As noted earlier, those sporting events originally scheduled for April and May which are being postponed are mostly being rescheduled for September. Inherent in that is the assumption by organizers of these events is September is a relatively safe time we can pinpoint to once again host events.

Assuming for a moment September 2020 is the time sporting events can once again be held, Major League Baseball has a real problem on their hands. At the end of the day, they are going to be left with a myriad of just bad options at their feet.

The first and least attractive option is to cancel the entire 2020 season. While we would all understand, no one wants to see that happen. Even if you are not a baseball fan, you want to see this pandemic end and for everyone to get back to their normal lives.

The other option is playing into December utilizing neutral sites. There are a number of issues with that including figuring out which cities can safely host games into the winter both in terms of the weather and COVID19. Aside from that, how can so few ballparks host so many games for 30 teams? It doesn’t seem plausible.

To that end, maybe the realistic target is to finish the regular season, whatever can be salvaged of it, by Halloween. Maybe that’s two months. Maybe three. Perhaps, it is just one. No matter what, we are still talking about neutral site postseason games for November and December.

At some point, Major League Baseball has to ask itself whether this is both plausible and whether this is worth it. Remember, part and parcel with this is these same players, pitchers especially, are going to have to be ready just a month or two later to begin the 2021 season.

Really, can baseball have a full free agency, Rule 5 Draft, GM and Winter Meetings, and a full offseason in the Month of January alone. Really, the deeper we go into 2020, the more we are going to affect the 2021 season. That’s just compounding the problem.

With that in mind, in lieu of a 2020 regular season, Major League Baseball should host the Major League Baseball Classic modeled after the World Baseball Classic.

Looking at the World Baseball Classic, there are four pools who play a round robin tournament. The top two two teams from each pool advance to the next round. Those eight teams comprise two new pools. From there, the top four teams advance to a single elimination semifinals and championship. The key for Major League Baseball is to find a way to make that tournament played over three weeks into a format which makes sense for baseball.

That is partially going to depend on the amount of time baseball has to play. For the moment, let’s assume baseball cannot resume games until Labor Day.

With there being six divisions, you have six built-in pools of five teams a piece. What is interesting about each pool is all but one division has at least one all-weather venue which can be utilized by each division. As a result, those locations should be tabbed to host each pool/division:

Based upon a myriad of factors, MLB can select a venue for each pool. Whether they feel it prudent to have six different stadiums where they can play or fewer venues is up to baseball and governmental authorities. They can also go to another location if deemed necessary.

Depending on the amount of games baseball feels it can have, baseball can focus on their biggest rivalries by treating each division like a World Baseball Classic pool. They can use this to determine the three division winners like they normally would during the regular season.

From there, MLB can go with two different options. They can limit the next round to just the three division winners with a double elimination to determine the teams who go to the best-of-seven LCS. They could also make a larger pool with six teams (top two from each division) with the top two teams moving to an LCS.

With the six teams, you could also have a double elimination between the three Wild Card teams and start the LDS series from there as you usually would.

Overall, the ideal you are looking for is to set up your typical best-of-seven LCS and World Series. By setting it up under a World Baseball Classic format, you limit travel, and you are able to go from game to game without issue. If there needs to be doubleheaders, it is easier to do since everyone is in one place.

The key is to get players in one place to let you play as many games as possible as quickly as possible. If you are able to get fans there, all the better, but at this point that may be a pipe dream.

Whether it is this plan or another plan, it is becoming increasingly difficult to have any form of a season. With that being the case, MLB should be seriously considering moving to a tournament format. Fortunately, with their already operating the World Baseball Classic, they know which venues can best accommodate a tournament, and they know the logistics which need to be in place to run that format.

