The Thursday, March 19, 2020

* The Boston Globe

Due to coronavirus outbreak, baseball’s minor leaguers are caught in a no-man’s land

Alex Speier

Red Sox minor leaguers worked out and played intrasquad games at the JetBlue Park complex in Fort Myers, Fla., last Friday and left the premises expecting to return for more of the same the next day.

But shortly after the players scattered, the team sent out a jarring communiqué: Effective immediately, minor league camp was over. The Red Sox wanted players to collect their belongings from the park and encouraged them to head home.

Upon receiving the message, outfielder Tyler Dearden, who spent last year with Single A Greenville, took to Twitter with grim humor.

Sooo anybody hiring??

Sincerely,

All minor league baseball players right now.

“I had no idea what to expect and was kind of trying to make light of the situation,” Dearden said by phone. “But I’m pretty sure that’s a thought that ran through all minor leaguers’ heads when they found out.”

Dearden’s tweet inspired dozens of comments, hundreds of retweets, and thousands of likes — many from fellow minor leaguers suddenly wondering about their employment and financial security since the COVID-19 virus led to the shutdown of minor league camps and the chaotic dispersal of players, including the roughly 180 who’d been in Red Sox minor league camp.

This past offseason, Dearden lived at home in New Jersey with his parents, offered baseball lessons, and ran food deliveries for DoorDash to help him bridge from his last paycheck at the end of the minor league season to the start of spring training, while also creating a bit of extra money for the coming season. He also worked out to stay in shape.

With the minor league season delayed indefinitely, Dearden said he’s back in a similar situation, but with fewer options. Baseball lessons aren’t an option, given the need for social distancing, and for similar reasons, it’s challenging to find a training facility (for which he’d have to pay) where he can stay in shape.

Meanwhile, he has little idea what, if any, financial assistance he might get from the Red Sox.

“It’s kind of like the offseason is starting again,” said Dearden, “except that you don’t know when the season is going to start.”

First baseman Josh Ockimey confronted a similarly unsettling notion as he drove north to his parents’ house in Philadelphia. After he spent last year in Triple A, Ockimey was a nonroster invitee in big league camp until he was reassigned to minor league camp March 8, a sense of promise emerging after he launched two homers in 11 spring training games.

“Unfortunately, for a lot of guys, we can’t afford to stay [in Fort Myers] for a month or two without any pay,” said Ockimey. “I had to make that decision. I said, ‘Hey, I have to make some money and go home.’ … I just can’t train and that’s all. I need to be out there making some money so I can afford to support myself, because I don’t know when the next game is or when we can come back.”

Ockimey drove for Lyft during the offseason to help pay for his use of the Maplezone Sports Institute baseball and workout facility. While he enjoyed the opportunity to socialize and meet passengers during the winter, his view of returning to such a line of work during a pandemic has changed.

“I guess I have to go back and pick up my Lyft job again or Uber — something," said Ockimey. "Honestly, I’m quite terrified of that. I know I’m going to have to really deep-clean my car almost every day or after every ride it’s almost going to seem like. [But] that’s what I have to do to make money.”

Teams pitch in, for now From a public health perspective, teams had little choice but to disband their minor league camps, even if there’s the possibility of exposure to COVID-19 outside the bubble of spring training facilities. While players might benefit from proximity to their teams’ medical resources if they stayed in spring training, it represented the sort of risk that the Centers for Disease Control has recommended against.

“It’s hard to keep social distance in the facility when it’s that many people,” said Red Sox vice president of player development Ben Crockett.

In piecemeal fashion, teams started sending their minor leaguers home until MLB issued a leaguewide requirement. The league has yet to offer teams guidance about what kind of financial assistance to offer to minor leaguers, a subject that is on MLB’s to-do list but that, according to a league source, will take a backseat to negotiations with the MLB Players Association about compensation for players on the big- league 40-man rosters during the shutdown.

Some teams are taking a proactive approach to giving their minor leaguers some financial support. According to major league sources, the Rays told their minor leaguers that they’d receive two weeks of their spring training allowance, and the Mets will continue to pay spring training allowances to their minor leaguers for an undefined period of time. The Dodgers, Marlins, and Padres also have committed to some financial support to their minor leaguers, according to .

The Red Sox have provided their minor leaguers with their spring training allowances — $560 per week for players who arranged their own accommodations in Fort Myers, $140 per week for those who stayed in the team hotel — through Thursday. They also bought the return plane tickets for players who were flying out of Fort Myers or will reimburse their mileage expenses.

The Sox are among teams having internal conversations about how to handle support for minor leaguers but that have yet to commit to anything beyond Thursday while waiting to see what MLB does.

'They’re all scrambling’ It’s too soon to gauge the effectiveness of the support offered by the Red Sox and 29 other clubs, even as an already bleak economic landscape for the average minor leaguer just grew bleaker.

