Before the Season Can Start...

Before the Season Can Start…

Welcome to 2021! Don’t you feel better now? Have you left all your problems behind because we passed the arbitrary date at which we restart our calendar? Did you achieve/fail/forget your resolutions yet? Have you been vaccinated? Have the hungry been fed and the unhoused sheltered? Have we achieved peace and justice for all? Are you better off now than you were in December? In March?

No? Hmm.

Never fear, we’ve got a patch for that! In just six weeks, all 30 MLB teams are supposed to pack up the trucks and head down to Arizona and Florida for Spring Training. Baseball won’t save your local bar or hardware store, but it can make youforgetfor a few hours, and won’t that be nice? This is a public anesthesia MLB provides for the low, low price of$10 billion per year plus interest (2020 notwithstanding). You’re welc— oh. Oh, dear.

We regret to inform you we are experiencing some technical malfunctions. It appears the structure holding MLB together is falling apart. You see, the offseason has barely gotten off the ground yet. Furthermore, the traditional baseball calendar can no longer be taken for granted and needs renegotiating. Much like an airplane, MLB can’t take off until all systems are a go, and, well, we took a rather severe beating on our last flight. While we can’t be sure of a delay just yet, here are all the matters that must be resolved before we can proceed.

The 2021 Calendar

The special agreements signed by MLB and the MLB Players Association governing the circumstances of the 2020 season have expired. Technically, the league reverts back to the Basic Agreement signed by both parties in 2016. That means 162 games, no DH in the National League, and playoffs with just the three division winners and two wild cards. As of right now, if the season started today, there would be no differences from 2019 except the three-batter minimum, which was scheduled for 2020 irrespective of the pandemic, and either no or limited fans in the stands. That’s up to state governments, not MLB.

That last one is a biggie. It means MLB will cry poor once more, demanding to renegotiate the agreement with the players again. MLB claims billions in losses from 2020,for which they’ve sued their insurance providers. It would be nice for those lawsuits to be resolved quickly so MLB will know if they get money back, but even if they win,they don’t have a history of negotiating in good faith with all their revenue, so it might not make much difference.

Anyway, the amount of money MLB did or did not lose is up for debate,especially since they’ve never opened their books to prove their claims.

Scott Boras disputed MLB’s assertion that it lost money in this pandemic season today on his annual winter meeting chat, saying teams “lost profits” — not money. An MLB spokesman reasserted in response that “clubs lost $3B — $100M per team.”— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman)December 16, 2020

Scott Boras disputed MLB’s assertion that it lost money in this pandemic season today on his annual winter meeting chat, saying teams “lost profits” — not money. An MLB spokesman reasserted in response that “clubs lost $3B — $100M per team.”

Whether they merely took in less revenue or actually lost real dollars—including all their hidden income streams— is debatable. Besides, all 30 teams are owned by billionaires,a class of people that has gained $1 trillion since the start of the pandemicin a country whereone in six people face food insecurityandup to 40 million could soon be evicted. This is the ugly side of shutting out the world for baseball. The price we pay for setting aside our worries for nine innings of entertainment is a complete loss of context. The impact of the pandemic doesn’t go away; it gets funhouse-mirror distorted until we’re actually told to believe we must Save The Billionaires while real people suffer.

None of that matters! In the money bubble in which MLB and the players negotiate, there are no hungry people and no one is losing their home. (Well, except the minor leaguers, but that’s another story.) The owners assert that they lost money in 2020 and will continue to lose money in 2021 as long as there are restrictions on attendance. Hence, the two sides must head back to the bargaining table to determine how much baseball we get this year, when it starts, and what it looks like.

In MLB’s hamfisted, bad faith negotiating through the media,they’ve announced there will be expanded playoffs, ashortened season beginning in May, andno universal DH. Given that we’re theoretically back to normal under the 2016 Basic Agreement, the only one of those sticking points in which MLB holds the cards is the DH. They can’t unilaterally change the season or postseason length.

The players havelittle incentive to agree to either a shortened season or an expanded playoff field. They lost 63 percent of their salaries last year, so they’ll be in no hurry to cut the schedule down from 162 again when the current agreement says they don’t have to.Permanently expanded playoffs would be abjectly terrible for them in every conceivable way.

None of this is about right or wrong, nor financial equity or fairness. It’s two sides fighting over a dinner plate, haggling over individual grains of rice, clawing and scraping to win as much food from the other as possible. It has nothing to do with how much they’ve already filled their robust bellies, as the waiter brings the check to the starved masses pounding on the restaurant windows from the outside.

Who Plays Where?

All 30 teams have to build their rosters for the coming year, just as they must in any other offseason. Nearly every big-name free agent remains on the market,and apart from one torrid day in San Diego, we’ve had hardly any major trades whatsoever.

Does it feel like the winter is moving slower than usual?That’s because it is. By the time January rolls around, most major free agents have usually found new homes. The biggest name we’ve seen sign with a new team this winter has been James McCann,who ranked 16th on MLB Trade Rumors’ list of the top 50 free agents.

The obvious reason for the hangup is all the financial uncertainty. With MLB claiming losses— “claiming” being the operative word— few teams want to spend money to improve their roster. It’s a little difficult to commit $125 million to J.T. Realmuto or D.J. LeMahieu whilst simultaneously squeezing the MLBPA for a shorter schedule and expanded playoffs. Besides, as the Ricketts family— owners of the Cubs— has shown,money comes first, and winning comes second. (For the record,the Ricketts’ are worth more than $5.3 billion.)

By and large, all the negotiations described above will have to be resolved before teams can fill their rosters. That will inform them how much they could be willing to spend. This is the implicit carrot they dangle over the MLBPA. “Give us what we want or Trevor Bauer won’t get his fat contract!” Of course, even if the players capitulate—as they often do— there’s no guarantee owners won’t just pocket the money anyway. Why would they spend money to win baseball games when they could just… not? Besides, if almost every other team follows suit, no one’s playoff chances take a nosedive.

This may not be collusion in the strictly coordinated sense, but the effect is more or less the same. If everyone cries about all the money they lost, no one has to spend as much as they otherwise would have. The result is a larger than usual gulf in players’ perceived self-worth and the amount teams will offer. Combine this with the overall delay of those offers whatsoever, and it’s become more difficult than ever for the offseason to commence in earnest.

Looking Ahead

We’re six weeks away from the nominal start of Spring Training. Do you think all this gets done in time for a 162-game season? Can the owners and players work out a deal amidst so much acrimony and mistrust, especially with enough time to spare for the normal business of the offseason?It didn’t go very well the last time they faced a deadline.

In some form, we will have baseball in 2021, though no one knows what it will look like. After that? The 2016 Basic Agreement expires, and the two sides head back to the bargaining table to hammer out a new deal in the worst negotiating climate imaginable. We’re a year away from this, but it seems nearly impossible to avoid a work stoppage that eats away at the 2022 season.

There’s always hope, especially around New Year’s! Perhaps the two sides will set aside their unproductive, greedy bickering (okay, more like one side) and negotiate in good faith for the well-being of the game and the nation. Isn’t this about more than players and owners? Aren’t the fans entitled to a seat at the table in some capacity? Isn’t our money the fuel on which the plane flies?

That would be a first. Our needs have never been a factor in these proceedings beyond how they can extract as much cash from us as possible. Even though MLB is undeniably a public good—and certainly a publicly-funded good— don’t expect any type of consideration of our best interests. Can you imagine how much worse things would have to decay before a Congressional or judicial intervention? No, barring a miracle (or more likely an even worse disaster), it looks like we won’t have a full MLB season until 2023. But hey, Happy New Year!