Behind-the-scenes 'game of chicken' has MLB barreling toward spring training despite pandemic

They’re really going to do this, aren’t they?

As the Covid-19 virus continues its assault on American lives, Major League Baseball teams and players are ramping up their preparations to begin spring training on time.

We have spent the past few days speaking with prominent agents, top club executives and decision-makers on both sides of the labor situation.

The takeaway from these conversations: Spring training and the regular season are truly on track to proceed as planned, in part because no one is optimistic that owners and players can negotiate an alternative.

“It’s a game of chicken,” says one high-ranking team executive. And it's one likely to end with everyone in Florida or Arizona next month.

The good news is that discussions are already underway between MLB and the Players’ Association on Health and Safety Protocols for 2021, according to sources. They are not currently arguing about money, as they did for so much of last summer. Both sides say they share the goal of playing a full schedule.

Commissioner Rob Manfred is not planning to act unilaterally to change the schedule unless state or federal rules dictate an adjustment, sources say.

The bad news is that coronavirus cases and deaths continue to spiral out of control. On July 23, 2020, when the MLB season kicked off with a Yankees-Nationals game in Washington, D.C., there were 70,006 cases of Covid-19 in the country. On Monday, there were 222,908.

Given that, it might be logical for MLB and the union to discuss ways to delay the start of the season while playing as many games as possible.

While that might yet happen, there has been no progress toward that end. Players feel strongly about playing 162 games, and the league would have a hard time asking its television partners to push the postseason past October, as Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported.

Rosenthal also reported that a group of owners are working on a way to delay the season; we hear the same, but also hear that those efforts have not yet gained meaningful traction.

You know what we do hear a lot about? Six months after a bitter labor fight that threatened the 2020 season, many agents and team executives continue to speak of one another in harsh and distrustful terms.

Multiple agents complain that teams are not being as helpful as possible about the logistics of spring training, including assisting players in finding housing.

Meanwhile, some club execs suggest that the players are hurting their own pocketbooks by not being amenable to a later start. The logic goes that if Opening Day occurs late enough for more Americans to be vaccinated, there will be more fans in the stands, more revenues for teams, and more money available to pay free agents.

“Do you really believe that more revenue for teams means more revenue for players?” one agent said. Fair enough.

Meanwhile, some on the team and league side are concerned, with good reason, about the logistics of a full season without the regional play that made it easier last year to reschedule games on the fly when positive tests forced cancellations.

Given the way the NFL, NBA and college seasons have proceeded this fall and winter, it is almost certain that the first months of the season will bring positive tests, cancelled games and a need to improvise.

Because of that potential nightmare, many club executives had been waiting to initiate plans for spring training because of an assumption that it would be delayed.

On Monday, the commissioner’s office informed teams that spring training would begin on time and the 162-game season would occur. At least one team immediately began making plans for its equipment truck to travel to Florida and its executives to book housing for next month.

As a high-ranking member of that team’s front office put it, “Looks like we’re actually about to drive off the cliff together.”