The planned opening of MLB's spring camp is less than two months away, and nobody in baseball -- not the players, not the owners, not the commissioner -- has any clue whether it's happening. Such is life in the midst of a pandemic.
Discussions between Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association about the status of the 2021 season are mimicking those that wound up with a truncated season this year: slow and with scant progress. MLB has suggested pushing the season back a month. The players want to report on time and play a full season.
The talks, sources told ESPN, are at too early a stage to panic about the upcoming season. At the same time, both parties recognize that they haven't exactly earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to reaching a deal about playing during the pandemic. The deal they struck March 26 wound up being relitigated for months, only for the commissioner to ultimately impose a 60-game season.
A surprise Christmas gift of a baseball road map is not happening. Both sides are digging in, hopeful but honest with themselves: Figuring out how much they'll be playing in 2021 may well entail another fight, one that comes less than a year before the current collective bargaining agreement expires and potentially throws the sport's 2022 season into question.
It's not quite this simple, not necessarily so binary, but baseball is at a forked road. The end of both roads is the same; there will be baseball in 2021. It's just a matter of how circuitous the path, how tortuous the journey. Here are 20 questions that illustrate those road maps.
What's the latest?
It's almost as if MLB and the MLBPA exist in different universes. Two people this week compared their relationship to that of Democrats and Republicans. Here are the current worldviews of each, in a nutshell.
Players: On one side are 1,200 players who want to get paid to play 162 games, as their contracts state. On the other side are 30 teams that are looking at limited fan capacity early in the season, which translates to limited revenue, and are using health and safety as a cover for trying to impose pay cuts.
League: On one side are 30 teams concerned about the pandemic and that, absent widespread vaccination in the sport, the threat of mass disruptions to the season is extraordinarily problematic. On the other side are 1,200 players whose focus on money blinds them to compromise.
How did we get here?
Rather than go over the last quarter-century of labor economics in baseball, here's one tidy, succinct paragraph for the tl;dr crowd.
MLB slowly has chipped away at the stranglehold the union had on labor relations. Analytics have alerted teams to the general inefficiency of free agency, and because there is no salary floor in the sport, most teams are conditioned to spend only as much as they need -- whereas in the past, competition for playoff spots spurred some to go hog wild in the winter. The union is filled with players who are frustrated with the direction of free agency and believe owners' greed is poisoning the sport. The share of revenues going to players has lessened, and that simple fact underpins the frustration from players who feel they're being done dirty by owners whose franchise values, even amid the pandemic, continue to rise.
How bad is it?
Well, put it this way: The NFL is about to conclude its season with no labor relations issues. The NBA figured out how to play without fans to start its shortened season. The NHL just struck a deal to get an abbreviated season as well, though, like the NBA, that's more because of a short turnaround than a revenue fight.
MLB, in the meantime, has both sides preparing for a fight without any expectation that a deal can be struck.
Why not?
For one, the players don't think there's any need for a deal. The collective bargaining agreement says that a season is 162 games, and the players thus expect to play -- and be paid for -- 162 games.
But we're in the middle of a pandemic that has upended all expectations of normalcy, right?
Yep. And that's what so deeply frustrates MLB. The league believes the players' single-minded focus on money is misguided -- that everyone should be working together to figure out the safest, best way to play as many games as possible and maximize revenue for the sport.
Which sounds all well and good, but MLB isn't like football or basketball or hockey, each of which has a salary-capped system and shares revenue. Baseball players are entitled to what they're due to make regardless of teams' revenues. Teams simply make less money with fewer fans in the stands.
Is that the players' problem? One could argue that the way teams have treated the vast majority of players in free agency, this is MLB's comeuppance. And yet it's interesting to see baseball talking about health and safety of players while players believe their health and safety under the protocols used last year isn't an issue.
How sincere is MLB being when it says it's prioritizing health and safety?
