Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports
The enemy they know — the owners — has dominated the headlines and tweets and outbursts.
The biggest problem the Players Association is facing, though, is the invisible one that cannot be negotiated with.
As Major League Baseball and its players union continue trading offers and barbs back and forth, now 10 games apart in what qualifies as significant progress and dismaying distance, still without a deal to play baseball on June 19, it has seemed slightly further bending on each side would return teams to the field. Friday represented a reality check, though, reminding why they stopped playing baseball in the first place.
In Arizona, the Giants closed their Scottsdale facility after one person who had been in the facility and one family member exhibited COVID-19 symptoms Thursday. About 20 people were being tested with results pending.
The Giants once considered hosting their 2.0 version of spring training in Arizona, where the Department of Health Services said Friday morning there were 3,246 new confirmed cases in the past 24 hours. It’s the largest increase in the state in a day so far.
In Florida, where about half the teams conduct spring training, five Phillies players and three staff members — the same team Gabe Kapler managed last year — were confirmed to have tested positive for COVID-19, the team announced, though it cannot yet have a gauge on others who possibly have been infected. That camp, in Clearwater, has been closed indefinitely. About 5 miles north, in Dunedin, the Blue Jays shuttered their own camp after a player reportedly exhibited coronavirus symptoms. The Tampa Bay Lightning also shut down their facilities because of positive tests.
Meanwhile, baseball tries to push forward. The owners and Players Association will continue haggling, hopefully meeting somewhere in the middle of a 60- and 70-game season before expanded playoffs. Assuming the owners can swallow a bit of pride and financial setback and the union can swallow a potential grievance, there will be momentum toward a season without fans and with obstacles and fears that were unimaginable even a few months ago.
Odds have it that the Giants would pick up spring training in San Francisco; “our hope is that the situation and environment will allow us to do that,” Farhan Zaidi said last week. They would trudge forward and hope to surprise fans in a season they were not going to enter with much expectations. There is a loud segment of fans, likely more composed of those who support teams without much hope, that wonders why MLB just doesn’t decide to take the year off.
For the owners, the answer is easy. They would not be taking the health risks of returning to the field, and they would be benefiting financially at a time they’re claiming enormous losses; just this week, the New York Post reported that MLB struck a billion-dollar deal with Turner Sports to continue to air the postseason. That oughta cover minor league salaries for a few centuries.
For the players, the answer is less tangible. Yes, they want to keep their jobs, earn a steady income in a field that is notoriously unforgiving to the aged, a field in which so often you make it and shortly disappear, as do those paychecks.
In that vein, let’s take a quick look at the Giants’ catchers, a pool of stars, potential stars and journeymen who have served as the backbone of the organization and project to continue doing the same:
— Just about all that is keeping Buster Posey from Hall of Fame certainty is cumulation. He has three World Series rings, an NL MVP award and six All-Star nods. At 33, though, he is running out of time to add the late-career hits and home runs that would guarantee him that baseball immortality. In the last 50 years, six catchers have reached Cooperstown. The just-elected Ted Simmons is last on the list with 248 career home runs. Posey has 140. Johnny Bench is last on that list with 2,048 hits. Posey has 1,380.
Missing a season matters to Posey.
— To back up the San Francisco icon, the Giants were to decide between Tyler Heineman and Rob Brantly, a decision that likely would not have to be made in this shortened year; with a taxi squad and with pitchers needing gloves to throw to in bullpen sessions, both could be carried on a roster.
For the now-29-year-old Heineman (Happy birthday!), entering major league action this year would mark just his sixth game. He played 604 games in the minors over eight seasons before finally getting a cup of coffee with Miami last year. He entered camp with a legitimate shot at regular playing time. If Heineman wants to stick with the Giants, Joey Bart is on his way and the just-drafted Patrick Bailey could move quickly.
Missing a season matters to Heineman.
— If not Heineman, Brantly’s left-handed bat could complement Posey’s. Brantly, a ball of energy, has kept in shape as his Instagram will show you, very much ready for a chance that came once last year: He had one at-bat with the Phillies (a strikeout).
It was his first plate appearance since 2017, when he appeared in 13 games with the White Sox. Those were his first games since 2015, when he played in 14 with the White Sox.
Brantly is now 30, his major league life fleeting. Missing a season matters to Brantly.
— And how about Bart, who has blistered minor league pitching for two years and needs to prove he can stay healthy? How about Bailey, who’s sitting at home in North Carolina without word from the Giants about what comes next?
The coronavirus matters and threatens and deserves every bit of caution, continuing to be far and away the biggest obstacle to a 2020 season. There is legitimate reason, though, white flags are not being raised yet.