We finally have a proposal that could lead to some positive movement in baseball’s economic situation. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports that the league intends to propose a shorter season in which players would be receiving a full prorated share of their salaries.
This development comes just one day after the MLBPA sent their counterproposal to the owners on Sunday afternoon. In their counter, the players asked for the following:
- A 114-game season that would begin on June 30th and end on October 31st
- Opt-out for all players if they don’t want to play this season
- Potential deferral of salaries by teams if the 2020 postseason were to be cancelled
- Expanded playoff format for the 2020 and 2021 seasons
Now that it looks like some sort of agreement has been reached on the salary side of things, both the MLB and MLBPA will need to find a way to compromise between the 50 and 114 games. It seems likely that middle ground may still fall short of the original 82 games proposed last week, especially with owners now making it clear that the only way players will get their prorated share of the salary is to play the least amount of games that makes it financially possible.
Personally, I think a season of 50-60 games has its pros and cons. By playing such a limited number of games, each one has increased importance to a team’s overall success. I believe there’s also a stronger chance a season like this could reel in more of your “average” sports fans who find the normal 162 games to be too much of a drag. Bringing new life to a dying game should be the goal, right? Would making the playoffs in this scenario bring the same type of excitement a 162 game season would? I’m not too sure. It would definitely feel different, but these are unprecedented times so any sort of postseason baseball would be welcomed after enduring the rebuild and mediocrity that came before it.
Overall, this was a very quick response by the league and gives us all a feeling of hope after things seemed to be trending towards no baseball in 2020. We’ll see what the union comes back with later in the week. Hopefully, a season of meaningful length can still be reached.
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