If you’re already looking forward to February and have pitchers and catchers report written down on your calendar, I’ve got bad news for you.

According to Bob Nightengale of USA Today, Major League Baseball is considering pushing the start of the 2021 season back to May because it would give the league more time to get players and personnel vaccinated.

Apparently, those on MLB’s side would rather push things back and have a shorter (like 140-game) season if it means everyone is vaccinated and fans are more likely to be able to attend games in person rather than going forward with a normal 162-game schedule as planned. On the other side, the Players’ Association believes that a full season can be executed as normal even without a vaccine so long as protocols are in place.

I generally tend to lean pro-player when it comes to issues between MLB and the PA, but, in this instance, I see where the league is coming from.

According to Nightengale, the PA doesn’t want to shorten the season (obviously, because it means less cash and prorated salaries) and they’re saying that they “proved last year they can abide by the safety protocols.”

I’m, uh, not really sure that’s accurate. Remember, the Miami Marlins played a game despite a player testing positive for COVID-19 and doing so resulted in multiple other teams, including the Blue Jays, having games postponed. Cleveland had issues with players breaking protocol, as did the Cardinals.

If MLB can get everyone vaccinated by May, it becomes a lot easier to execute a season without any hiccups. Of course, there’s also a major moral dilemma here when it comes to having baseball players getting prioritized vaccination. Having a bunch of young-ish, healthy, rich dudes skip ahead of others in line obviously isn’t a good look.

This is a tricky subject and, knowing the strife that already exists between the league and the players, it’ll surely be something we hear about quite a bit over the next few months. This also probably means that free agency won’t pick up any time soon, unfortunately.