MLB discussing eliminating leagues and divisions for potential 2020 season, per report

For those that have been living under a rock for the last couple of months, first: congratulations, you have not missed anything worth much since 2020 has been a total dumpster fire so far and you have also likely been a strong user of social distancing which is to be applauded. Second, to catch you up: the 2020 baseball season has been in dire jeopardy due to the COVID-19 outbreak and officials have been scrambling for ideas as to how to potentially play even an abbreviated season.

There have been a lot of challenges to this given the differences we do see and will continue to see in how state and local governments deal with this pandemic and, in particular, the allowance of larger groups of people to assemble. Now, no one seems to think that games with actual fans in the stands are going to happen anytime soon, games with TV crews, players, and team personnel are at least being explored as a possibility. We now know at least one option that is on the table.

There had been some reporting earlier that MLB was looking at playing games in Arizona with the players under strict quarantines when not at the games already, so this seems to be a natural extension of that idea. The idea here is just that instead of the usual National/American leagues and divisional divides, the season will just be played using the existing spring training Cactus and Grapefruit leagues. The existing issues involving infrastructure, player isolation, etc. still exist under this plan (it isn’t like most spring training facilities are exactly built to please and care for major leaguers for long periods), but at least this is a step in the direction of baseball actually happening.

One other thing that is a potential problem is that the state of Florida is getting hammering by COVID-19 right now. While the governor of Florida has been somewhat lax when it comes to his response to the disease which may make the ability to hold games in Florida more likely, it also has the problem of playing in that state not exactly super safe.