No, this is not an April Fool’s Joke. Rather, looking at everything happening, you do have to wonder how it can be possible for Major League Baseball to play games in 2020. Right now, we know the NCAA Tournament was canceled, and the MLB, NHL, and NBA seasons are currently suspended. However, it is more than that. Look at the events which have been currently postponed:

In addition to these events, there is growing speculation Wimbeldon will have to be canceled. There are two reasons for the expected cancelation, both COVID19 related. First and foremost, no one has any idea when we can resume our normal lives and attend sporting events. The other reason is with the COVID19 outbreak the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club is unable to be maintained. With it not being able to be maintained, it is difficult to ascertain when the courts can be brought into safe playing condition.

That last point hits home with baseball. There are 30 Major League ballparks which are presumably not being maintained. As a result, in addition to the time players need to prepare to start playing baseball again, there is also the time ground crews need to make fields playable again. That may not make much time, but it is a factor.

More important than that is the public health. With the Olympics being postponed a full year, we see organizers are not confident they will be able to host events from late July into August. Considering the scale of the event, you can understand an earlier cancellation, but in the end, this is the first sign we’re probably not going to see sporting events this summer.

On that note, take a look at the events which have been rescheduled. The April and May events which are being postponed are mostly being scheduled for September. Right there is an indication as to when organizers of these events believe we can reasonably return to seeing sporting events being played.

If events cannot be held until late August or even early September, you have to wonder when or if baseball can return. Remember, baseball needs to get maintenance crews to attend fields left not maintained for months, and they need players to get back into playing shape withe some form of a Spring Training.

That is all before you realize MLB initially said it will not return to play until it was deemed safe for spectators to attend events. That is becoming increasingly unlikely, and perhaps that is why Joel Sherman of the New York Post reported MLB is now investigating playing initially without crowds to play as many games as possible.

At this point, baseball isn’t even contemplating playing before mid-May and with each passing day that becomes unrealistic. At this point, everyone needs to begin asking themselves, fans or no fans, can they even play baseball in 2020?

That answer might be no.

Major League Baseball had each team contribute $1 million to pay hourly wage employees affected by the COVID19 shut down. Some teams have gone over and above that by increasing that amount independently. The Mets, well, as we know by now, they do things differently than everyone else.

JUST IN: Letter sent to all staff members for the New York Mets. pic.twitter.com/9NAh6diNlr

— Gary Sheffield Jr. (@GarysheffieldJr) March 30, 2020

Based upon this letter, while the Mets purportedly contributed $1 million to the fund for the ballpark employees affected by the COVID19 shutdown, they are not going to pay those employees. Actually, that’s not entirely true. Rather, the Mets are not going to “re-employ” some of those people they have employed in year’s past and were expected to employ again in 2020.

There may be an important distinction in that these letters went out to people not directly employed by the Mets but rather the Queens Baseball Company, L.L.C. Whatever their function, it is important to note this was a letter sent on Mets letterhead by the Mets Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer. According to Bloomberg, this company is a wholly owned subsidiary of the New York Mets.

Now, you can question the authenticity of this letter as it’s existence has yet to be fully confirmed or denied by any news reporting agency. Also, at least in theory, it is possible this letter is indeed real, and in a separate correspondence the Mets sent payment to these same people. It is also possible by sending these employees letters like this, they are making it easier for them to pursue other employment opportunities, to the extent there are any, or to obtain benefits, which is unclear at the moment.

At the moment, no one knows when baseball is going to return. With that being the case, those employees most affected have no way of knowing when their next paycheck is going to come. If this letter is real, it at least appears the Mets plan is to simply not pay those employees and to let them find money elsewhere.

We have known for years the Mets have had financial difficulties, and before the COVID19 outbreak the Wilpons had not secured their share of the funding for the Islanders new arena,.

At this moment, we don’t even know the Mets capacity to pay anyone with their being no games played. We also don’t know what measures anyone in the Mets organization are willing to take (for e.g. pay cuts) to get these people paid.

The only thing we know for sure is there are people wondering when they’ll be able to be paid again, and based on this letter, it seems that future pay day will not be coming from the Mets.