The case for using MLB players at the 2028 Olympics
It’s not if Baseball can or should do this. MLB must send its best players to the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics
Baseball is not a regular sport at the Summer Olympics. It’s an optional sport for the host country, which is why Baseball was played at the 2020/21 Japan Olympics, is not being played in the 2024 Paris Olympics, and will be played in the 2028 United States Olympics.
The main reason why Baseball is not always in the Olympics is because Major League Baseball has not been willing to send its best players. The Olympics wants the best athletes, period.
In the four Olympics from 1984 to 1996, the USA sent college players. In subsequent years (2000, 2004, 2008, then 2020/21) a combination of veteran minor leaguers and prospects were sent to the Olympics. The best active major leaguers have never played in the Olympics.
The NBA sends its best players because it’s the offseason and there is nothing to interrupt.
The NHL has built in a two-week break to its season to accommodate the Winter Olympics. Since hockey only plays a few games a week, it’s only a minor interruption.
MLB has not wanted to interrupt its season at all, especially since previous Olympics were held during the final month of the regular season. (The 2000 Sydney Games were the final two weeks of September.)
To compensate, baseball created the World Baseball Classic, a fun event that continues to grow in popularity and prestige.
It’s held in March though. Players are not in midseason form. It’s still spring training. Pitchers are limited to shortened outings because they are still building up endurance for the season. It’s better than nothing, but it’s not the same as soccer’s World Cup or the Olympics.
The Summer Olympics are coming to Los Angeles in July 2028, providing MLB a first-of-its-kind opportunity – and maybe a last-of-its-kind opportunity – to send the very best players in the sport to compete in the biggest international competition.
MLB is considering it.
During the All-Star Break last month, Commissioner Rob Manfred invited Casey Wasserman, the chair of the 2028 L.A. Olympics, to make a presentation to owners on how players MLB could participate.
“He was saying things to me that they had to hear directly,” Manfred said during his annual All-Star Q&A with members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. “Sometimes it's better that way. I invited Casey in, and he did a really nice job. He was very persuasive. I said to Casey last week, we're talking about what can be done. What exactly would it look like? What are the compromises that we would have to make in terms of our season? I remain open-minded on that topic.”
Players polled at the All-Star Game loved the idea.
Bryce Harper: “Putting the nation's colors on your chest, there's nothing like it. There's no greater feeling going into another country and winning and hearing your anthem blast. So I'm hoping we can get something done. Obviously it's tough logistically, but it would be a lot of fun to be able to get baseball there and have the best players there doing it and representing their country.”
Christian Yelich: “You want to experience as much as you can in this game, and I think the WBC is an indication about how people feel about their national teams playing. It's pretty cool, right? The atmosphere and the popularity of the WBC is only increasing, and it's been more fun to be a part of. It's one of my fondest baseball memories, so yeah, I think that would be great.”
My opinion: MLB absolutely must do this.
Whatever it takes from a scheduling standpoint, do it. If teams have to sacrifice a few home dates because of a shortened scheduled, so be it. If a few players get injured, that royally sucks, but the sport needs to take those chances for the long-term betterment of the sport.
Basketball forever changed when the first “Dream Team” played in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. The USA crushed everyone behind Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.
But the rest of the world saw those players and it triggered a revolution globally in the sport that is felt to this day, from Nikola Jokić (Serbia) to Luka Dončić (Slovenia) to Victor Wembanyama (France).
Soccer changed when the United States hosted the Men’s World Cup in 1994 and the Women’s World Cup in 1999. When people see the best players in the world competing in person, on the biggest stage, the sport grows. More kids want to play. More adults want to watch. More advertisers want to pay for sponsorships.
Baseball has a chance to do the same in the 2028 L.A. Olympics. It can have the same impact globally. It can also have an enormous impact at home, here in the United States, where too often baseball loses the best athletes to football and basketball and even soccer.
How can MLB change its schedule for the 2028 Olympics?
None of the details from Casey Wasserman’s vision to MLB owners are publicly known, but let’s brainstorm some possibilities.
In previous Olympics, the baseball tournaments were completed in as few as eight days, but more recently over 11 days. The College World Series takes place over 10-12 days.
Let’s keep the math simple, give all the countries a few days for their teams to workout together, and say that MLB needs a full two-week break.
Here are your options:
Eliminate the All-Star Game break
Shorten the schedule
Start the season earlier
Extend the season later
Schedule more doubleheaders
A combination of all the above
Will MLB eliminate the All-Star Break for the 2028 Olympics?
The 2028 L.A. Olympics will take place between July 14-30. That’s right around the time the All-Star Break is held annually. [It was July 16 this year.]
The All Star Break is currently four days. It’s no-brainer to start there. So now you need 10 more days for your two-week break.
Starting the season 10 days earlier is not a good idea. Now you’re starting in mid-March and you’ll deal with more cold weather early in the season and the potential for makeup doubleheaders later.
Extending the season 10 days later is also not a good idea. Now the season stretches into mid-November with even more cold weather impacting your playoffs.
You want to keep the schedule in its current six-month format, which is roughly the start of April (give or take) and the end of September.
