How to restart the baseball season sustainably

You may have read that a number of early games in the season have been cancelled due to many of the players testing positive for Covid-19.  There is talk of the season being unsustainable, but it seems a simple remedy has not yet been tried — dock a player 30 percent of his salary if he tests positive.  That should limit the degree of nightclubbing and carousing, keeping in mind that the already-infected are probably some of the worst offenders and they have been “taken care of.”  Furthermore, the players would have a strong incentive to monitor each other, not wanting to be on the receiving end of an infection from a teammate.

While that arrangement presumably runs counter to the collective bargaining agreement, that agreement can and should be revised if season cancellation is the true alternative.

If need be, the fines can be redistributed to the players who never test positive, thus keeping total compensation constant.

Incentives don’t always work, but if you haven’t even tried them something is amiss.  Do I hear “35 percent”?  “Forty”?  “Thirty-seven percent and three lashes”?

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