As 2021 season gets underway, baseball is at a crossroads
There are 15 major league baseball games scheduled today and every one will be preceded by a rendition of our National Anthem. In most cases the seventh inning stretch will feature the singing of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”
So much for tradition.
The song they ought to be playing is “Bridge Over Troubled Waters.”
Perhaps Tightrope Over Troubled Waters would be even better but as far as I know there is no such song. The Simon and Garfunkel classic will do. It’s a great metaphor for major league baseball as it tries to wend its way from a past, that isn’t coming back, to future that is largely unknown. This season is a bridge of sorts, taking the game across a nasty cauldron full of perils — some that are home-grown and some that are products of the world at large. All are dangerous and baseball has to be careful not to fall off the bridge and into that cauldron.
The 2020 season was an act of desperation — a mini-season with a hastily made-up schedule and several hastily made-up rules, some of which were introduced on the fly. The only goal was to salvage the lucrative network contracts for the postseason. To that extent the season was successful.
Guess what? Most of those hastily made-up rules remain in place as 2021 begins. All extra innings will begin with a runner planted on second base. Makeup doubleheaders will consist of seven-inning games. At the outset, at least, there will be no minor league baseball so every team will have an “alternate workout site” for players not on its 26-man roster.
But there will be no mini-season. Each team is scheduled to play a full 162-game schedule, which will include games against every other team in its own league as well as 20 inter-league games.
There will be actual paying customers occupying some of the seats instead of those ugly cardboard cutouts. In most cases clubs will be permitted to sell 20 to 25% of their seats on Opening Day. It’s reasonable to think that percentage might increase as the weather warms up but only a cockeyed optimist would believe that unrestricted crowds will be a reality any time soon.
That means, of course, that teams will be able to receive revenue from ticket prices and concessions that was totally denied last year. But it also creates the possibility for new headaches.
Last year, for instance, a COVID concern caused the Phillies to postpone a scheduled threegame series against the Yankees. The Yankees, however, weren’t idle during that time. Major League Baseball did some deft juggling and sent the Yankees to Baltimore for three games. There were other similar situations that were dealt with in a similar fashion. Despite weather postponements, COVID postponements and social protest postponements, every team, somehow, completed its 60-game schedule.
There were two reasons why Major League Baseball was able to pull that off. First, all of the teams were scheduled to play only teams in its own region of the country so travel concerns were minimal. Secondly, there were no ticket sales to games so there were no customers to consider when switching game sites.
Neither of those factors exist this year?
This year there is a chance that COVID concerns will wipe out a series between an East coast team and a West Coast team. Then what? Does Major League Baseball have a plan for such an eventuality or does it simply have its collective fingers crossed and hope that doesn’t occur?
What about the minor leagues? The current plan calls for the minors to begin play, May. If so, they’ll probably have the same limitations on crowd size that applies to major league teams. Will that produce enough revenue to allow these teams to operate? If not are the major league teams ready to pitch in and help? Or are “alternate workout sites” going to remain a part of baseball’s landscape all summer while the minor leagues, once again, remain shuttered?
Without a doubt, there are people inside the Commissioner’s Office who want to see the minor leagues operate and not for player development alone. MLB has announced an elaborate plan to use the minor leagues as laboratories to test rules that are likely to be applied to the major league game as early as next year. They want the minor leagues to experiment with rules that limit infield shifts, rules that would limit the number and scope of pickoff attempts and rules that would enlarge the size of the bases. And more.
We’ll discuss the specifics of those experiments another day. For now the important takeaway is those rules are in the pipeline. Along with the “temporary” COVID rules they will likely become part of the game once it gets across the bridge. So, likely, is major league expansion and new divisional alignments.
The tricky part is getting across that damn bridge. The COVID crisis isn’t all that’s down below. There is also a foamy labyrinth known as the Basic Agreement.
The Basic Agreements is a collective contract between the players and owners that outlines the economic rules for the game. The current edition expires at the end of this season and there will be no major league baseball played in 2022 until a new one is drafted, and that won’t be easy.
The players are angry that free agency no longer seems to work. They’re angry that too many players don’t achieve free agency until they’ve begun the downside of their careers. They’re angry that too many teams in a rebuilding mode ignore the free agent market or nibble around the edges. They’re angry that too many free agents are passed over by teams preferring less expensive, controllable players over high-priced veterans. They’re angry that too
many owners receive compensation for free agents they’ve lost and refuse to spend that money securing other players. They’re angry that too many teams keep major league-ready players in the minors in order to delay the start of their service-time clock. They’re angry...angry...ANGRY.
The owners, on the other hand, will be coming off two consecutive COVID-tarnished seasons and will probably be looking ahead to operating within a depression-ruptured economy. They’ll be led by a commissioner who made his fortune as a corporate lawyer who knows how to say “no” to a union. They won’t be particularly sympathetic to angry players.
Things could become very bitter before a settlement is reached but the game won’t get back to “normal” until that happens. Whenever that is, “normal” will have a new definition.
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Three years ago Jack Leiter was a New Jersey high school lad pitching for Delbarton of Morristown. Today he pitches for Vanderbilt University where he has become the most celebrated player in college baseball. Sometime this weekend he will take the mound against LSU and when he does he will be seeking to extend a string 16 consecutive hitless innings.
Jack is the son of former major leaguer Al Leiter. Eleven days ago he walked South Carolina’s leadoff batter, then retired the next 27 hitters he faced. Six days later, facing Missouri, he pitched seven hitless innings (there were two walks) before being lifted by a coach who was concerned about the pitch count.
Afterwards he said he didn’t have his good stuff.
Leiter is projected to be the second player chosen in this year’s draft.
We can only wonder what kind of player is projected ahead of him.
A FEW SPRING TRAINING STATISTICS: Jeff McNeil (.109 average) of the Mets had only five hits all spring. Still he reached base an amazing eight times via the hit by pitch...Pirates rookie Ke’Bryan Hayes batted .431. Eight of his 22 hits went for extra innings...Not many Yankees put up impressive numbers but one who did is Opening Day pitcher Gerrit Cole. He faced 74 batters, walking only three and striking out 24. Opponents batted a mere .214...Angels boosters are excited over the fact that Shohei Ohtani hit five homers and batted .552. They don’t say much about the fact that he pitched 101⁄3 innings and finished with an ERA of 12.19...The best pitching numbers were posted by Kenta Maeda of the Twins who allowed only one run in 181⁄3 innings. That lone run came on a solo homer. Maeda gave up only seven other hits and walked only one...Matt Olsen of the Athletics drove in 18 runs in 18 games...The Phillies’ Odubal Herrera batted only .231 but four of his 12 hits were homers...Former Thunder pitcher Caleb Smith, now with the Giants, struck out 25 batters in 21 innings but struggled the rest of the time. He finished the spring with an ERA of 8.57... Speaking of struggling, Matt Carpenter of the Cardinals had only two hits in 37 at bats. When his team broke camp his average stood at .054.