MLB Owners Give ‘Ok’ To Proposal Regarding Starting Season, Players To Vote Soon

Major League Baseball has not yet played a game in its 2020 regular season because of the coronavirus pandemic. Rosters have been frozen since March 27, meaning players can’t be moved and are stuck on their current teams. It at least appears that we could be approaching the start of the season as the MLB owners approved the league’s proposal for starting the season.

MLB hosted a conference call with the 30 team owners on Monday discussing the league’s plan to start the 2020 season. But just because the owners approved of this proposal, does not mean that the players will do the same, and there could be some negotiations in the coming weeks between the league and the MLB Players Association.

Assuming the players do approve the league’s proposal, here are some of the key details:

• 82-game regional schedule, meaning teams would be isolated geographically. The two East divisions would play each other, the two Central divisions would play each other and the two West divisions would play each other. Teams will still be considered AL or NL teams, this is simply so that teams are not doing a significant amount of traveling.
• A universal DH will be implemented. In the past, only AL teams used a designated hitter while NL teams had their pitcher hit. This now means that all teams will have a designated hitter.
• Teams would have rosters of 50 players, up from the usual 30. These rosters would consist of 30-active players and then a 20 player taxi-squad, players who are in the area and that can be added to the active roster in the event of an injury.
• An expanded postseason. The postseason would feature 14 total teams (seven from each league) where the best team in each league would get a first-round bye. The other two division winners and the top wild card team would host a best of three playoff season in the wild card round. The two other division winners would get to pick their wild-card round matchup and the remaining two teams would be paired up.
• Finally, players and teams would split revenue, just for this season 50/50, something that does not usually happen in MLB.

There are still a lot of details that need to be ironed out, but at least as of right now, it appears we are slowly approaching the start of the baseball season in 2020.