When minor leaguers arrived at spring training in February, they had not received a paycheck from their teams since late last summer when their season ended.

Like major leaguers, minor leaguers do not get paid during spring training.

At spring training, teams put up players in hotels or, in a few cases, dorms, or offer a rent subsidy if they make their own living arrangements.

In some cases, food and housing allowances exceed what players will make during the season.

Now, minor leaguers face the prospect of seeing their below-minimum-wage paychecks shrink to nothing. They can’t file for unemployment because they’re under contract to their teams.

Unlike major leaguers, minor leaguers get paid a pittance: Rookies and Single A players make around $1,250 a month, with Double A players making $1,500 and Triple A players about $2,200.

While there are signing bonuses for approximately 40 percent of drafted players, that bonus is usually $10,000 or less. Yes, the first-rounders have million-dollar cushions to work from, but the vast majority of the 4,500 or so minor leaguers do not.

Their situation is harsh.

“The best way to put it is they’re all scrambling,” said Garrett Broshuis, the lead lawyer in a class-action lawsuit against MLB by minor leaguers over wages. “A lot of them are counting on having that first paycheck around when the season started in early April, and now it’s not going to come and they don’t know how to pay their bills.

"Their cellphone bill doesn’t stop just because of the coronavirus. Their rent is still due, their car payments are still due.”

Finding housing on the fly may be the worst problem because players with no income stream are returning to their offseason “homes” where their leases had already expired.

“Some of them are going back to their parents, some of them are crashing at girlfriends’ houses, some are crashing at friends’ houses," said Broshuis. “They’re scrambling just to find a bed or couch to sleep on.”

The plight of international players, the bulk of whom come from the Dominican Republic or Venezuela, is more harrowing.

Teams asked those players to return to their home countries, but just getting them there was not so simple.

“For some guys it is dire," said Jeremy Wolf, executive director of the nonprofit More Than Baseball, which works to raise awareness and steer more resources toward minor leaguers’ housing, food, and equipment needs. "We helped get a kid a taxi from the airport in Venezuela to his home — $200. The team said it would reimburse him: ‘Maybe, we don’t know for sure,’ but he said, ‘I told them I can’t get a taxi home,’ and they said, ‘Figure it out, we have to send you home.’

"Well, they didn’t have to send him home. We could have found him a place to stay in Arizona. He could have stayed with me.”

The prospect of entry restrictions being set at a very high bar once the pandemic eases suggests that international players will face a formidable set of hurdles that uprooted players in the US will not.

“I know there are a lot of harder situations than others,” said Dearden. “Luckily I’m in a situation where I was able to get home with my family, but there are a lot of guys out there in the minor leagues who don’t have anywhere to go. I really feel for those guys and I’m not sure how that situation is going to play out.”

No union to help them MLB has vowed to raise minor leaguers’ salaries between 38 percent and 71 percent starting next season. Yet the gap between the minor and major leagues, where the minimum salary is $563,500, has never been bigger.

The biggest difference is that the minor leaguers do not have a union or any structured support system to advocate for their issues.

“Unfortunately, for the minor leagues, I don’t think there are really any associations to help us out here,” said Ockimey. “That’s the most frustrating part."

Fear of losing their jobs by squawking over low pay is the biggest reason why minor leaguers have largely stayed silent about pressing MLB to dig deeper and try harder to pay respectable wages to the talent pool that will form its next generation of talent.

More Than Baseball is working to change that mind-set in meaningful ways, having engaged “ambassadors” from more than 20 franchises to help spread the word.

Will one of the 30 teams decide to go ahead and pay their minor leaguers the salaries — paltry as they are — they were going to pay them regardless of whether canceled games are made up or played?

To date, none has, leaving minor leaguers like Ockimey resigned to pondering a return to Lyft runs and Dearden to DoorDash while the shutdown continues.

"I think people are starting to get informed of how we live and how we’re paid,” said Dearden. “When I put out that tweet, I never expected it to blow up the way it did. I never really thought people would reach out to me for help. I was surprised by how many people knew what goes on in our lifestyle.

“Maybe now more people will be informed.”

Chris Sale begins a throwing program in Fort Myers

Alex Speier

According to a major league source, Red Sox lefthander Chris Sale has commenced a throwing program in Fort Myers, Fla., after being shut down at the beginning of the month with a strained flexor tendon in his left forearm.

This marks the beginning of an effort to see whether Sale will be able to return to the mound this year or whether he will require surgery. He underwent an MRI March 2 that revealed the strain, and reviews of the images by Red Sox team doctors, Dr. James Andrews, and Dr. Neal ElAttrache all yielded the conclusion that Sale should try to recover with rest and rehab.

Even so, when Sale discussed the diagnosis on March 5, he recognized the uncertainty of his health moving forward.

