After the international draft issue disrupted negotiations on Wednesday, MLB chose to take some more games off of the 2022 regular season schedule.
Opening Day now is scheduled for April 14 at the earliest.
But as the two sides inch closer to a deal, there’s still a pretty solid chance that the 2022 regular season will end up being a full 162 games.
But there isn’t much clarity on when Opening Day will actually be.
Even with 162 games increasingly likely to be played in 2022, it’s going to be hard to schedule everything right.
Games will need to be rescheduled with some doubleheaders being mixed in here or there.
At this rate, if a deal is reached today, the two sides could potentially agree to keep Opening Day on April 7.
MLB has postponed Opening Day until at least April 14
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) March 9, 2022
When Will The Season Start?
As of now, Opening Day is April 14, but MLB appears to be dead set on trying to actually squeeze in a full slate of games this year.
It would make a million times more sense to go back and keep Opening Day as it was scheduled prior to yesterday’s talks, which was for April 7.
If it ends up being April 14, then it will be much harder to get a full 162-game season in.
It wouldn’t be impossible, but with more doubleheaders could potentially come a greater risk for injuries, which was prevalent in 2021 coming off of the 60-game season that took place the year before.
It would be smarter to start earlier and avoid taking that risk.
At the very least, the two sides are inching closer to an agreement that will end the lockout.
Once the lockout ends, free agency can resume, and then we’ll get a crazy two-week period of transactions.
NEXT: MLB Seems Set On Playing A Full 162 Games