With Coronavirus wreaking havoc on the world, virtually all sports leagues have entirely shut down. There is hope that with the right precautions taken, the virus spread can slow to a point where normality returns. However, the chances of fans being a part of the 2020 MLB season looks bleaker by the day.
If MLB decides to move forward with playing the 2020 season without fans, the logical thing to do would be to move all games to Arizona. There are ten spring training facilities, an Arizona Fall league facility, Arizona State University's field, along with the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Chase Field.
Moving all games to one state where all facilities are within 50 miles of each other would make travel logistics simple. As a side benefit, increase player productivity by allowing all athletes the ability to get meaningful sleep. Not frequent, but much too often, we read about teams getting to a team hotel at 3 a.m. for a game at 1 p.m. the next day. That's not only unacceptable, but it's unsafe and unfair to the players.
Shorter travel routes would have cost savings for MLB owners. No longer would they have to pay for private planes to fly across the country and at a time when MLB teams will be looking to cut costs, this presents an opportunity to do so.
There are 101 regulation-sized fields in Arizona, which should be enough to support all 30 MLB, 261 Minor League Teams, and six Arizona Fall League teams. Even if all 297 teams played their seasons and played on the same day, there would still be enough fields if each field had three games played on it daily.
Maintaining the ten main fields plus Chase Field, it would be advisable only to allow major league games with doubleheaders scheduled. No team would have an actual home field, but staying close to the team's facility would be given preference.
The biggest hurdle to conquer would be finding facilities to host the 15 teams in the Grape Fruit League. It would take significant compromise and accommodations, but I believe that the 15 teams in the Cactus League would be willing to share their facilities if it meant saving the season. Moving games to Florida shouldn't be considered in a time where it looks as if it'll be America's epicenter of the Coronavirus.
Moving all games to Arizona would allow the teams to play through November (Imagine a World Series over the week of Thanksgiving?). Playing in Arizona would let each team play roughly 25 more games than they would if they ended their season at the end of September. For the sake of baseball, move the games to Arizona.