“[The doctors] seem confident and everyone agreed, hey let’s take some time off, get some anti- inflammatories in there, start another throwing program and see what we get,” Sale said.

“I’m going to do it the best I can and get after it. And however the coin flips, that’s how we pick it up.

"We’ve got work to do and I’ve got an uphill battle to climb, but I’ve got my climbing shoes on. So I’ll be ready to roll whatever way we’ve got to go.”

Even before his elbow injury and weeks before MLB delayed the start of the 2020 season in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sale was slated to open the year on the injured list. He had contracted pneumonia in February, and the illness delayed his buildup and meant that he’d be unable to pitch in big league games before mid-April.

The elbow injury, which occurred one day after he faced hitters in live batting practice, further pushed back that timetable at least into May.

With spring training canceled and the start of the season postponed indefinitely — and unlikely to start before late May or June — it’s possible that Sale could be ready whenever the season does start.

But given that he felt healthy in preparing for spring training before experiencing his setback, neither the team nor he can take for granted either that timetable or his ability to pitch at all this year.

The resumption of a throwing program represents the first of many steps in trying to make such a determination.

“Obviously there is uncertainty regarding his pitching status generally that we’re going to want to resolve," Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said last week, before Sale started his throwing program. "We’re still going to want to resolve that. We’re still going to want to progress him.

"We’re still going to work even during this time period without games to try and get some progress and some more definition on his status.”

* MassLive.com

Coronavirus delayed the MLB season, so here’s the baseball fan’s guide to enjoying the stoppage

Chris Cotillo

It’s March 19, so we’re one week away from a day baseball fans everywhere have had circled on their calendars since last fall. Opening Day, or, the originally scheduled version of it, is just seven days away.

Of course, the coronavirus pandemic has delayed the start of the season, and we don’t know for how long. Baseball has never faced a crisis quite like this one and is considering a wide variety of strategies for how to proceed with the 2020 season.

Obviously, there are much bigger problems facing the world and our nation than the absence of baseball. But that doesn’t mean it’s still not a hard fact to swallow for fans everywhere. With that in mind, here it is: a fan’s guide to life without baseball.

Catch up on movies, books and podcasts There’s so much good baseball content out there, it’s impossible to have gotten to all of it. Think of this as a good opportunity to catch up on the many movies, books and podcasts you might have been putting off when life got in the way.

While you’re social distancing, there are plenty of ways to pass time. MLB Network is airing a ton of their documentaries, including one about Mark Fidrych (who shares my hometown of Northborough, Mass.) on Thursday and the Mariners on Friday. Baseball movies available on Netflix include “The Natural," “Major League II” and “The Battered Bastards of Baseball." “Moneyball” is free on Amazon Prime, as well as Ken Burns’ acclaimed “Baseball” documentary. The ESPN 30-for-30 series (which is available on Disney+ and is being shown frequently on ESPN networks) has a ton of great baseball docs, including “Four Days in October,” “Doc and Darryl," “Catching Hell," “Fernando Nation” and “The Day the Series Stopped.”

Some great baseball books have come out in recent years from a variety of acclaimed writers. On a national scale, I’d recommend “The Arm” (Jeff Passan), “K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches” (Tyler Kepner), “The Only Rule Is It Has to Work" (Ben Lindbergh), “The Bullpen Gospels” (Dirk Hayhurst) and many others. Locally, you’ve got plenty: “Homegrown” (Alex Speier), “Papi: My Story” (David Ortiz and Michael Holley), “If These Walls Could Talk” (Jerry Remy and Nick Cafardo), “Pedro” (Pedro Martinez and Michael Silverman) and others.

Podcast-wise, Section 10 is obviously still going strong, even if they won’t cite my wonderful employer when they call me. SoxProspects has a good podcast and Tom Caron and Jerry Remy have launched one of their own over at NESN. Stay tuned for further news from me on this, too...

Relive the past by watching old games and highlights This seems to be a popular pastime now that there are no live sports. Pretty much any big game or moment from the past lives on via YouTube, and a ton of channels (NESN, MLB Network and ESPN included) are showing games during the dead time. Considering the Red Sox have won four World Series in the last 20 years, Sox fans won’t run out of special moments for a while.

NBA League Pass and NFL Game Pass are already offering free access to watching classic games during the stoppage, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see MLB.TV do the same, if it can. Regardless, it’s the internet in 2020. If you want to find an old highlight bad enough, you likely can.

Interact with fans, teams and even players on social media If there’s any silver lining in all of this, it’s that the whole world is in the same place and, theoretically, in this thing together. The baseball community has largely banded together over the last week, because everyone is in the same boat when it comes to missing the sport we all love.

