COVID-19 & Baseball: Scheduling, Compensation, MiLB Implications
Major League Baseball and the Players Association reached an agreement in late March on a number of points that suddenly became debatable since the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted daily life in the country. Like everything else that the virus has affected, baseball will likely be changed by this period, at least for a while, as implications will be felt beyond 2020.
The agreement attempts to cover a vast array of questions, such as scheduling, pay, service time and arbitration, the draft and amateur players, the international market and more.
The draft, amateur ball and the international side deserve its own post, because implications are already proving huge and could be affected for years to come on that side of the game. That will be covered Friday.
The link above covers more than I’ll recap here, so read it in full. Let’s take a look at all of it from an Atlanta Braves and minor league perspective.
Currently, the agreement outlines three requirements to start the season: no governmental edicts on mass gatherings, no travel restrictions in the United States and Canada, and that playing won’t put anyone’s health at risk. These are considered necessities, but the commissioner has the authority to call an audible and use neutral sites or play in empty stadiums.
Any season at all should be considered a victory at this point, so all ideas should be on the table to make that happen as long as everyone is able to stay safe and healthy. Ideas floating around include expanded rosters, expanded playoffs, a neutral-site World Series and empty stadiums.
A plan is now being bandied about that would have all 30 teams playing in Arizona starting in May or June. All players and personnel would be isolated at spring facilities, effectively playing in a spring complex bubble along with games at Chase Field.
This plan has tons of logistical questions and may never see the light of day, but it’s apparently the one MLB and the players association are focusing on right now. The fact that teams would get expanded rosters to account for possible positive tests should be enough reason to not make it happen, but this is where we are.
Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos mentioned they were considering carrying Austin Riley and Johan Camargo on the 26-man roster until the minor league season began. An expanded roster could theoretically mean carrying both over the course of an 81-game sprint or so, just to use an example. Pitchers vying for spots, such as Kyle Wright in the rotation, could remain to serve as sixth starters. A sprint-style season could result in more tandem starters, such as Felix Hernandez and Sean Newcomb piggybacking three or four innings each on a given day. This is all up in the air and shows that anything could be possible regarding roster construction if a shortened season is played.
Speaking of Hernandez, players who were at big league camp on minor league deals will get advance payments of up to $50,000 each from the players association. Players can receive $5,000 if they have at least one day of major league service. One year of service equals $7,500 and it continually increases up to $50,000 for six years.
Hernandez, Josh Tomlin, Yonder Alonso, Pete Kozma, Yangervis Solarte, Charlie Culberson, Peter O’Brien, Rafael Ortega and Shane Robinson are Braves non-roster invitees who qualify for this compensation, which is voluntary and would count toward salaries if a season were played. While it’s not much for some, every bit helps considering non-roster invitees were in no-man’s land between the minor league and major league allowances. Unfortunately, free agents are left out in the cold.
Major league salaries will be prorated. An 81-game schedule would earn the players 50 percent of their full salaries, and so on. If the season is canceled, players will only receive the $170 million advance teams guaranteed for April and May. Major league players who have at least reached arbitration will receive the largest share of the advance. Players on split contracts, meaning on the 40-man roster but haven’t reached arbitration, are divided up into classes to determine their share of the advance, determined by their minor league salary portion of the split contract. For example, Cristian Pache was just added to the 40-man this winter and is on the minimum for the split contract, so he’ll get $16,500. The max amount for split contract compensation is $60,000. Earning a spot on a 40-man roster is a major accomplishment for a player for multiple reasons, and this serves as another example.
Pre-arb players whom this affects include Pache, Wright, Newcomb, Riley, Max Fried, Mike Soroka, A.J. Minter, Alex Jackson, William Contreras, Bryse Wilson, Touki Toussaint, Patrick Weigel, Huascar Ynoa, Tucker Davidson, Phil Pfeifer, Jasseel De La Cruz, Jacob Webb, Chad Sobotka, Grant Dayton and Jeremy Walker.
Also, minor leaguers have been given a little more assurance in the form of $400 per week allowances through May 31. They previously received that amount in a lump sum to cover through April 8. In some cases, that’s more than double the usual spring per diems, the thought being players are on their own to handle housing, food and other expenses during a time when they’d typically be in spring camp. That uniform amount is now covering, per week, what was supposed to be the first two months of the season. This applies to all Braves prospects and minor leaguers not on the 40-man roster.
The idea of playing in empty stadiums would likely only work at spring training sites, where MLB could control its environment by keeping players together with little travel or exposure, hence the plan that came out this week. Whether this scenario would include minor leaguers is uncertain. It would mean more logistical questions, but opening up spring sites for major leaguers could mean opening them up for prospects to play on backfields.
The thought of playing in major league parks with no fans seems increasingly unlikely given the unpredictable nature of the situation, but no one knows what everything will look like by late summer. If this were to happen, the same would probably apply to minor leaguers but at spring sites. Triple-A and Double-A teams could play in the organizations’ spring facilities to control travel, while lower-level affiliates could play on backfields.
The proposed 2020 draft will be something like five to 10 rounds with undrafted players either signing for $20,000 or returning to college, which 2020 seniors are now eligible to do. This will result in far fewer incoming drafted players to the lower levels of the minors and a more controlled environment for player development if orgs are able to resume activity at spring complexes. I’ll touch on this more Friday.
I’ll finish by linking to what Keith Law illustrated recently about the continued discussion of minor league contraction. The previous paragraph is an extreme example of what many envision is the future of the draft, player development and the minors: A shortened draft, more bang for the buck on college players, data-rich orgs continuing to receive more information on those players and gaining more knowledge ahead of the draft, and a more controlled developmental environment with more time spent at complexes and fewer short-season teams. Some of this remains up in the air, but much of it is inevitable.