MLB, MLBPA agree to health and safety protocols, set for shortened season

Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association have agreed upon health and safety protocols for the league-implemeted 60-game season, according to a variety of baseball reporters.

After months of not settling upon terms for the economic side of things—with MLB making a variety of offers that were meant to look better but still deliver the same reductions in pay that the owners were seeking all along—owners had their commissioner implement a 60-game season, as was his right based on the initial agreement between the league and the union when spring training was shut down back in March.

As for the health side of things, well, the league has gotten off to a rough start. Several teams have reported players and staff testing positive for COVID-19 over the past week, leading to all thirty of them shutting down workouts that had been taking place at their usual spring training locations as cases have risen in Florida and Arizona. And as Vas Drimalitis wrote on this site earlier today, there’s a good argument for canceling the 2020 season based solely upon the pandemic and where the country stands with it right now.

If all of this does actually happen, players will begin “spring training” on July 1.