Get involved with memorabilia and baseball cards, and maybe even secure some autographs The baseball card industry is still going strong, even if it looks much different than it used to. In the next few months, Topps has a lot of sets scheduled to be released, including Inception (March 20), Gypsy Queen (March 25), Topps Tribute (April 1), Bowman (April 15), Panini Diamond Kings (April 29), Big League (May 13), Pro Debut (May 20) and Tier One (May 27). The buying and trading markets should be active on eBay and message boards, as always.

If you think it’s impossible to get autographs while games are being played, you’re wrong. Players -- both present and former -- might be amenable to signing through-the-mail autographs during the downtime. The return rate on these would surprise you. The only issue is players are a bit scattered right now, but sending them to team facilities (either in spring training or their home cities) is a safe bet. Don’t forget that self- addressed, stamped envelope.

Expand your horizons, because baseball is starting to be played in Asia As order is starting to be restored in some corners of the world, baseball is beginning to be played again. In Korea, camps are underway and exhibition games are apparently going to be streamed soon for everyone. The exhibition season in Japan is about to start as well, signaling that seasons in Asia are about to begin soon.

Some great follows for those leagues: Dan Kurtz (@MyKBO) and Patrick Newman (@npbtracker).

Keep reading, because we’re still writing This time is unprecedented for writers, too, but we still need to come up with content. So keep reading the creative work being done here and a ton of other places. And please, let us know if you have any suggestions on things we can write. Email any to [email protected].

Get creative MLB The Show isn’t delayed, so play that if you have the appropriate console. Play wiffleball in the back yard, as long as you’re practicing the appropriate social distancing measures. Keep planning your fantasy teams, and even research better DFS strategies. Hell, make fantasy teams for MLB The Show and play out the season that way if you want.

Broadcaster Josh Lewin is doing something cool with his innovative -- and timely -- Throwback League, so check that out. Plan road trips and buy tickets to give yourself dates to circle on the calendar in the future. Make lists of your favorite ballparks, continue Hall of Fame debates and stay involved as much as possible. This stoppage won’t last forever.

***

10 observations from the last week in baseball

1. Very nice gesture by MLB teams to each pledge $1 million to compensate part-time workers during the stoppage. Not unexpected, but still worth commending

2. It will be fascinating to see how the contentious talks between MLB and the MLBPA affect labor negotiations moving forward. I’d doubt the sides would want to risk a lockout or strike in 2022 after missing at least some of the season in 2020.

3. The idea of skipping the draft is silly and impractical. Feels like a bargaining ploy by the league.

4. The All-Star Game could get cut out of the schedule though, if the league gets desperate enough. Besides, if Opening Day was on, say, June 1, it would be weird naming All-Stars after a month.

5. The Red Sox have a handful of players who live near their spring training complex, including Chris Sale, Jackie Bradley Jr., Matt Barnes and others. That is pretty beneficial right about now.

6. The above information courtesy of the Red Sox Media Guide, which is now out and available.

7. No one knows when the season will start and anyone venturing a guess is, well, guessing. The league, like the world, is taking this one day at a time.

8. The league’s investigation into alleged sign-stealing by the Red Sox seems to have been pushed to the back burner considering all the coronavirus-related concerns. Makes sense, but still must be super frustrating for those looking for closure on the situation.

9. Man, Tom Brady is going to look weird in a Bucs uniform. Red Sox lefty Brian Johnson, a huge Tampa Bay fan, must be stoked.

10. Stay safe, folks. We’re all in this together.

MLB Draft in jeopardy? Coronavirus has league considering postponing or canceling June draft to save money (reports)

Chris Cotillo

Major League Baseball is considering skipping its annual draft in an effort to recoup money lost due to the coronavirus postponing games, according to reports from Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic and Ronald Blum of the Associated Press. The draft, which is currently scheduled to be held from June 10-12, could also be delayed due to the pandemic.

According to Rosenthal, the league is considering “a combined draft” in 2021 for the 2020 and 2021 classes of eligible amateurs. Blum reports MLB is also thinking about putting off the next international signing period, which begins July 2, as a way of further saving funds lost by cancelled games.

The idea of canceling the draft is one of many being floated by the league as it tries to come up with creative ways to move forward in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, which has already caused the suspension of spring training and a delayed start to the regular season. Though MLB is unsure exactly when its season will start, commissioner Rob Manfred and his staff are considering a wide range of scenarios to deal with the unprecedented impact of the virus.

In an effort to generate more fan interest in the annual June draft, the league moved it to Omaha, Nebraska, where the College World Series takes place annually. That event has already been canceled, leading to further questions about how the league will proceed with its draft.

As Rosenthal points out, a cancellation of the draft would have wide-ranging impacts on both teams and players. Teams would miss out on the best annual opportunity to restock their farm system and amateur players would be deprived of a key year of development that would get them closer to large future paydays once they’re in the majors.

