Why didn't MLB create "bubbles" for their season?
The NHL is in the second round of a truncated play off season, using only two specific arenas (Thanks, Canada!) for ALL games; players assigned to these arenas are said to be in a "bubble" that no one goes in or out of without a quarantine. Given that, once again, players and staff are popping hot for SARS-CoVID-19 on a baseball team, I have to wonder why the MLB didn't go with what has clearly been a safe and successful few rounds thus far for the NHL. It isn't as if they have actual fans in the stands to placate, so why this risk and continued cancelled games and quarantines?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/mets-player-staffer-test-positive-for-covid-19-game-vs-marlins-postponed/ar-BB18cDiY
Answers ( 2 )
I think the biggest difference is that the NBA and NHL were ready to begin their playoffs, whereas baseball had to start their major league season, from the beginning. Even if every series goes the full seven games, that's a total of 105 games. Major league baseball needs to host 900 games, then possibly as many as 65 post-season games.
So hockey and basketball was ready to play best-of-seven series, with each team playing the same team over and over, with games in each series taking place just about every other day. That means a round of 16 teams could play 4 games per day, two at each location (or all four at the same Florida location, for the NBA). But for baseball, you needed to play 15 games per day -- you can't possibly play them all at the same location. Even if you split them into a western, central, and eastern section, that's five games per day at each location -- there's still not enough time per day in each location to play them in one stadium.
(And it needs to be a stadium, not just a run of the mill ballpark somewhere, because you still need all the infrastructure for broadcasting the games on television and making use of instant replay calls that are reviewed at MLB headquarters in New York City.)
So you have to, at the very least, rotate a set of ten teams and five games per day through two cities -- and honestly, you can't play three games in a single day at a park because of extra-inning possibilities. So you'd realistically need three cities, with teams moving between the cities to create all the different match-ups between teams that a regular season requires.
And once you've reached that point, it's not much of a leap to just let the teams play at their home ballparks.