It's hard to argue with the legwork MLB put in to make the 2020 season happen and get ready for 2021. The testing that cost more than $50 million, the protocols each team was required to follow, the tap-dancing around another outbreak after ones that felled the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals for weeks -- they were real, tangible efforts. While it's true that MLB wound up benefiting from a downturn in COVID-19 cases throughout its season, the effort of the league and players was nevertheless impressive.
That said, players believe MLB's motivations in any potential delay have less to do with health and safety than money. Players say that every day there isn't a game, they lose around $25 million. The math works out, with salaries and benefits around $4.5 billion for a 186-day season. Perhaps this perspective is simply a manifestation of the prism through which the union views the entire kerfuffle -- that health and safety, while important, is not the chief priority, not with a population of 20- to 40-year-olds who run a minimal risk of serious COVID-19 complications.
And yet it's easy to understand why the league would place health and safety at the fore. Just look at the embarrassments caused by Dwayne Haskins in the NFL and James Harden in the NBA this week. Each allegedly went to a public place maskless, running afoul of protocols, and while neither has tested positive, both incidents reflect poorly. A league that doesn't take seriously the public health element of the pandemic runs the risk of recriminations, whether it's politicians shaming them or fans lashing out.
So why don't they all just get vaccinated?
Because they don't all want to get vaccinated.
For real?
Oh, yes. There's a significant number of players, sources said, who have no desire to receive a vaccine. Among the reasons expressed, according to players, agents and other sources throughout the league:
They think they're healthy and don't need it.
They don't believe it's wise to receive a vaccine formulated in less than a year when the process typically takes far longer.
They don't trust the government.
They don't want to be told what to do.
For the past month, I've posed the question to people around the game: What percentage of players do you think will refuse the vaccine? The answers varied, but a vast majority was in the same range: about 25%.
Can't MLB just force players to get the vaccine as a condition of their playing?
While there's a case to be made for employers mandating vaccination -- the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has said as much -- the MLBPA would fight it vociferously. Further, in conversations with the union, the league has suggested the vaccine will be encouraged but not be mandatory. It's something that would need to be collectively bargained, and for a union that would have a hard time getting all of its members to agree the Earth is round, the idea of 1,200 members approving vaccinations is folly.
Can MLB force minor league players to get it?
Now, that's a different question. Players not on 40-man rosters lack the labor protections of those in the union. MLB could theoretically insist that minor league players receive the vaccine before joining the team in spring training.
Oh, yeah. Spring training. Is it happening?
In some form or fashion, absolutely. Players still need to get ready for the season. They just don't know where or when it's happening.
Let's focus on the where. This year, teams held spring training 2.0 at their home stadiums. They could do that again. But there are potential issues with local stay-at-home orders affecting individual teams. The likelier route for now, according to sources, is for spring training in Arizona and Florida -- two states run by Republican governors who are less likely to invoke quarantines -- to remain.
When? We'll get to that.
OK. Well, what's going to determine that?
Let's look at all of the factors in play.
How soon will fans be in the stands?
How much TV money does MLB stand to lose if it doesn't play games?
Can MLB legally shut the sport down?
First things first: Will fans be in the stands?
At some point, yes. MLB's proof-of-concept postseason showed that it can run a stadium at 25% capacity without enormous problems. It did so in the National League Championship Series and World Series, both of which were held in Arlington, Texas.
By the scheduled Opening Day on April 1, will all 15 home teams be able to host fans? That's impossible to answer. The expectation among executives: no.
Perhaps the United States' vaccination campaign is so successful that it can happen -- or that a majority of teams can. There's always the possibility of the league rejiggering the schedule to accommodate those that can't -- remember the magic it pulled this year in working around COVID-19 cancellations -- but that may prove more difficult than it's worth.
With the expectation that vaccination will blunt the impact of the virus, teams will move to allow more fans into the stands -- perhaps on a gradient. Say, 25% capacity to start, 50% when a certain threshold is reached locally, then 75%, then 100% toward the end of the season. Maybe this is naive or optimistic, but a number of people in the game believe the 2021 postseason will be played in front of full crowds.
