MLB will make a deal this week... And won't play in 2020

There will be an agreement in MLB this week- just don’t expect them to play a single inning in 2020.

Seemingly every day this past week, MLB and the MLBPA have had some new version of an offer on the table for getting the 2020 MLB season underway.

Fans, players, and owners are getting restless. As other leagues at least have agreements and plans in place, MLB is suffering in a big way. Quibbles have arisen over the NBA’s ability to play after all of late, but those quibbles have been largely about whether playing would detract from social justice reform. In other news, college football teams throughout the country are reporting Covid-19 cases, raising questions about whether or not either NCAA or NFL football will happen this fall.

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Meanwhile, the perception over MLB’s delay in their return to play is that it is now entirely about money.

It’s not what you want if you’re a player or a team owner. At this point, allow me to voice full sympathy for the MLB players and personnel that have tested positive for Covid-19 in the past week. And to applaud the MLBPA decision to delay their vote on the latest return to play proposal under such circumstances. But overall, it’s been a public relations nightmare for MLB this past month. Overall, dollars have overtaken disease as the reason fans won’t have baseball to watch this Fourth of July. All while positive cases, protests, unemployment, and deaths mount. Tough looks across the board if you’re in the business of professional baseball. An agreement should have been reached a month ago.

This is partly why MLB and the MLBPA will reach a deal this week. I’m calling my shot now- this gets resolved. This dispute over profits, where even the player profiting the least is still banking more than most Americans, ends, and ends ASAP.

I won’t commit myself to predict a number (okay, fine, 64 games), but this IS the week. The PR body blows stop, as both sides submit to the twin forces of the international pandemic and social justice revolution. Even though the tone-deafness displayed for the former was crazily shortsighted already, the addition of the latter makes the big picture just too much to ignore.

Compromise will be reached. Hands will be shaken and photos were taken. Statements of solidarity will be given. Playoffs will be planned, and schedules formulated.

And the next time you watch a live baseball game is going to be 2021.

Again, multiple team facilities have been hit with Covid-19 in the past two weeks. Despite some reasonable speculation that MLB might be stalling in order to ensure a shorter season, the COVID concerns are very real. There is a very real argument to be made for not playing and an even stronger one that none of these proposed sports seasons might actually finish before that feared the second wave of infections.

Which, from a business standpoint, makes it imperative that MLB is seen as doing their best to give fans what they want before the fate of the 2020 season is rendered a fait accompli by this blasted virus.

Once MLB and the MLBPA reach an agreement on a season, they’re immediately back in the good graces of most fans. NBA fans are still thrilled about that fun, funky 22-team season on its way. The one that hasn’t started yet. That won’t start for months. That players still have significant concerns about. But no one is cursing those penny-pinching millionaires- just the virus. Same with the NCAA, NFL, and NHL.

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MLB owners and players alike both know this, so watch for them to be seen as doing the right thing this week…knowing they very likely might never have to play a game of whatever season is agreed to. Because, as much as I hate to say it, they probably won’t.

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