As MLB’s haggling continues, a question emerges: Who cares if there’s a 2020 season?
The NBA and NHL have announced plans for their return to competition, and athletic directors are increasingly optimistic that college football will be played in the fall.
Meanwhile, Major League Baseball continues to spin its wheels deeper and deeper into the mud, and the opportunity for the sport to serve as a beacon during these darkened times has dimmed considerably.
A 50-game season forced upon the players by the owners stands as the best-case scenario in light of what has happened the past few weeks and Monday.
What appeared to be actual good news arrived in the morning, when reports surfaced that MLB’s owners had made a new proposal to the MLB Players Association.
A 76-game season would be played with players making 75% of their pro-rated salaries. Teams would not receive draft pick compensation for signing free agents this offseason, long a sticking point with the union, and players would share from a larger pool of playoff money.
Sounds good, right? Well ...
The players called the offer a “step backward.” They said they are guaranteed only 50% of their pro-rated salary, and would make 75% only if the postseason isn’t canceled by a second wave of coronavirus.
Also included is a change to the operations manual, requiring players to sign a waiver acknowledging the risk of playing during a pandemic. The players see that as the owners not wanting to be responsible for the health risk the players are taking in addition to the salary risk if no postseason were to be held.
Ultimately, though, the players want all of their pro-rated salary. The owners say they can’t possibly pay that, despite the tremendous wealth that allowed them to purchase an MLB team in the first place and even though they agreed to it in March.
This appears to be the hill both sides are willing to die on, and cause a festering open wound to the sport along with it. The stubbornness also ties to the upcoming battle on a new collective bargaining agreement, and a failure to reach a compromise there will only worsen the damage to the national pastime.
The picture being painted now is of billionaires with their empty pants pockets turned inside out and millionaires unwilling to sacrifice any more of their pay, which would still be more than most Americans make and infinitely more than the 40 million unemployed Americans are currently making.
It’s quite a bubble baseball lives in.
Here’s a question: With all that is going on in the country, from the coronavirus pandemic to the calls for reform after George Floyd’s death, does anyone really care if there is baseball season?
That’s something baseball will learn once it settles on how to conduct its 2020 season. It could really burst their bubble.
Start with the 50-game season, which is strictly the owners’ attempt at seizing the biggest prize out there: The postseason portion of the national TV contract. It could be worth up to $1 billion, with expanded playoffs proposed by both sides, and the sooner the regular season ends, the better the chances are that a second wave of coronavirus is avoided.
But to play only 50 games basically wipes out the legitimacy of the season and any of the individual awards.
Take 2019, for instance. Joey Gallo very well may have been the American League MVP at 50 games. He only played 20 games the rest of the season.
The Washington Nationals, who won the World Series, were 19-31 after 50 games.
Gerrit Cole had a 4.11 ERA at 50 games, so kiss that $36 million-a-year contract goodbye in the offseason.
At least he would have received his full pro-rated salary, though.
Owners and players wouldn’t necessarily hear about fans’ discontent directly, with stadiums for now expected to be empty. No decision has been made on if MLB would allow Texas Rangers and Houston Astros fans to attend games under Texas’ reopening plan that allows up to 50% capacity at sports venues.
Meager TV ratings, sagging merchandising sales and declining ticket sales for next season are ways fans could make themselves heard. Slashing into franchise value would most hurt owners, who, again, are independently wealthy and see a baseball team as a fun-money account or a shiny toy they can show all their friends.
Owners make their money when their franchises are sold.
There’s that word again, money. That’s what the concept of an abbreviated season has been about all along.
Baseball wanted to be a part of the economic recovery and provide entertainment to those sheltering in place to avoid COVID-19.
The economy, based on the last jobs report, is doing better without MLB, and the ongoing bickering is about as entertaining as a root canal.
And there’s a pretty good chance that many Americans just don’t care if there’s a baseball season at all.
Baseball must not be able to see that from inside the bubbles it lives in.
This story was originally published June 8, 2020 at 2:44 PM.
