Are year-ending surgeries to Chris Sale and Noah Syndergaard signs the 2020 season will be scrapped?

December and January brought unbridled hope to the Yankiverse. We signed Gerrit Cole. We saw Houston get spanked for cheating (with Boston apparently next to bend over.) We watched the Redsocks trade Mookie Betts (actually twice, after the first deal collapsed.) The fates promised us a championship. Then came February.

Since camp opened, it's been NBC: Nothing But Crapola. James Paxton's back - out until June. Luis Severino's elbow - out until 2021. Aaron Judge's ribs - out until May. Giancarlo Stanton's whatever - out until whenever. 

But now, thanks to the global medical-economic meltdown - (out until, wait a minute, is he serious? Easter? April 12?) - the Yankee outlook has again turned sorta rosy. Lately, it's been like the last reel of The Godfather, when Al Pacino settles scores, and the villains drop, one by one. 

Justin Verlander - groin surgery. 
Chris Sale - Tommy John surgery.
Noah Syndergaard - Tommy John surgery.

And get this: No Yankee injuries. From a distance, you'd think we were back to a healed and healing Yankiverse. Or... are we just like NYC before the explosion? Is the injury count reliable? Do we really know what's out there? Nobody has been seen hobbling off the baselines because a) there are no baselines, and b) there are no Gammonites there to see it. If a tree falls in the forest, does Tyler Kepner tweet? 

The Yankees have now gone two weeks without a reported injury, a count that roughly coincides with the stoppage of spring training. Well, I don't believe it. We are simply back to that blissful, ignorant, unaware, winter hibernation, and whatever gonadal tweaks our horses feel, they'll keep it to themselves, for now.

All three TJ candidates - Severino, Sale and Syndergaard - seemed poised for bounce-back years, until suddenly, they weren't. That's the Babadook about elbows: Teams hope rest will heal them - they wait and wait - and then, one day, they abruptly throw in the towel. A new MRI shows something. Or somebody looks at an old MRI differently.

With the latest news though, I've begun to wonder if something else is afoot. Could the Redsocks and Mets know something that we don't? Could the 2020 season, like the 2020 Olympics, be postponed or even canceled?

Think this through with me.

From a civic, "League of Their Own" standpoint, the notion of teams playing in empty stadiums for home-bound fans feels nice. But owners won't want to pay their players for an entire year without gate revenues. When players are making $35 million a season, and payrolls run north of $200 million, TV ratings alone just won't cut it. 

For some time now, MLB has been heading toward a huge, ugly labor dispute between the owners and players union. Both sides have been bracing for a fight. Frankly, I believe the owners had been colluding for the last three years, causing the union to be more riled up than ever before. Now, the old line, "Never let a crisis go to waste," could serve the owners well.

A completely scrapped 2020 season - cloaked by the virus - would be a shot across the bow by the owners, withering the players' coffers and their ability to go on strike next spring. Of course, this is a worst-case scenario, and who knows what's going to happen: Every day is now a week, and weeks are months. But I wonder: Are the Mets and Redsocks throwing in the towel because they know something?