How many games does a baseball team have to play to make the regular season “regular”?
According to a report by ESPN Monday, the answer is somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 games, under terms being discussed by Major League Baseball in response to the latest offer from the MLB Players’ Association.
In the players’ proposal, issued Sunday, teams would play 114 regular season games between June 30 and Oct. 31. Playing half the season they envisioned is just one detail of many for the players to consider, if and when a formal counterproposal is received.
Chief among them is the issue of pay. The players’ association has insisted repeatedly that team owners already agreed to pro rata compensation – paying players their agreed-upon 2020 salaries in proportion to the length of the regular season – and that this point is no longer ground for collective bargaining. The owners’ latest proposal would provide pro rata compensation.
Still, other financial issues remain. The players requested a total of $100 million in advance of their second, abbreviated spring training. If the postseason were to be cancelled due to a second wave of the novel coronavirus, the players requested a total of $100 million in salary to be deferred with interest.
Players also proposed allowing anyone to opt out of playing, given the risk of contracting Covid-19. Can a major league player with an underlying medical condition opt out and still receive his pro rata salary and service time? These details have yet to be finalized.
Monday’s report offers hope that the two sides can move forward with the pro rata salary issue behind them. That had been a major sticking point among players who used their social media to comment on the league’s series of proposals.
There is no hard deadline for the two sides to reach agreement. However, if the June 30 start date is a sticking point among the players’ union, any hypothetical spring training would need to begin soon.
A 114-game season would pay players 70.4 percent of their 2020 salaries. A 50-game season would pay 30.9 percent. The smaller sample of games could produce wildly unexpected standings, batting averages, and winning percentages than fans are accustomed to. More than the sanctity of baseball statistics, the proposed reduction in player pay will determine how long of a season is acceptable.
