Baseball is Back, but at What Cost?

After nearly 3 months of negotiation between the players' union and owners with almost no progress, the union finally caved and agreed to a 60-game season beginning on July 23rd.  The commissioner gave the two sides a chance to work it out, and it has now gotten to the point in the calendar where he is essentially mandating the terms of the season based on their original March 26th proposal.  To put it simply, unless there is a catastrophic increase of positive COVID-19 cases or a players' strike in the next month - both of which are not out of the question - we will have a 2020 MLB season.

Some of the details:

• Players report to "camp" at their home ballparks on July 1 for a July 23 season start
• 60-game schedule will be divided into each team playing 40 games within their division and 20 games against their corresponding geographic division in the opposite league (i.e. NL Central will play the AL Central)
• Fans at the games will be left to the discretion of local governments
• Same 10-team playoff format
• Universal DH in both leagues and all extra innings will begin with a runner on 2nd base (do not be surprised to see these implemented full time in the 2022 CBA agreement, if there is one)
• 30 players allowed on active roster for first 15 games, then down to 26 for the final 2 months of the season.  Teams are allowed 60-player "taxi squads."
• Trade deadline August 31
  

One could reasonably make an argument siding with the players or with the owners and who is at fault here, and who if anybody has "won."  A lot of players are being viewed as stubborn when they have been offered repeated deals and have accepted nothing.  They have in essence forfeited every item they have negotiated for just for the right to file a grievance with the league's mandated season to demand full pay for the season, which ESPN's Buster Olney accurately described being the same as somebody relying on winning the lottery to pay their bills.  But it is the players taking almost all of the risk here, and there will be many players with little to play for entering free agency, or perhaps having already been advanced the majority of their salary.  They may have agreed to the 67-page safety protocol, but nothing in that protocol is a 100% guarantee that a player will not contract the virus.  There have already been numerous positive tests reported throughout the league as players start returning to their facilities.  It is also not the players fault that their respective billionaire team owners do not have the liquid cash to pay them because of the lack of stadium revenue.  At the end of the day this is their job, they all have contracts, and they expect to be paid.  

It has been the owners who have historically benefited more from labor agreements, and it has been the owners who might be perceived as the most greedy out of all this, but it is the players who dug in their heels at the wrong time and ended up losing at a time when they could have had months of being the only sport on television.  Their logic all along has been to not give an inch entering into the next CBA negotiation in 2021, but during this volatile time in our country, this was the wrong time and the wrong way to stand their ground.  If these two sides do not immediately get back to the negotiating table and start making progress for 2021, I would not be surprised if this costs Tony Clark and Rob Manfred their jobs.  I love baseball, but this has all been disgusting, so much to the point that I am not nearly as excited about this season as I should be.  I should be thrilled to see what Craig Counsell can do in a shortened season and expanded roster, but all I can think about is how we are likely to go through this all again in 18 months.