Major League Baseball hopes to have a season this year, but it’s contingent upon players and owners coming together and ironing out the details. So far, that’s been easier said than done.
Ultimately, will there be baseball in 2020?
“I think in the end, the sides will come together and we’re going to have some semblance of a season,” Bleacher Report MLB columnist Scott Miller on JR SportBrief. “They’d like to start in early July. I think, in the end, there’s too much to lose for both sides not to come to an agreement. That said, as we stand here today, the leaked memos, the players popping off – there’s no question there’s distrust and discord between the players and the owners. If you listen to some of the stuff last week, listen to some of the stuff this week, you might come away saying, ‘This is all going to fall apart because there’s just too much animosity.’”
Miller, though, believes both sides will figure it out – but the deadline for doing so is rapidly approaching.
“They need to hammer out a deal,” he said. “If they’re to get on the field for some semblance of spring training in mid-June, [they need to] probably hammer out a deal by the first few days in June – 1st, 2nd, 3rd, somewhere around there – to get everybody a chance to get going. I think in the end it’ll happen, but we sit here today, like most negotiations in normal times – let along in this pandemic – they always go up to the eleventh hour. It’s always up to the deadline. And I think it’s going to happen again this year, and I think for the next 10 days or so we’re going to see a lot of how the sausage is made that is not necessarily appetizing.”