At the same time the White Sox and the 29 other teams opened their first week of their second training period for an unprecedented 60-game schedule to make something of the 2020 season back in early July, Major League Baseball unveiled the complete, 162-game schedule for 2021.
Though the schedule was just as solid and reputable as any that came before it, the pandemic's ability to warp time rendered the slate a prototype for its combination of ambition, as well as the risk of being wholly premature.
Sure enough, the schedule will likely need some refinements before it's ready for the market. Bob Nightengale says Major League Baseball would like the 2021 season to be delayed until May, in order to allow time for all players to vaccinated before spring training. In a rehash of the labor negotiations from this summer, the MLBPA is pushing for the fullest possible schedule, starting at 162 games.
The success of the 2020 schedule suggests that both sides had merits to their stances. Teams and players adhered to the protocols well on the whole, especially after early outbreaks with the Marlins and Cardinals threatened their seasons. The Dodgers could have presented a third issue had the World Series lasted one more game, so it appears as though owners were correct in refusing to stretch the postseason into November, with the NFL and NCAA providing evidence of complications looming around the corner.
Here, it's more a matter of when and how the season starts, because the ending shouldn't be as fraught. By waiting until the summer months to restart the 2020 calendar, teams had the ability to conduct shorter camps with fewer players involved in their home markets, rather than sending hundreds of personnel per team into one of two states. That might be premature by February, and cold weather prevents 2020's solution from being a viable option before April, at least not without creating potential competitive advantages.
One has to separate the league's public-health advocacy from their financial incentives, and their motives get cloudier when watching them dangle the universal DH as uncertain while teams are trying to fill out rosters, or signing with ESPN for a postseason round that doesn't yet exist. This could be a way to make adjustments without needing fans in the ballpark for Opening Day, or it could be posturing as a way for the league to adhere to a full schedule, but only if it gets something it wants from the MLBPA. For the sake of minor league teams that are already under enough duress as it is, I'm hoping this is merely planning for a worst-case scenario that won't come to pass. Still, it's probably worth considering multiple starting points with the rollout of the vaccine so uncertain, especially if pro sports don't get a chance to commandeer resources this time around.
Between now and then, we'll have to see what the full-season projections say about the schedule's impact on the White Sox's chances. Last year's shorter schedule and expanded postseason helped the White Sox look better than they were. If they once again project for third place, they'll once again stand to benefit from a smaller sample, as irritating as it would be in every other way.
(Photo by Arturo Pardavila III)