No matter what the league decides, the draft process will surely look different in 2020. MLB already prohibited all scouting activity and almost all high schools and colleges have canceled their seasons, leading to a strange period of evaluation for teams ahead of the draft.

Chris Sale begins throwing program: Boston Red Sox ace could need surgery if he feels discomfort during progression (report)

Chris Cotillo

Red Sox left-hander Chris Sale has “commenced a throwing program” after being shut down earlier this month due to a flexor strain in his elbow, according to a report from Alex Speier of the Boston Globe.

It’s unclear how far Sale has progressed through his program yet. Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom and general manager Brian O’Halloran did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday afternoon.

After tossing a 15-pitch live batting practice session on March 1, Sale reported elbow pain and underwent an MRI. Testing revealed a flexor strain and his elbow, leading to top doctors -- including Dr. James Andrews and Dr. Neal El Attrache -- recommended a 10-14 day shutdown period before the lefty resumed throwing.

Because Sunday marked two weeks since Sale had last thrown, the left was expected to begin throwing late last week. According to Speier, he stayed on schedule and is likely playing catch in hopes of ramping up to throwing off a mound in the coming days.

How Sale reacts to his progression will likely determine if he needs Tommy John surgery, as the lefty acknowledged shortly after his flexor strain diagnosis. Of course, with the regular season delayed at least into mid-May due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Red Sox don’t need to rush Sale to get him back early in the season.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Bloom said he expected Sale’s throwing program to continue as scheduled even though spring training had been shut down due to the coronavirus outbreak. Sale lives near the team’s spring training facility and will likely continue to access it even though camp has been suspended.

“From a medical perspective, nothing really changes with that,” Bloom said Friday. “We knew he was going to be unable to pitch in a game for a little while and we also know, obviously, there’s uncertainty regarding his pitching status generally that we want to resolve. We’re still going to want to resolve that. We’re still going to want to progress him. We haven’t gotten to that point yet, but we’re still going to work, even during this time period, without games, to get some progress and get some more definition on his status.”

* WEEI.com

Remembering a week ago, when baseball mattered

Rob Bradford

About halfway back from my drive out of Port Charlotte, Fla. on what would be the final night of spring training games for the Red Sox, I joined two of my friends — who had watched the Grapefruit League contest I had just finished broadcasting — for a mid-ride meal. This was just about an hour after soaking in a wave of news items I will never forget.

As the waitress came over, chit-chatting and slinging crab legs without a care in the world I still had the new reality behind my eyes. Tom Hanks. Rudy Goebert. The NBA. Flight restrictions. By the time the sixth inning rolled around this — not Domingo Tapia’s repertoire — became our broadcast.

My radio partner Will Flemming and I knew what we had just participated in wasn’t the norm, as the immediate offering of Clorox wipes from the engineer after the game would attest. That reality slowly burnt into my psyche. But judging by the reaction from those looking to sell us on some 11 p.m. dessert, the world clearly hadn’t changed for everyone. I didn’t understand it at the time, but I was still a day or two ahead of the concern curve.

We didn’t get back to Fort Myers until about midnight and my flight home was the first one out of Southwest Florida International Airport, but I knew these new thoughts had to be documented. Hence, the column, “The 3 hours how that changed I view the Coronavirus crisis”.

A few hours later off I went to Terminal D, all the while strategizing how I was going to sterilize my airplane seat, the arm rests, the TV in front of me and perhaps the hooded disheveled gentleman in 20C. I was leaving baseball for what I thought was two days. What I didn’t know was that sport would be gone for longer than any of us could have ever imagine. Longer than any of us can still probably imagine.

Exactly a week later, I look back at it all and shake my head. What was I thinking? What was everyone thinking? What are we still thinking?

I can rail on the missteps by , such as actually packing people in to watch the Red Sox that last spring training game. Or what they were thinking actually playing more games the next day.

I can roll my eyes at some of the Red Sox for continuing to high-five, sign autographs, ignore social distancing and lean on the mentality of “it’s hard because it’s what we do in baseball” even after formally being warned by a doctor just days before.

And I can continue to offer disgust at the image of that beer vendor who found more ways than I care to mention to make sure each and every one of his Charlotte Sports Park patrons got a dose of his DNA.

But while I’m doing that I better be in front of a mirror. I can now admit that I was as guilty as most of them. Much like the aforementioned parties, I believed baseball actually mattered.

In those two days leading up to the time capsule-worthy broadcast, too much of my time was about figuring out how interviews and coverage was possibly going to be executed under these new clubhouse restrictions. Thinking back, the idea of me begrudgingly going to the assigned interview area while passing a gaggle of minor-leaguers working out outside the JetBlue Park weight room — all about two feet apart — all seems so perfect misplaced.