Of course, that depends on how long the vaccine inoculates people who receive it. And the appetite for fans to sit side by side with strangers after a year-plus of practicing social distancing. And other factors that are impossible to predict.
What about TV money?
Every local TV deal contains a clause that necessitates a certain number of games for full payment. The number is somewhere in the range of 140 to 145 games, according to sources. Meaning that even if the parties were to reach an agreement on delaying it, the season almost certainly would be 140-plus games.
Can commissioner Rob Manfred just shut the sport down?
It's the billion-dollar question. Earlier this year, he invoked the national emergency clause in the collective bargaining agreement, which reads:
"This contract is subject to federal or state legislation, regulations, executive or other official orders or other governmental action, now or hereafter in effect respecting military, naval, air or other governmental service, which may directly or indirectly affect the Player, Club or the League and subject also to the right of the Commissioner to suspend the operation of this contract during any national emergency during which Major League Baseball is not played."
If MLB does go down the path of trying to delay the season, it will meet significant resistance from players. Whether it ends up in court or in front of an arbitrator, that paragraph will be parsed, dissected and ultimately could determine the course of the season.
What about the sides coming to a deal?
If only it were that easy.
The union is operating on this premise: There should be a 162-game season, and the basic agreement says as much, so why do we need a deal?
The answer to that is twofold. First: There's risk in litigation. If the players lose, MLB could control what a season looks like. Second: With a deal, there's always the ability to extract more. Like, say, a universal designated hitter. As it stands, the DH is American League-only.
Expanded playoffs are more vital to MLB than the DH is to the players, so that trade could serve as a pathway to some kind of an agreement that also codifies COVID-19 protocols and addresses other issues.
COVID-19 protocols?
What, you thought we were going back to normal just like that? Even after players and staff receive the vaccine, experts are suggesting that masking and distancing remain standard. It's still unclear whether the vaccine precludes people from carrying the virus. And if they do, those with the team who weren't vaccinated could be at risk. If there is a loosening of restrictions, it probably would focus more on leeway given to players away from the field.
Do you think the MLBPA and MLB are capable of doing a deal?
Sure. Maybe that's my gullibility seeping through, but the idea of labor discord in 2020 and 2021 prefacing a possible lockout in 2022 is dystopian for baseball. At some point, no matter how much the sides distrust and dislike one another, each must recognize that the future of the sport depends on how it handles the present. It took MLB years to recover from the lost World Series of 1994. No sport interested in its relevance would possibly suggest that fighting over billions of dollars as economic uncertainty wreaks havoc on the country is a productive way to grow the game.
What happened to the grievance the MLBPA was threatening earlier this year?
The union has filed a pair of grievances, according to sources, the most recent related to service time. It does not affect a large swath of players, sources said.
The big one -- which the MLBPA said it would file if Manfred imposed a season, which he did -- remains unfiled. Could it be used as leverage to extract more in a potential deal?
When can we reasonably expect to see regular-season MLB games played?
This is the billion-dollar question for fans. And the most accurate answer is: in 2021. Baseball will be played, and presumably a lot of it, and that is a good thing.
A slightly more accurate answer: by May. That's the best guess among people in the sport as to when players and staff might be able to get vaccinated -- and also lines up with the minimums for local TV deals.
A possible answer: by April 1. Even though a number of owners do not want to play games until fans return to the stands, MLB hasn't fully ruled out the possibility of a 162-game season, according to sources. It understands that the union's position on 162 isn't just for hard-liners; the vast, vast majority of players saw that they were able to play amid the pandemic last year and are ready to do the same this year.
For now, everyone is in watch-and-wait mode. They want to see how the vaccination campaign goes. They want to understand how Thanksgiving and Christmas travel affects death, hospitalization and case numbers. They know that this is a long game and that even if a fight is coming, it can wait.