If Major League Baseball has its way, the 2021 season will be the second-straight delayed and shortened campaign.
MLB has formally proposed pushing back the start of its season from April 1 to April 28 and shortening the schedule from 162 to 154 games per team, according to multiple reports. The season would conclude October 10, per The Athletic, and the postseason would stretch into early November. The rationale is that a later start would allow time for COVID-19 cases to decline and for greater distribution of vaccines.
Spring Training, which is scheduled to begin in little more than three weeks, would also be pushed back to mid-March.
The MLB Players Association is said to be skeptical of the owners’ proposal, with ESPN reporting that the union is concerned “on multiple fronts” — including that the plan gives commissioner Rob Manfred greater power to suspend play “and, accordingly, potentially cut into players’ pay.” According to The Athletic, while the owners’ are reportedly offering players their full 162-game salaries for what would be a shortened season, players have received no assurances that they will be paid for games lost due to COVID-19. Per the report, they want either an explicit promise that they will be paid for those games or to receive concessions in return.
According to USA Today, the players are expected to reject the proposal Monday. Sans a deal, Spring Training and the regular season would begin as scheduled.
MLB and the MLBPA spent months in bitter negotiations over the format of the 2020 season, which did not begin until July and consisted of 60 games per team. At issue, then as now, was player salary. Players had agreed to play for pro-rated salaries, meaning that the fewer games played, the less money they made. MLB was willing to schedule more games, but only if the players agreed to play for only a portion of the pro-rata — a deal-breaker for the union.
[News from ESPN.com 1.31, USA Today 1.31, The Athletic 1.31]