In one week we went from stressing about clubhouse access, to wondering if the Red Sox’ trip to Seattle on April 9 might be in jeopardy, to getting our heads around perhaps playing exhibition games without fans, to surmising the real games could be played in empty ballparks, to thinking the regular-season delay would be just a couple of weeks.

Then there was the idea that teams were going to hang back at their respective spring training facilities, working out together. (Remember the Yankees’ well-intentioned proclamation that they were all going to stay in Tampa in order to hit the ground running when the season kicked in?)

And now there is present day.

The players are home. There is no semblance of spring training. The idea of playing games before June seems far-fetched. And the notion of not playing games before the All-Star break seems very realistic. And the guessing game when it comes to locking in on a return for the sport not only seems fruitless, but it has also become kind of off-putting.

What a difference seven days makes.

Media outlets are trying to find ways to keep the baseball conversation going. I’m trying to keep the baseball conversation going. But admit it, every time you see a story written or reported that hints at the kind of roster-building conversation that always dominates this time of year it seems out of place. For the first time in my life, it doesn’t seem right to be talking about baseball. And that is hard to fathom.

I do miss the stories. I do miss the games. I do miss the conversation and debate. Spring training was just starting to morph into meaningful moments and that meant real games weren’t far off. Such a dynamic seems so very unrealistic and unimportant now.

We sit in our basements instead of press boxes. Exactly a week from the moment I captured video Alex Verdugo running sprints I filmed my dog (in slo-motion, nonetheless) racing across Crane Beach. And our days are unavoidably filled with conversations involving two things: coronavirus and Tom Brady. That is it. That is all. And that is how it will be for some time.

To think that just a few days ago we still thought there might be a Red Sox game in Toronto on March 26. Now we couldn’t legally drive up to stare at an empty Rogers Centre if we wanted to.

There will be many more opportunities to write these sort of "How the world has changed" columns throughout the coming weeks and months. It does strike me, however, how these past few days have altered our view on such things as baseball games in ways that seemed unfathomable leading into last weekend.

Dig in. There will be no crab leg-slinging, passport-needing and baseball-playing for a good, long while. It might have started with that ride down I-75 a week ago, but has now morphed into becoming a road not found on any map.

* The Athletic

Among growing Red Sox issues: They don’t know MLB economic rules they’ll face

Jen McCaffrey

Though MLB’s Opening Day was scheduled to begin next week, baseball’s return date is just one of several questions facing the sport as the world navigates the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Wednesday, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal took a look at some issues that may arise as MLB and the players association map out a plan for the 2020 season. While there was some indication MLB wanted to add missed games to the back end of the schedule, that scenario is looking less and less feasible by the day.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has already recommended no gatherings of 50 or more people taking place until at least May 10, but with a truncated spring training to build back up, a return for baseball feels closer to June, in a best-case scenario.

With that in mind, a shortened season or even a canceled season would have a trickle-down effect on several other facets of the game, all of which need to be hashed out in some form between MLB and MLBPA.

And yes, we’re very much keeping in mind this is all in the context of bigger issues happening in the world. But since this space focuses on baseball, and specifically the Red Sox, we’ll focus on what this all means for the team.

Does this delay service time, and in turn free agency, for Jackie Bradley Jr. and Brandon Workman? As Rosenthal notes, Mookie Betts is among the most interesting examples for service time and free agency with a shortened schedule. Betts’ five-plus years of service time means at the moment, he falls 102 days shy of free agency. If the season is canceled or even cut in half to 81 games, how does that affect upcoming free agents who might be on the service time cusp? Does MLB just grant free agency to players who would have made the cut?

Last year, MLB had 186 days between Opening Day and the end of the regular season, including off days, but players are only allowed a max of 172 days to count toward service time. For Bradley, who has 5.150 years of service time (five years, 150 days), that would mean just 22 additional days on the 25-man roster or major-league injured list. Workman has 5.051 years, meaning he needs 121 more days while Kevin Pillar has 5.113 years of service time, meaning he needs 59 more days.

In a shortened season, the league would likely just adjust those numbers proportionally for however many games are played. However, as Rosenthal said, service was the “most contentious” issue discussed between the sides, with the specter of a lost season causing a divide. Wrote Rosenthal, “The union obviously would want the players to collect as much time as possible. The clubs, coming off a season of virtually no revenue, likely would push for relief on a variety of fronts.”

Arbitration-eligible players Rafael Devers is set to hit arbitration for the first time next offseason.

If Devers doesn’t have a full season to boost his home run totals or if there’s no All-Star Game for him to play in, what does that mean for arbitration? Again, the numbers could be adjusted to fit a 162-game season, but it still complicates matters. And as a first-year arbitration-eligible player, each of his next two arbitration years would be based off that first year, creating a snowball effect for his earning totals. Does that mean he’s more inclined to sign an extension with the Red Sox to avoid the hassle and uncertainty of arbitration in a shortened year?

