Jeff Passan Reports That The Baseball Season Is Likely To Be Delayed

Why would anyone be surprised by this? Why would anyone think that baseball, in their unending quest to commit sports suicide, would possibly do something like, I don't know, have a deal in place before March? Nothing in sports makes me angrier than when I know I'm right about something that's going to break my heart. I predicted in April 2020 that this season would end up getting delayed. It was inevitable. Major League Baseball likes to give themselves a little pat in the head because they found a way to play a season and crown a champion during the Covid year of 2020. That wasn't some crowning achievement. They played 60 games, which was a joke. And now history is repeating itself two years later.

I understand that there's a lot to sort through. There's a ton that they need to negotiate in regards to service time manipulation, rule changes, arbitration, and potential postseason expansion. I'm not going to sit here and act like these negotiations should be easy, but they should be urgent, shouldn't they? I remember 2020, so I know how this is going to work. They had their meeting today, and for some reason, instead of doing what intelligent people would do, which is meeting tomorrow, locking themselves in a room, and negotiating until they're blue in the face, they're going to wait another week and a half before they meet again. Then we're going to get another week and a half, and another week and a half, and before you know it, it's going to be May, and there's going to be no deal on the table, and spring training is going to start in June because fuck it, why not? Why can't people who love baseball ever have nice things? 

Every media member, every fan, every player, and every coach has wholly acknowledged the absurdity of this moment. The only ones who aren't completely embarrassed by this process are the people who are negotiating. We're going to play a 100 game season in Major league baseball, and MLB will stroke their egos and act like this was some massive success. It won't be. It's already a failure. We have not had a proper Opening Day since 2019, and we're probably not going to get one until 2023. You put a gun to my head, and I'd say I fall far more in line with the players than I do the owners. But I'm not pro player or pro owner anymore. I'm pro whatever's going to get us an entire major league baseball season. Right now, that's seriously in jeopardy.