NEW YORK (AP) — The Major League Baseball Players Association has won a scheduling battle with owners. MLB will proceed with an on-time start to spring training and the season after players rejected a plan to delay reporting by a more than a month.
Management proposed to the players’ association on Friday that the start of spring training be pushed back from Feb. 17 to March 22, that opening day be delayed from April 1 to April 28 and that each team’s schedule be cut from 162 games to 154.
The delay was proposed as a way to give the virus situation more time to improve. As part of the offer, MLB included the expansion of the playoffs from 10 teams to 14 and extending the designated hitter to the National League for the second straight season, a plan the union rejected Jan. 6.