Ryan Brasier is another first-year arbitration-eligible candidate. Pitchers face an even more uncertain outcome with this schedule structure, given how a few bad outings can inflate numbers. Or if the schedule is adjusted for fewer days off and more doubleheaders to cram in games, relievers would be less available by nature, reducing their overall numbers.

Similar to free agents, both Devers and Brasier need to hit their service time requirements. To reach arbitration players need three years of service time. Devers is currently at 2.070 and Brasier at 2.109.

Player incentives and vesting options Several players have incentives or vesting options tied into their contracts. For instance, new addition Collin McHugh signed for $600,000, but with the potential to make $4.25 million over the course of the season upon hitting various innings markers and days on the active roster.

Meanwhile, once players hit 10 years of service time, they’re eligible for a fully vested pension plan through MLB with increased health care coverage as they enter retirement. Chris Sale begins the year at 9.061 years, meaning he needs 111 days to make that vest.

What about the luxury tax? The Red Sox pulled off a massive trade of Betts and , in large part to reset their payroll structure and get under the $208 million threshold for this upcoming season. While it would have been impossible to predict this winter (at least from a baseball standpoint) that a pandemic would shut down much of the world, was that trade all for nothing? Will MLB reset the penalties for a shortened season or will the Red Sox to have remain under the luxury tax threshold for the 2021 season, too, because this upcoming season likely won’t be played in full?

Will MLB season ever begin? And how might that impact Mookie Betts trade haul?

Chad Jennings

It was a pretty jarring sentence that opened Ken Rosenthal’s latest column on the state of Major League Baseball’s response to the coronavirus outbreak: The first question, the biggest question, is whether the 2020 major-league season will even take place.

And it was a pretty stunning reaction for those who follow the Red Sox on a daily basis: Did this team just get prospects, salary relief and reset its luxury tax penalties by giving up a Mookie Betts season that might not exist?

We’re in thoroughly uncharted water here. That’s true for all of us. And it goes without saying that the plight of a healthy 27-year-old making $27 million, and a couple of winning sports franchises valued at more than $3 billion, rank among the least of our concerns at the moment.

But, holy smokes, what a plot twist! Barely a month after one of the most divisive, difficult, controversial trades in Red Sox history, we’re no longer sure exactly what the team gave up. This presumably was not a part of the plan – surely Chaim Bloom didn’t trade his best player in anticipation of a pandemic – but it certainly could impact the final analysis. Call it random chance, blind luck, or the ripple effect of unforeseen circumstances. Call it karmic payback for the lost game of strike-shortened 1972, which cost the Red Sox a shot at the playoffs. Fact is, the Red Sox might have built for the future by trading away the most expensive and least valuable season of Betts’ career to date.

Of course, we don’t know that. We don’t know when the season will begin, if it will begin, how long it will last, and how service time calculations will be adjusted accordingly. If the season is canceled – which currently seems unlikely, but perhaps not out of the question – would Betts become a free agent as expected, or would he be granted zero days of additional service time in 2020 — meaning he’d remain one season away from the free-agent market? Would the Dodgers get to use him in 2021 instead? Is it possible a severely shortened season would tilt advantage the other way, giving the Dodgers control of Betts for a full season and a partial season?

Rosenthal noted that Betts is 102 days shy of free-agent eligibility, and if a delayed or canceled season causes him to fall short, he would have to enter the open market at age 29 instead of 28. That’s a meaningful difference given teams’ emphasis on youth, and the fact Betts has made all of his business decisions up to this point assuming free agency in 2020. If the season is shortened, the number of games constituting a full season could be adjusted easily enough, but is that what’s going to happen?

Here’s Rosenthal again on the ongoing talks between the league and players association:

Still, two people with knowledge of the talks said service time was the most contentious of the issues under discussion, mostly due to differences over how much time players would receive in the worst-case scenario – a canceled season. The union obviously would want the players to collect as much time as possible. The clubs, coming off a season of virtually no revenue, likely would push for relief on a variety of fronts.

As with almost everything right now, there is no perfect solution. Someone is going to end up on the short end getting less than expected.

A shortened season is perhaps a more clear-cut windfall for the Red Sox regarding the other player they surrendered in the deal. To trade David Price, the Red Sox had to pay half of his salary each of his remaining three years. If the 2020 season is cut in half, then that’s a sunk cost for this year. The Red Sox could have paid Price $16 million not to pitch for them, or pay him $16 million not to pitch for the Dodgers. If the entire season is wiped out – assuming his contract through 2022 remains a contract through 2022 – then $32 million of the Red Sox payment, a full two-thirds of what they’re giving the Dodgers, will have been a sunk cost.

