Super agent Scott Boras spoke with CNBC today about how baseball can return to action, which is particularly interesting, since he’s necessarily coming at this from a player-focused perspective.
One thing that was very clear, at least from Boras: there’s an urgency to get baseball back safely as soon as possible, and broadcasting games. He has many specific ideas on how that happens, and I was surprised by how ready he says his players are – and by how quickly he thinks Spring Training Part Two could get underway.
In Boras’s view, players would come back ASAP to a quarantined, Spring Training-like environment in groups much like Spring Training (pitchers and catchers, then position players, then other personnel). The CNBC article uses the word “immediately.”
To pull this off, you create categories for phasing players back into things at Spring Training – players who have had the virus already, players who haven’t had it, and players who currently have it – and you separate/isolate as appropriate through this process (“functional isolationism”). Boras says he’s communicated with his players, and they’re willing to do this kind of initial quarantine at Spring Training Part Two without families for a month or so.
This process, in Boras’s opinion, could start very soon, which would maximize the amount of time players have to get ready before actual games could begin, somewhere in June or July. Obviously it would be good to give players plenty of time to ramp back up, minimizing the many injury risks this bizarre year is going to create. (How you do this kind of thing “immediately” when testing is not available widely, well, that’s the part I can’t quite wrap my head around. (Also, how do you start Spring Training Part Two back up until and unless you know *for sure* you’re going to be able to actually play the games you’re training for?))
Geographically, Boras was very heavy on points about the differing mortality rates between New York state, for example, and California (he cited 90 fatalities per 100,000 people in New York, versus just 3 in California). He added that the mortality rates in the Spring Training locations are also very low.
More than just an opportunity for baseball to serve as entertainment and happy distraction, Boras sees baseball coming back as a model for how other businesses can come back, in large part because the players are young, healthy, with long-standing medical histories in place. Basically, you pull off this phased, partial-quarantine approach with very healthy, low-risk “employees” in a low-risk environment, and you use that to help develop best practices for other areas. (When you write it out, it sounds a little “guinea pig”-like, which is not cool, but you kind of have to listen to Boras discussing the idea. It doesn’t sound as bad as it does with me trying to write it out.)
To be sure, you cannot presume Boras speaks for more than himself and for his generally-well-compensated players’ perspective. You cannot assume he’s developed this plan with MLB (though he says he’s been working with experts). Boras has obvious interests in seeing the game back soon. Lots of grains of salt.
HOWEVER, Boras also has an obligation to represent his players, so the confidence he shows in talking about these issues is very interesting to me. Surprising, even?
In any case, Boras’s opinion on this stuff carries a whole lot of weight around the game. The super short version is that it sounds like he feels, and his players feel, like there is a way to begin the training process far sooner than people are thinking, which would maximize the amount of time they would have to train themselves back into shape (safely) before games – whatever form they take – begin.
It’s a pretty surprising position. Frankly, I’m still digesting it a bit.