The 2020 Major League Baseball season already has missed out on six weeks of action due to the covid-19 virus, but reports say there will be a proposal out this week that would include an 80-game schedule with an expanded playoffs from five teams per league to seven, and teams playing in as many home stadiums as possible.
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00:00I'm Matt Lodi on Cleveland Baseball Insider on SI.com. It won't be 162 games
00:05but it looks like we will have baseball in the 2020 season. Major League Baseball
00:10is set to unveil a plan this week that will have an 80 game schedule for all
00:1430 teams. CBS Sports reporting that proposals and counterposals are set to
00:19start soon between Major League Baseball and the Players Association. Hopefully the
00:23two sides can come to a deal so we can get baseball started around July the
00:261st. CBS Sports HQ's Jim Bowden confirming the league and union will
00:31have a get-together Monday to chat about a proposal with the league expected to
00:35submit a plan on Tuesday. Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic weighing in, he says the
00:39teams will be facing division rivals and the same geographic division in the
00:43other league to keep games as close to home as possible. For your Indians that
00:47would obviously mean games against the likes of Detroit, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh,
00:51Chicago, Toronto and Milwaukee. That is if all these teams play in their
00:56respective home stadiums as some teams are expected to play at neutral sites.
01:00Rosenthal also says in order to cut down on travel teams that open the season in
01:04as many as home stadiums as they can. So how about the postseason? There's been
01:09talk of expanding the postseason this season and according to Rosenthal it
01:12will be 14 teams instead of the normal 10. You'll have seven out of the
01:16American League and seven from the National League. If you end the shortened
01:20season with the best record you'd get a buy in the first round. The Indians would
01:23have had a postseason bid if this was in place last year as they won 93 games and
01:28yet were shut out of October baseball. A couple of stumbling blocks are expected
01:32along the way. Players are supposedly going to be asked to take a further pay
01:36cut because of course they don't have fans in the stands to pay the salaries
01:39as well as the shortened season means less income. The pay along with health
01:44concerns around COVID-19 will be the two biggest obstacles to overcome according
01:49to various reports. Players were asked back in March when spring training and
01:52the season was suspended to take a prorated salary which makes them asking
01:56to forfeit even more money a likely sticking point. I'm Matt Lodi on
02:00Cleveland Baseball Insider on SI.com