Essentially, in a worst-case scenario for the league – an entire season lost with players still granted a year of service time and Betts hitting the open market as scheduled – would result in the Red Sox giving up $16 million-plus David Price’s age 35 and 36 seasons in exchange for $42 million of salary relief, a new right fielder (Alex Verdugo), the system’s top middle-infield prospect (Jeter Downs), easily their top catching prospect (Connor Wong), plus a reset of luxury tax penalties worth millions.

All just the unforeseen byproduct of an unprecedented crisis, which has left everything – including a trade we’ve been digesting for a month – in a new state of uncertainty.

Even if Red Sox were playing, these roster questions would have no answers

Chad Jennings

It was exactly one year ago today the Red Sox announced Dustin Pedroia would open the 2019 season on the injured list.

Up to that point, him playing on Opening Day was at least a vague possibility. He had appeared in four Grapefruit League games and would play another three before breaking camp. Alex Cora had even talked about wanting Pedroia to hit leadoff for the season opener. And Pedroia was not far off schedule. He’d be on the big league roster by early April. Not making the Opening Day roster was simply a delay, not a total derailment.

“They have had to hold me back,” Pedroia said at the time. “I’m ready for Opening Day. It’s just, they’re scared. No one has ever come back from something like this.”

Two big league hits later, Pedroia didn’t even report to camp this spring.

In baseball, uncertainty is the norm this time of year. Not like this year – nothing like this – but even when spring decisions are made, it’s usually with a healthy dose of future ambiguity.

If you’re wondering what we’re missing while the game is on hiatus, the answer is probably: we’re missing a lot of things we wouldn’t properly contextualize anyway.

We’d be wondering whether Chris Sale’s elbow would hold up, how quickly Alex Verdugo could play in a game, and which relievers would win the final roster spots. All would be perfectly normal spring training storylines – we see versions of them every year – but meaningful answers seem rarely to come in spring training.

In the case of Sale’s faulty elbow and Verdugo’s sore back, definitive answers are almost always bad news – surgery is about as definitive as it gets – but even a successful rehab process can be littered with insecurity, and an unsuccessful one can be steadily encouraging until suddenly it’s not. That’s what happened with Pedroia a year ago. He was making progress, the Red Sox were extra cautious just in case, and he actually did get back to the big leagues. Then the progress stopped, and fresh setbacks began.

Three years before Sale got multiple opinions on his elbow this spring, we were asking similar Tommy John questions about David Price during the spring of 2017. Price had been to see Dr. James Andrews, his elbow wasn’t in great shape, and he would end up making only 11 starts that season. But he would make 30 in 2018 and pitch to a 1.98 ERA in the World Series. Even last year, Price’s biggest health issue was a cyst in his wrist, not the elbow itself.

Two years before Price, the Yankees were asking similar questions about Masahiro Tanaka, who’d opted for rehab instead of Tommy John during his 2014 rookie season. Surgery seemed all but inevitable, but Tanaka’s avoided it so far, and made at least 27 starts each of the past four seasons.

Sometimes, the answers just don’t come quickly. Certainly not in spring training.

Even the definitive moves can take time to evaluate. At this time two years ago, the Red Sox were gearing up for the smallest of major league trades, sending out-of-options infielder Deven Marrero to the Diamondbacks for a player to be named later.

That player wound up being current Red Sox lefty Josh Taylor.

Marrero’s value at the time was limited, and it was hard to expect much in return. But 14 months later, Taylor arrived in Boston and became a pleasant surprise. He pitched in 52 major league games last season and had a 3.04 ERA with 11.8 per nine innings. He looks like a bullpen fixture at this point, more of a sure thing than a guy fighting for a job in spring training.

And how secure are those end-of-the-roster jobs anyway?

It was around this time last year that the Red Sox put Sandy Leon on waivers so that they could carry Blake Swihart as their backup catcher. That lasted less than a month before Swihart was gone and Leon was back in Boston. The year before, the final rosters spots went to Bobby Poyner and Marcus Walden, and of those two, it was homegrown Poyner who seemed to have more of a future. Walden was a journeyman minor leaguer whose greatest value was an ability to pitch multiple innings of mop-up duty. Now it’s Walden who’s scratched out a meaningful place on the team.

In 2017, it was Ben Taylor and Steve Selsky who made the final roster spots. They combined to play in 22 games for the Red Sox and were out of the organization. In 2016, Rusney Castillo was still an Opening Day player, and he hasn’t played a major league game since June of that year.

In the years they made their big league debuts, eventual Red Sox mainstays Xander Bogaerts, Andrew Benintendi and Rafael Devers were nowhere near roster consideration in spring training. Ryan Brasier wasn’t even in big league camp the year he became a key Red Sox setup man en route to a championship. J.D. Martinez was famously cut by the Astros in spring training the same year he had a breakout season with the Tigers.

So, what are we missing this spring? Even if we knew, we might not really know.