2020 Hiatus News, Rumors, Trades

edoug

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Murderer's Crow

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Haven't heard this mentioned yet but I would expect the players union to try to fight to give service time to players under arbitration during this stoppage - and I would expect Manfred to meet them halfway.

Too bad they can't just move the negotiations up to right now during an actual stoppage.
 

Time to Mo Vaughn

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Haven't heard this mentioned yet but I would expect the players union to try to fight to give service time to players under arbitration during this stoppage - and I would expect Manfred to meet them halfway.

Too bad they can't just move the negotiations up to right now during an actual stoppage.
There's an element here around economics that hasn't been discussed yet. Do the players (including minor leaguers) get paid if there's no season at all? The billionaire owners should be able to cover, but we're talking $100-250m with no gate or TV revenue (is there TV revenue with no games), and conceivably some of these owners will have businesses that are also getting hammered by this recession. I have no idea what the labor agreement looks like if there's just no season at all given this isn't a strike or lockout.

There are Italian soccer clubs that have already asked players to take pay cuts during this period
 

Plympton91

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I wonder how insurance policies treat these cancellations? Would anything that an owner would have cover this? It’s basically a natural disaster. There’s something called “business interruption insurance,” right?

For the players, I’d expect them to argue that this is no different than being on the disabled list.
 

PseuFighter

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I was going to say let's look to the last work stoppage, but I keep having to stop and remind myself that that was... a work stoppage, and not cancellations due to a national pandemic.

Is there any precedent for this? Suppose there's no season, do the players not get paid and we just bump everything up a year, contract-wise?
 

jon abbey

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Wow, holy shit, and he is only under contract through 2021 before hitting FA.
 

Average Reds

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I wonder how insurance policies treat these cancellations? Would anything that an owner would have cover this? It’s basically a natural disaster. There’s something called “business interruption insurance,” right?

For the players, I’d expect them to argue that this is no different than being on the disabled list.
I talked about this in another thread and it’s an interesting question.


Almost all contracts (of any type) have some standard exclusions for things like warfare ... and pandemics. If the standard player contract has these, then players would not get paid.

Also, the CBA defines the payroll timing based on the season, which has not started. So I’m guessing that, if the season never starts,
No one gets paid.

More ominously (for the Sox) If the season is cancelled, I cant see the season counting for cap reset purposes.

All of this would be subject to negotiations, I’m sure...
 

SoxJox

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Whether baseball, hockey, whatever, I believe that many if not most contracts do not include language that specifically, directly, or even generally addresses situations that affect situations such as presented by a pandemic. I could be wrong. But "force majeure" influences could affect individual contract terms, arena and general "rights" agreements, sponsorships, and grand number of other contractual obligations. I would not be surprised to see many parties using the circumstances to get out of current perceived "bad" contracts. That could create a chaotic pro sport dynamic.
 

Ale Xander

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London series (2020) has been canceled.

"Dear MLB fan,

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mitel & MLB Present London Series 2020 has been cancelled.

The decision has been taken in line with the UK Government's actions stopping public gatherings and the need to focus emergency services resources on combating the pandemic.

While we understand that this news is disappointing, we are faced with an unprecedented situation worldwide and nothing is more important to us than the health and safety of our players, employees and fans.

We send our best wishes to all individuals and communities that have been impacted by COVID-19.

Ticket holders will receive a full refund, including any ticketing service charges paid. "
 

jon abbey

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FWIW, we have talked about this a bit here and there but I think the game has passed Sickels by anyway, there are a lot of people doing what he does now with a lot more energy and enthusiasm for it.

Also I am far from an expert but I'm pretty sure there was contraction coming anyway, this just speeds it up.
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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jon abbey

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The crazy thing about Vazquez (besides what he actually did) is that if they had just accepted a fair offer for him at the deadline, he wouldn’t have been their problem anymore. But they held out for a giant return and ended up with nothing.
 

jon abbey

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KC seemingly reaping reasonably big rewards for not releasing any minor leaguers and paying everyone through the end of the season despite being a small market team. The rest of MLB combined has signed just 7 undrafted top 500 prospects according to BA, here is what KC has done in the first sixteen hours of the signing period:


Kansas City Royals
View: https://twitter.com/benbadler/status/1272375130887467008?s=21
 

jon abbey

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Honestly I'd be a bit pissed at ownership/Chaim if I was a Sox fan for not doing something similar, a pretty cheap way to help build back system talent depth.
 

Diamond Don Aase

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Looks like the Sox have signed about the same number of them as KC. In terms of quality who knows. But I’ll go with Bloom’s track record there.
In terms of quality, Royals signee Kale Emshoff may be more well -regarded than two if not three of the players that the Red Sox DRAFTED. Trading their best player primarily due to cap considerations, releasing almost two dozen minor leaguers, and slashing the wages of employees earning as little as $50,000 may have benefitted John Henry’s franchise but were detrimental to the Red Sox organization. When the playing field is leveled as it is for non-drafted free agents, talented players tend to take notice of such decision-making.
 

gryoung

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In terms of quality, Royals signee Kale Emshoff may be more well -regarded than two if not three of the players that the Red Sox DRAFTED. Trading their best player primarily due to cap considerations, releasing almost two dozen minor leaguers, and slashing the wages of employees earning as little as $50,000 may have benefitted John Henry’s franchise but were detrimental to the Red Sox organization. When the playing field is leveled as it is for non-drafted free agents, talented players tend to take notice of such decision-making.
I’m not in the camp that the Betts trade was purely for cap considerations. The Sox are not the only team to have cut minor leaguers or have some sort of management shakeup. But the franchise does have some significant standing that can influence players.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what actually happens.
 

jon abbey

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I agree that the Mookie trade isn't so relevant here (and it looks increasingly brilliant by Bloom, not that he knew there was a pandemic coming) but my point above was that BOS could have copied what KC did by being the only teams to not release any minor leaguers. BOS has both the overall financial clout and the need to bulk up the minor league system to do this, but they chose for whatever reason not to go this way (as did every other MLB team except KC).
 

DeadlySplitter

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I assume the minor league purging was more ownership than any front office, which would want to hoard as much talent as possible during this freeze.
 

jon abbey

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There is a crazy Miguel Sano story circulating with multiple components. I'm hesitant to even link it as it seems like it might be totally full of shit, so maybe just search Twitter if you're interested.
 

Awesome Fossum

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The AP has it, so I don't mind linking:

El Nuevo Diario reported that Odalis Ramos, a lawyer, has accused Sano and three of his friends of kidnapping, beating and threatening to hang his client, Raudy Omar Sanchez de la Cruz, during an incident last month in San Pedro de Macoris, the hometown of the 27-year-old Sano.

Sano denied the accusations to the newspaper. He said Sanchez de la Cruz was involved in a sexual assault of a young relative of Sano’s. No charges have been filed in relation to any of the accusations. The local prosecutor’s office has a hearing scheduled for June 25, El Nuevo Diario reported. Sano told the newspaper that Ramos requested 10 million Dominican pesos, which is about $170,000 in American currency, to drop the accusations. Sano said he would sue Ramos for 30 million pesos, or about $500,000.
https://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/miguel-sano-accused-kidnapping-says-hes-blackmailed/
 

jon abbey

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He turned 25 last week, such a talented athlete but he’s never been able to fully translate it into playing baseball.