric would change the opinions of baseball’s leaders? Two months of data points all show the same thing; players and young-to-middle-aged healthy fans bear infinitesimal risk with Covid-19. Thus, the leagues should be playing, and fans should be at the games. If instead fans are not now allowed at games, and players have to do massive testing now; when will these practices change? When nobody has Covid anymore? When we have a vaccine? Those things might never happen.

That is why we have to start baseball (and the other sports) up again. I have stressed baseball here, because that league is in the most dire situation. The NHL and NBA could theoretically start their playoffs in August, crown champions at the end of September, and back up the starts (in staggered fashion) to their next few seasons (possibly shortening some of those seasons, which the NBA, NHL, and MLB should have done years ago anyway). Because weather is not a factor for those sports, those leagues have flexibility. However, if baseball does not figure out a solution soon, we will wave bye-bye to the 2020 season.

A lost season would be catastrophic. It would stink for us as fans, but the economic impact would be monumental. Actually, losing half a season already has monumental impact, but losing a full season would obviously be worse. Many, many people’s lives depend upon having fans at games. Think about ushers, concession-stand workers, parking-lot attendants, bartenders and waiters at near-ballpark restaurants, and so on. When one factors in the multiplier effect involved when those people spend their money, one can see how much the lack of sports hurts our economy, on top of the massive wreck that is the rest of the economy right now.

Thus, it is important for baseball (and other sports) to return. However, I do not foresee a situation in which players and owners can agree to terms if there is going to be massive Covid-19 testing but no fans in the seats. The fans are a huge reason why players are paid so handsomely, and, without the fans, I believe the financial gap between players’ and owners’ demands is far too large to bridge. Thus, I implore MLB and all involved governments to allow the stadiums to open to fans. Unfortunately, I expect MLB and governments to be too afraid to have fans come to the parks. Thus, I fear that we are going to end up with no season. Deep down, that is what I think will happen. However, I maintain hope that MLB does instead follow my suggestions and gives us an abridged season with fans. It is time for us to return to normalcy.

Summary of My Thoughts on the Lockdown

Let me pose a hypothetical scenario.


It is mid-February 2020, and 10,000 random Americans are asked the question, “If epidemiologists determine that the coronavirus is life-threatening to the very elderly and others with pre-existing conditions as is the case with the flu but spreads at a factor several times greater than that of the flu, what should the government do?”


My guess is that roughly 98% of people would respond along the lines of, “Let’s isolate those with risk factors until we know it is safe for them to come out of isolation.”  That “we know it is safe” would presumably be the time when we have either reached herd immunity in society (which is created when enough relatively healthy people have had and moved on from the virus) or developed a vaccine.  My guess is that the remaining 2% would say that the government should not be involved.  I cannot imagine that anyone would say, unprompted, “Let’s have everyone, save for a few essential workers, self-quarantine.”  There are several reasons why nobody would say that.  1) Why would we destroy our economy when we can simply have those at risk self-quarantine?  2) Why would we close schools and have kids stay at home all day for a virus that is not dangerous for children?   3) Are we going to tell kids that they can’t play with their friends or do most things that kids usually do for fun?  That would all be extreme.


Of course, in the second week of March, we arrived at the afore-mentioned lockdown scenario, a scenario at which I feel that nobody would have arrived in February.  This lockdown approach has been bothersome to me since the moment that we went into lockdown mode, and I am one of the only people I know who seems to be bothered by it.  Thus, it is entirely possible that I am crazy, but I am going to keep writing this blog entry anyway.  After all, Candace Owens and Thomas Sowell agree with me, and they are two of the most brilliant minds on the planet.  Simply put, the approach we have taken to fighting the virus would be valid if the virus was indiscriminately life-threatening to the population.  That is not the case here.  I would have instead taken the approach of having the United States federal government urge people in the at-risk categories to self-quarantine while allowing the rest of the country and economy to continue as usual.


