If you subscribe to the Athletic, Jayson Stark's June 17 piece is a comprehensive yet grim picture of the state of the game. Here is an excerpt.
"Hey, great. Believe it or not, the visions just got darker from there. We heard predictions of teams declaring bankruptcy, maybe even the sport declaring bankruptcy. We heard predictions of the commissioner being overthrown by a group of unhappy owners. We even heard an argument for basically blowing up the business of baseball and starting over, to try to get this right."
"FREE AGENCY: Club officials, from markets of varying sizes, offered similar predictions – of unprecedented numbers of unsigned free agents … of up to 300 players getting non-tendered (yes, 300!) … of veteran players begging for any kind of deal … of even the marquee free agents – Mookie Betts, George Springer, J.T. Realmuto – settling for one-year contracts.
SALARY DUMPS: Multiple executives predicted we’d see financially hurting clubs try to unload as many big contracts as they could – a process that might even begin as soon as spring training 2.0 this year, assuming there is a spring training 2.0. One exec’s take: “There’s no question you’ll see teams try to unload money. But they might have no one to unload them to” – because, theoretically, even the big-market teams will be reeling after losing hundreds of millions of dollars in 2020 revenues.
PAYROLLS: An official of a small-market club described the financial hit being absorbed by many teams this way: “There will be a lot of focus on short-term economics and the impact on free agency. But the economic impact of this (season) will be felt for years, and it will affect (payrolls) for years in an industry that’s borrowing $2.4 billion just to operate. At some point, you can’t borrow any more. There’s only so much money banks will loan you before they say, ‘We can’t loan you any more.’”