What a waste of time. Instead of the 2020 MLB season beginning in early July, with almost no competing sports, it is now set to begin on July 23 or 24, when it will be directly competing with several other sports.
The more aggravating aspect of this delay is that it did nothing to smooth over the underlying labor dispute. When it became apparent that no fans would be allowed into stadiums when the season did begin, the owners and players were at odds over how long the season would be because the two sides had earlier agreed that the players would be paid on a per-game basis. The owners now wanted as short a season as possible, as they would be losing money for every game they played, while the players would be losing money for every game they didn’t play.
So, you might be thinking, the owners actually won this battle by delaying the start of the season. No, because the players are undoubtedly going to file a grievance to get back the money they would have made had the season started on time. The grievance will work its way through the laborious legal process in parallel to games being played, and won’t be resolved for months, even years. The potential of losing the grievance (and having to pay hundreds of millions as a result) is going to hang over the owners in the meantime. That’s why one of their key demands in a settlement was the players agreeing not to file a grievance.
The players, meanwhile, are only going to get 60 game checks instead of 82, and although they could possibly get more if they win their grievance, aren’t going to get some of the benefits they would have got had they signed an agreement, such as a higher share of playoff revenue (plus an expanded playoff), and a universal DH through 2021 (which would effectively make it permanent).
What makes this non-agreement even worse is that this was a chance to repair some hurt feelings, and perhaps make a future work stoppage less likely. Because the entire if going to lose billions of dollars, this coming offseason is going to be brutal to any free agent, as there are likely going to be a record number of non-tenders flooding the market. That will make the relationship between players and owners even worse, and then of course the CBA expires after the end of 2021 season. If a strike or lockout affects the 2022 season, then even more financial and reputational damage will be done to the sport.
Meanwhile, fans will have been without baseball for four months by the time the regular season begins, and with nothing gained; no labor peace and no financial stability. I fully expect many teams, including the Indians, to dump players after this season as possible in an attempt to cut costs. And if there are as many teams doing that as I think there will be, they’ll be trading for pennies on the dollar.But before that horrible scenario plays out, the Indians are going to have as good a shot of any team of winning the World Series. I say that because their revised 60-game schedule will be played solely among AL and NL Central teams, meaning that the Indians will have one of the easiest schedules in baseball.:
MLB has submitted a 60-game regular-season schedule for review by the Players Association. In order to mitigate travel, the schedule would include 10 games for each team against its four divisional opponents, along with 20 games against the opposite league’s corresponding geographical division (for example, the AL East will play the NL East, and so on).
There’s all kinds of other changes because of the shortened season, which I’ll go over next time.