This all begs an important question: If nobody in mid-February would have suggested on his/her own to quarantine everyone, why was everyone OK with it less than a month later?  Sure, we knew more information about the dangers of corona after three or four additional weeks of its existence, but that is not the main reason for people’s mindset change.  The big change is a matter of social media.  People spend so much time on social media that corona discussion on social-media platforms ramped up greatly over those three or four weeks.  Thus, by the second week of March, people were more and more panicked that we needed to “shut everything down”.  If we did not have social media, I do not think we would have had the lockdown.  (Furthermore, had this virus happened before the Internet, there is no way a lockdown would have ever happened.  People back then would have had too minimal connection with those outside their homes.)


Anyway, as people became more and more panicked about the virus, I did not.  Before the state governments started to “shut everything down”, I kept saying that it was ridiculous that we should quarantine everyone and destroy the economy.  Again, I felt that option should be reserved only for a hypothetical virus that is equally deadly to all people.  In that second week of March, many people (and many very intelligent people) debated the accuracy of various corona models, debated how much a quarantine would work, debated how well social distancing would work, debated how shutting down a multitude of events would work, etc.  All the while, I kept saying that the one thing that we know for certain is that shutting down the economy will absolutely positively unequivocally “beyond a shadow of doubt” kill many people and ruin the lives of many more in the long run.  That was a guarantee.


Therefore, for me, “quarantining everyone and destroying the economy” was never a viable option.  In recent days, I have seen people debating on social media about how much the quarantine has worked, how much social distancing has worked, etc.  This argument purportedly is to determine whether or not the shutdown was warranted.  However, I find this to be a completely foolish debate.  As Matt Walsh, of The Daily Wire, has often covered, it is silly when people debate “full lockdown vs. no action at all”.  The question should be and always should have been, “Is the difference between the number of lives saved between full quarantine and at-risk self-quarantine greater than or less than the number of lives we will lose from destroying the economy?” I have not seen a model that measures this, but I have never wavered in my thought that the latter number is much, much greater.

How many lives would we have lost by doing an at-risk quarantine instead of a full one?  We would have presumably had a few people who were unaware that they had risk factors who would have lost their lives.  However, it is entirely possible that we have actually killed more people with the full quarantine than the partial one in this way: We did not yet develop herd immunity, and we have now sent kids to spend 24 hours a day at home.  That might not be a big deal in a big house with healthy people; however, in places like New York City, where there is a likely a positive correlation between size of one’s dwelling and quality of one’s health, we could be creating many deaths by having kids bond so much with at-risk family members.  I am not guaranteeing that we are going to lose more lives from full quarantine than we would have from quarantining solely the at-risk individuals (though it is a realistic possibility).  However, I do feel safe saying that wrecking the economy will take more lives from us than the net (whether positive or negative) of doing an at-risk instead of partial quarantine.


Of course, we know that the government has tried to “fix” the economic issues by giving people (who qualify) $1200 payments, and, of course, this does not help a whole lot.  The $1200 does not bring back lost businesses or cover much of people’s lost wages.  However, I don’t understand how so many Republicans were OK with the lockdown but have an issue with this $2-trillion stimulus package.  I am a Republican too, and one of the core Republican beliefs is that individuals know better what decisions to make for their own lives than the government does.  There is no feasible way to distribute $2 trillion, so that it perfectly makes up for all different variations of economic, emotional, and psychological ruin that the shutdown has caused people.  Each person’s situation is different, so there is no government stimulus plan that can perfectly fix each situation.  That said, I am astounded by the fact that so many Republicans (and almost everyone) have been perfectly fine with the shutdown but are choosing instead to nitpick the ins and outs of the stimulus package.

