Major League Baseball is inching closer to a blueprint for a potential 2020 season. The league will hold a conference with all 30 club owners on Monday to discuss its plans, according to a report by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal. If the owners sign off on the nuts and bolts of the layout, which are outlined below, the league will present its proposal to the players’ union on Tuesday.
The league is still aiming to begin the season in early July, which should allow for about an 80-game schedule. Spring training 2.0 would begin a few weeks before the proposed Opening Day date.
The schedule would look different, in terms of matchups and opponents. Teams would face opponents only from their own division and the same geographic division in the opposite league. In other words, a National League East club like the Mets would only face teams from the NL East (Phillies, Nationals, Braves and Marlins) and AL East (Yankees, Red Sox, Rays, Blue Jays and Orioles). The goal is to limit travel as much as possible amid the coronavirus pandemic.
In addition, teams would open the season in as many home cities as possible. New York City is hit the hardest by the coronavirus and both the Mets and Yankees would need to be prepared to play at Citi Field and Yankee Stadium by early July.
If teams are unable to open in their cities, clubs can temporarily relocate to their spring training sites in Florida or Arizona, or Major League stadiums in other parts of the country.
An expanded postseason would follow the shortened season, featuring seven teams in each league instead of five. Under this proposal, the team with the best record in each league would receive a bye in the wild-card round and advance to the Division Series, per The Athletic’s report. The two other division winners and wild card with the best record would face the bottom three wild cards in a best-of-three wild-card round.
The season would also begin without fans.
But this blueprint, still unofficial, will only be possible if the league and players’ union come to a financial agreement. The league believes it will end up spending more on player salaries than it would earn in revenue for every regular-season game played without fans, according to the report. On the other hand, the players’ union believes the national TV revenue (including postseason TV) would greatly benefit the league’s financial position.
The players already agreed, in March, to prorate their salaries in a shortened season. Any effort to further reduce their pay will lead to added friction between the league and the union.
Even an official plan would be subject to change based on the forthcoming details of the coronavirus pandemic. At the end of the day, both the league and union are at the mercy of the outbreak when it comes to planning a schedule, playing locations, backup plans if a player tests positive and financial decisions that may or may not change.
