An analysis
Is this the week we find out whether there will be an MLB season and, if so, when it will begin and how many games the teams will attempt to play?
It should be the week we find out, even if it may not be.
More than two months of unseemly squabbling between owners and players led to the Players Association declaring over the weekend that further negotiations would be “futile” and calling on MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred to mandate how many games will be scheduled at the players’ full per-game salaries.
"It's time to get back to work," Players Association executive director Tony Clark said in a statement. "Tell us when and where."
“We are disappointed that the MLBPA has chosen not to negotiate in good faith,” MLB responded. “We will … after consulting with ownership determine the best course to bring baseball back to our fans.”
MLB didn’t say when it will make that determination and hasn’t appeared to be in a rush throughout this process.
The weekend's dueling statements came three days after Manfred declared the pandemic-delayed season "unequivocally" will be played, whether by negotiated agreement or his unilateral order. While the owners sought an additional pay cut from the players in a negotiated settlement, Manfred is empowered under a March 26 agreement to order a season only at the players' full prorated salary per game.
MLB last week proposed a 72-game schedule at up to 80% of the players' per-game salary. The union rejected that proposal, insisting on full pay for each game played. The owners have contended that paying full prorated salaries for games without fans in attendance will result in additional financial losses for the clubs. To pare those losses, MLB has threatened to implement a shortened schedule of as few as 50 games at full per-game pay.
Now that the union has ended the negotiations over pay, such as they were, Manfred and the owners are faced with setting the schedule. If they go with 50 or so games, their argument apparently would be that more aren’t financially feasible at full pay. The players are skeptical of that argument, to say the least. Their general skepticism about the owners’ economic claims grew after a weekend report by Sports Business Journal that MLB and Turner Sports have agreed on “broad terms” of a new TV contract that will pay MLB an average of around $470 million per year from 2022 through 2028, up from $325 million per year under the current deal that expires after 2021.
Economics aside, the calendar at this point clearly would allow more games than 50, even while keeping the original Sept. 27 end of the regular season. Say it takes a week to line up logistics and start “spring training II” and another three weeks for players to train. That means the regular season could open in mid-July, or thereabouts, if a plan were implemented this week. Under the original 2020 schedule, the Braves would have had 65 games after July 16 and 50 after Aug. 2.
If the owners don’t want more than 50 games, they might stall the process and run off more calendar.
The start of the 2020 season -- whenever it happens, if it happens -- won’t end the acrimony between players and owners. Both sides could later file grievances claiming a lack of good-faith negotiations. But answers about this season should come soon, for those baseball fans who haven’t become so fed up by the squabbling that they just don’t care anymore.