Seriously, behind Door #1 was the self-quarantine policy.  In this case, the government could have told us the risk factors that cause corona to be life-threatening.  The bulk of people with those risk factors would have listened and self-quarantined.  While plenty of people often like to disobey authority, the threat of “if you do not _____, your life could be in danger” usually causes people to listen to authority.  Under the at-risk self-quarantine, the government would have been responsible for two main things: 1) Easing sick-day policies on individuals who are self-quarantining and having companies/workers affected apply for government compensation.  2) It is unclear whether or not this policy would have caused more or fewer people to need major medical care in the near term.  Thus, in the case of “more”, the government might have had to provide additional mobile-care units as it has done in New York City.  However, as I mentioned earlier, it is entirely possible that, by having fewer young people quarantined with older people, the number of mobile-care units needed (behind Door #1) would be less than it has been behind Door #2.


Behind Door #2 was the policy of full lockdown.  With that one, not only has the government chosen the path of more deaths and harming more lives, but the government has also chosen the path of drastically increasing the national debt.  The government is going to have additional stimulus packages that could add to $6 trillion.  Throw in the fact that most companies are shuddered, and we have a recipe for not only large debt but also massive inflation (and thus further economic turmoil).  Also, while I have never cared too much whether I shop “big” or shop “small”, the fact that the government is forcing many small businesses to stay closed while bigger ones stay open feels bad to me too.  Most importantly, Door #2 requires the government to rebuild the entire economy and to try to fix the lives of tens of millions of lives, while Door #1 would have required the government to handle the financial situations of the self-quarantined and possibly to jump-start a larger increase in mobile medical units. (I say “possibly” again because of what I said earlier about the possibility that an at-risk quarantine would have actually rendered fewer people with life-threatening corona cases.)

Also, I cannot understate the fact that the government, by choosing Door #2, is choosing to take youth away from our youth, if you will.  I give a lot of credit to today’s youth, because they are saying all the right things.  However, it does not sit great with me that, to deal with a virus that is not dangerous to young people (barring those with major pre-existing conditions); we have taken these kids out of school, eliminated their sports seasons, proms, playdates, and so much more.  That stuff all matters.  As adults, our greatest joy should be in seeing joy in our children, and we are robbing our children from a whole lot of joy these days.  Again, this all matters. The only argument against that stuff mattering would be that we are cancelling young people’s joys in order to save lives, which brings me to my next big point.


What is the bar here?  Nobody would ever dream of cancelling children’s activities to keep people from dying of the flu.  Similarly, nobody would dream of shutting down the whole economy because of the flu.  Therefore, where is the line of demarcation?  Yes, corona is more contagious than the flu, and people can be asymptomatic for longer with corona.  However, the groups of people to whom the viruses are life-threatening are essentially the same, and the symptoms for those are not in the life-threatening category are roughly the same.  It is funny how so many people seem to forget that, when one has the flu (the legit flu, not a cold), it is an absolutely miserable experience and one that can last a week or two.  Therefore, if we experience another virus – one with similar symptoms and life-threatening profiles as those of the flu and corona but with a spread rate between that of the flu and that of corona – what do we do?  Do we shut everything down (like with corona), or is it business as usual (like with the flu)?


There is not really much of a happy medium here.  We saw the slippery slope this go-round with corona.  The first big domino to fall was the NHL and NBA suspending their seasons alongside the NCAA cancelling the basketball tournaments.  (And yes, I do feel terrible for kids on teams like Dayton who were having their best seasons, only to have the tournament taken away at the last second.  We would not have done that for the flu, so where is the line?)  Then governors presumably decided, “If we can’t have people packing 18,000-seat arenas, then we can’t have 1000 people in schools”.  Thus, governors shut down schools, which led to shutting down 65-person restaurants, which led to preventing any two people who do not live together from being within 6 feet of each other.  It is a slippery slope.


Of course, I would have been fine going to packed arenas this whole time.  After all, I was at the Prudential Center on March 9, four days before schools were shut down.  I was at The Rock for the New Jersey high-school hockey championships, and I had no fear being packed with a bunch of people.  As per my herd-immunity approach, I would also be fine going to concerts, hockey games, baseball games, etc. right now because I do not have risk factors. That said, not having those big-venue events (sports, concerts, big religious gatherings, etc.) is devastating on its own when one considers how many people work the events and the spillover venues (neighboring bars, restaurants, parking garages, etc.), as well as the multiplier effect from that spending.  Plus, it would definitely boost the morale of those quarantined to be able to watch sports on TV.  