Will MLB eliminate a few games for the 2028 Olympics?
I think it’s reasonable to ask owners to shorten the season from 162 games to 154. Before expansion, 154 games was the length of the season anyway. Eliminating eight games means four home games for each team. That won’t drastically hurt the bottom line. You have four years to adjust TV contracts.
With the four days from the All-Star Break and the eight eliminated games, we’re now at 12 days and only need to find two more to make up the difference.
Doubleheaders? Doubleheaders!
Scheduling two doubleheaders is a reasonable request for the Players Union to make this happen.
Teams can make their own individual decision if they’ll make the games day-night split admission doubleheaders or two games for the price of one.
(Once upon a time, 2-for-1 doubleheaders were one heck of a promotion that I enjoyed. I’ll never forget the joy of sitting in the bleachers and watching the Giants sweep the Reds on a Sunday doubleheader at Candlestick Park. I even just found the boxscores of game one and game two.)
Anyway, I’m imagining a really fun scenario where every team plays a doubleheader going into the two-week Olympic break. Thirty MLB games in one day! Other than the Olympians, you’ll have two weeks to rest afterward.
You can play around with these numbers. Maybe you eliminate six games and play four doubleheaders. Maybe you start the season four days early, eliminate four games and play two doubleheaders. Whatever. You get the idea. It’s doable and it’s not drastically different.
But what about the threat of injuries?
Yeah, I know, that’s awful and millions are on the line.
I don’t want to sound callous, but players get hurt all the time, whether it’s spring training games, regular season games, postseason games, or during a midsummer break for Olympic games.
Too often baseball collectively thinks about what could go wrong, instead of what could go right, which is why we see pitchers removed from a game when throwing a no-hitter because of a team-imposed pitch limit to prevent a potential injury.
Another way of looking at it: think about how a two-week break will allow injured players more time to heal and not miss as many games?
Baseball needs to make more decisions on what could go right. Having your best players in the Olympics is gloriously right.
Let’s pause to geek out on the 1984 Olympic team
Major leaguers have been used in the Olympics before. But they were collegiate players who became major league stars a few years later.
The 1984 team will always have a colt following about us Gen X kids. They were anonymous collegiate stars at the time. But the next year, Topps put most of the players into its 1985 edition as pre-rookie cards. We collected the cards, memorized the names, and waited for the players to arrive in the magical 1987 Year of the Rookies.
The players who were drafted in 1984 appeared in the 1985 set, which is why we have Mark McGwire, Cory Snyder, Shane Mack and Bobby Witt, Sr.
The players who still had one more year of college before getting drafted were not included, which is why Topps didn’t make a card of Barry Larkin or Will Clark.
Here’s a photo of Will Clark in a Team USA uniform to brighten your day.
I’m retroactively giddy about the 1984 Olympic team right now.
Now imagine a 2028 Olympics with Aaron Judge, Bobby Witt, Jr., Bryce Harper, Gunner Henderson and Mookie Betts wearing Team USA uniforms.
Imagine a Gold Medal game where Shohei Ohtani is pitching for Japan and Paul Skenes is pitching for the United States.
It’s not spring training. They are not limited to a handful of innings. They are in midseason form and can both, theoretically, pitch nine innings for their countries.
But what about the two-week gap?
I know, the baseball season is all about a rhythm. You play darn near every day for six months, a grueling endurance test. Changing the schedule once is fine. But, what if, it’s actually better to take a two-week break?
I can’t emphasize this enough: players on the Injured List or playing through nagging injuries can heal. The best players will probably miss fewer games.
You can create all the one-time only rules you want. Add a couple extra players to the rosters for a few games when the games restart. Allow a certain number of players to appear in minor league games to stay fresh, especially the pitchers.
In fact, if you want to generate a lot of Good Will throughout the country, incorporate the minor league ballparks.
The current midsummer four-day break for the minor leagues could be at the end of MLB’s two-week break. During these four days, MLB players will be reconvening with their teams to workout and get ready to restart the season.
You could play intrasquad games or exhibition games at minor league ballparks, giving fans in non-major markets a chance to see the best players during the quasi-Summer Training Camp.
If MLB even tries to play games during the 2028 L.A. Olympics, attendance is going to suffer.
The country will be fixated on the Olympics. We’ll get the best events in prime time. We won’t already know the results because they’ll actually be live.
A two-week break will not ruin Baseball.
Sending the best players to the Olympics will only help the sport thrive more.
8-Team Tournament with two 4-team pools. Every team plays 3 straight days (so 4 total games per day split between Dodger and Angel Stadiums). Group Winners and Runner Ups play in Semi-Finals after an off day then Bronze and Gold Medal games the next day. You could knock out that whole tournament in 6 days. Realistically, you could get it down to 4 days if you eliminate the off day and have the Group Winners go straight to the Gold Final and the Runner Ups straight to the Bronze Final.
Ideally it would be a longer tournament, but either way, there's no reason for MLB and MLBPA not to do this.
Great piece. I think we should be going to a 154-game schedule either way and the way you've outlined how to get two weeks makes a ton of sense IMO.
I think you're right that within baseball we often think about everything that could go wrong instead of everything that could go right.