Shorter season may shift dynamics
Fast starts, injuries more vital if Manfred imposes his schedule
In April of last year, before most of the country turned an eye to baseball, the Astros slayed the sport’s most talked about team.
The Seattle Mariners earned the title almost by accident. The club was not trying to win, mired in a rebuild general manager Jerry Dipoto still terms a “step back.”
Expectations were scarce. Success seemed more rooted in prospect promotions and potential trades than wins or losses. But the Mariners began bashing the baseball and turning heads. Burly designated hitter Daniel Vogelbach became something of a cult hero. Seattle scored eight or more runs in seven of its first 15 games. When the Astros arrived at T-Mobile Park, the Mariners were 13-2.
Houston swept the threegame series, starting Seattle’s plunge toward the bottom of the American League West. The Mariners finished 68-94, making their hot start nothing more than a footnote in a frustrating season. The Astros won a franchiserecord 107 regular-season games. A more talented team separated itself from the rest, the goal of a baseball’s 162-game season.
If a 2020 season occurs, it will contain nowhere near 162 games. Owners and the players union continue to trade return-to-play proposals the other side finds subpar. Frustration centers on compensation. Players insist they will not accept anything but the prorated salaries they agreed upon in March.
Within that same agreement, commissioner Rob Manfred was given authority to unilaterally impose a shorter season if the two sides cannot come to an agreement. As days continue to pass without a resolution, that outcome becomes increasingly likely.
Should Manfred exercise that power, it’s believed the season would contain 48 to 54 regularseason games. Teams like the
2019 Mariners, without a prayer for postseason play under normal circumstances, have a real opportunity.
The club’s 13-2 start would be more than just a nice early season story — it could alter a division race. Interest in each regular-season game would ostensibly increase, as would a club’s strategic urgency.
A 54-game season seems easily manageable — six games against each of the nine opponents on each team’s regionalized schedule. The Astros, for example, could play a three-game series at home and on the road against every team in the American League West and National League West.
Reservations about the season are obvious. Can a representative champion be crowned from such a small sample size? The defending World Series champion Washington Nationals were 19-31 after 50 games in 2019. Teams built to win by utilizing depth over a long stretch — those like the Astros, Dodgers and Yankees — could fall victim to a lesser team riding a Mariners-like hot streak.
One injury could derail a season. Or players might play through injuries they’d otherwise recover from more methodically during a long season. That, coupled with a possible injury spike due to a quick spring training, poses concerns.
While an imposed short season might be the last resort, it’s the second week in June, and no agreement has been reached. Thoughts of a July 4 opening day are dead. Available days on which owners will allow the sport to resume are dwindling.
Owners are firmly against extending the season into November, fearful that a second wave of coronavirus could threaten the postseason — where a sizable chunk of revenue is made. It’s why the union’s 114-game proposal was rejected.
The league countered Monday with a 76-game proposal starting July 10 and ending Sept. 27. It restructured some sentences and took away free-agent draft pick compensation this offseason — an olive branch toward pending free agents who wonder what the market might resemble after the pandemic.
None of it may matter. The league continued to deny the union its most important demand — full prorated salaries — making the proposal an all but certain nonstarter in a negotiation period full of them.
The league proposed a 76game regular season with 75 percent prorated salaries if the 2020 postseason is completed, according to ESPN. If the playoffs are canceled, players would receive only 50 percent of their prorated salaries.
Monday’s plan, in a best-case scenario if the playoffs happen, would pay the players $1.432 billion, according to ESPN. A 57game season at full prorated salaries would be $1.4319 billion.
Since agreeing to play for their prorated salaries in March, players have not budged from their stance. Last week, before the league’s most recent proposal, union chief Tony Clark said players “resoundingly rejected” any thought of a second salary reduction.
“It’s frustrating to have a public labor dispute when there’s so much hardship. I hate it,” Nationals reliever Sean Doolittle tweeted Monday. “But we have an obligation to future players to do right by them. We want to play. We also have to make sure that future players won’t be paying for any concessions we make.”