The Major League Baseball Players Association is considering a proposal by MLB to delay the start of the 2021 season, and if the union does not offer a counter-offer early next week, it is likely that spring begin in mid-February as scheduled, family sources with the situation told ESPN.
After months of scattered dialogue, the parties are in a similar position to last year when the coronavirus pandemic closed the season: disagreeing on the right path to follow. The league’s proposal to delay the start of spring training until the end of March and the start of the season until the end of April includes a 154-game schedule that would pay players their full salaries of 162 games, according to the sources.
The proposal makes MLBPA on multiple fronts, players and union sources told ESPN. Since pitchers have increased their readiness to begin spring training around Feb. 17, they are reluctant to stop and start again for the proposed spring training start on March 22 for to a season that would begin on April 28, according to sources. In addition, players believe that the language in the proposal would give Commissioner Rob Manfred more power than he currently has to cancel games and, consequently, potentially reduce players ’salaries.
The league does not agree with this interpretation. While Manfred had the right, under the March 26 agreement reached by the parties following the first days of the pandemic last year, to cancel games or close the sport, which he has considered in the middle of the first shoots, he never did it once the season started. The proposal, league sources said, aims to protect MLB from a worsening national situation, either a vaccine-resistant variant of COVID-19 or an unexpected rebound in cases.
The language, according to sources, gives Manfred the right to act if government restrictions prevent more than five teams from playing at a time, if travel is restricted or if “competitive integrity is undermined” by players sitting down due to of COVID-19. Both parties, the sources said, would retain their rights to take legal action. Disagreement over the breadth of the language could change if the parties continue to negotiate.
MLB’s desire to delay the season, according to league sources, is based on the recommendation of health experts and the likelihood that doing so will allow the 2021 season to take place when COVID-19 cases have decreased, particularly in Arizona, which currently has the highest rates in the country and where half the league has spring workouts. Cases in Arizona and Florida have declined recently, and health officials project that they will decrease even more between now and the proposal’s start date.
The possibility of an agreement is possible, but the animosity and mistrust between the parties is deep enough for the sources to have doubts about the likelihood of an agreement. Something as simple as the timing of the offer is a point of discussion. League leaders were frustrated with the union when in December it rejected the possibility of a delay unless players were paid for 162 games, which the league believes it agreed to in its proposal. In messages sent Sunday by player representatives to union bases obtained by ESPN, they called the proposal as close to spring training as an MLB “tactic”.
The last deal the parties made led to months of coming and going on when the 2020 season should begin, and Manfred ended up implementing a 60-game season when they couldn’t come to an agreement. Both sides accused the other of bad faith and the remnants of those negotiations remain palpable today as baseball finds out what its 2021 season will be like.
The union’s eight-player executive board and player representatives were briefed on the offer that was delivered on Friday, according to sources, and were skeptical on the road to a deal. They believe, the sources said, that because players are entitled to the payment of 162 games by the collective bargaining agreement, the terms of the offer – which will include expanding the postseason from 10 to 14 teams and add the designated batsman in the National League — they don’t offer enough to delay the season.
In the absence of an agreement, there are two possibilities.
The first and most likely, according to sources, would be for teams and players to show up at spring training sites on the dates they are due to report and proceed as scheduled. The other is that Manfred invokes the national emergency clause in the collective agreement and suspends the player’s uniform contract – a possibility, but one that would ensure that the parties face the court, a perspective that it is not attractive to both, according to sources.
MLB’s desire to delay the season has been clear for months. Currently, there are almost twice as many daily cases of COVID-19 as on July 24, 2020, when the 60-game MLB season began. The possibility of an outbreak affecting individual teams remains acute. The Miami Marlins and the St. Louis Cardinals last year missed long periods due to outbreaks and needed to include double rounds in their calendars to get closer to their full number of games.
It’s not just the fear of an outbreak that fuels owners ’desire to delay the season. Doing so would allow for a greater proliferation of the coronavirus vaccine and increase the likelihood that fans will go to the stadiums, and that local health officials will allow more fans into the stadiums. In talks with the union, the league claimed it lost billions of dollars last season, a figure that has not been verified. Since regular season stadium revenue did not exist in 2020, revenue certainly went down.
The frustration surrounding what MLB believed was a reasonable compromise was palpable on Sunday. Discussions with the union have been scattered and at this point two players said it is likely it is too late in the process to reach an agreement. While players said they recognize that a delay could be pragmatic, do so when some players are already in spring training cities – and they all have housing they would have to cancel, which would probably cost thousands and even and all tens of thousands of dollars — is not practical.
“We’re ready to play,” one player said. “The NFL is playing. The NBA is playing. The NHL is playing. Colleges are playing. Why shouldn’t we play?”
The NBA shortened its season by 10 games in early November, about three weeks before the training camps opened and six weeks before their first games were played. The NHL reduced its season by about a third. Both came from shortened seasons that ended later than usual. The MLB season ended in time after an extended postseason, something the league would like to implement again.
The union has expressed skepticism, fearing that the expansion of the playoffs will have a negative effect on the free agent market because teams are more likely to play for a total of victories in the 80s rather than in the 90s. league and team executives disagree, arguing that the extended postseason, in this case three sets of wildcards in each league, is better for the sport’s long-term health. In the proposal, MLB secured a $ 80.9 million fund for players participating in the postseason.
Reaching this juncture, of course, is imperative and the league believes a delay makes it more likely to happen, and more likely for players to play scheduled matches to receive their full salary. In the absence of an agreement, the extended playoffs could well be off the table until 2022, and the designated universal hitter, seven-inning double sets and a runner opening second base to extrainnings would be in the air.