I would hope that for future viruses, the powers that be would thinking about the panic that shutting down sports creates.  The NHL and NBA suspensions kicked off the panic increase for corona, and this panic can manifest itself in many ways.  I have already mentioned that the panic is at least partially responsible for the fact that most people ended up on board with shutting down the economy.  Additionally, the ramped-up panic has made some people go to the hospital for minor issues but fearing the worst (using resources that could be better used for people with major issues), while it makes others with other major health issues avoid hospitals for fear of infection. 

Returning to an earlier point, I have not understood the people who were OK with shutting down the economy at first but, a week later, were clamoring for us to reopen the economy.  If those people simply changed their minds about what was best for the country, I respect that.  We are all able to change our views over time.  However, I do not understand the people who genuinely thought that we could shut down the country and open it up again two weeks later like nothing had happened.  That type of logic (or lack thereof) displays a complete misunderstanding of how people think.  By going into shutdown mode, something that we have never seen in the history of this country; the government essentially told people, “This pandemic is horrific, and your lives are in great danger.”  How then would one expect the masses to be OK a few weeks later with the government saying, “OK, we are ready to open things up again.  Yes, more people now have the virus, but you will be fine.”? While I would welcome the reopening, I have been analyzing the costs and benefits here from Day 1.  Most people do not do that.  Most people are simply following the government’s lead, and this makes it impossible to do a 180 from “shut it all down” to “open it all up again” so quickly without causing a complete mess.


This leads me to some political criticisms.  I am sick of Republicans applauding President Trump every time he talks about wanting to reopen the economy in the future.  First off, he said three weeks ago that he wanted to reopen the economy by Easter, which has arrived.  Clearly that is not happening.  Thus, why should I applaud him now when he talks about reopening the economy?  Plus, he talks about how we had the greatest economy in the world, and we will rebuild to be the greatest again.  That is the most backhanded self-compliment I have ever heard.  We went from having the greatest economy in the world a month ago to having potentially the biggest depression this country has ever seen, and we are supposed to applaud him for simply saying that we will become the best again?  I find it hard to believe that all of the newly unemployed people find much comfort in those speeches.


Furthermore, there are two ironies with my criticism of the president.  The first is that I have spent President Trump’s entire presidency saying more or less, “No, I don’t like a lot of what he says and tweets, but I like things that he does….and that matters.”  On the other hand, he has now taken what I feel to be the worst action of his presidency, but he is saying good things.  Go figure.  As far as the other irony, we have heard countless leftists call President Trump a “fascist”.  Now, we see governor after governor (many who are democrat) implement Draconian measure after Draconian measure while (along with Nancy Pelosi) criticizing the president for not issuing a national lockdown.  In other words, Dems are now criticizing President Trump for not being a fascist, while I sit here wishing he would act like a fascist and tell governors not to lock down their entire states.  Politics make strange bedfellows, as they say.  


Lastly, let me just speak of what will age well from this whole experience and what will age badly.  I am really glad to see the outpouring of support for medical personnel and other essential workers.  Hopefully, this sticks with us over time.  It likely won’t, but it is nice to see people applauding nurses, doctors, EMTs, police officers, firefighters, etc.  Meanwhile, anyone who has been calling the cops on kids who have been riding bikes or playing basketball probably won’t feel great about that choice in the years to come.


Anyway, as I wrap up this post, allow me to say that I hope that I am wrong about all of my predictions.  I hope that the economic mess ends up being less severe than I have feared.  I hope that the difference between numbers of lives saved between the two different quarantine policies is greater than I predicted.  I hope that our leaders have done what is best for the United States.  Right now, I feel that my beliefs are correct, but I do hope that, in time, I am proven wrong.