The players and owners, having finally set up camp in the same galaxy just earlier this week, might actually be hurtling toward the same planet. Not surprisingly, however, they’re at risk of a crash landing.
Rob Manfred quickly rejected the Major League Baseball Players Association’s latest 2020 restart proposal on Thursday, a plan that called for a 70-game regular season at the players’ prorated pay. That package, announced by PA executive director Tony Clark, countered the 60-game idea that Manfred floated to Clark during an in-person meeting on Tuesday.
“This needs to be over,” Manfred told the Associated Press. “Until I speak with owners, I can’t give you a firm deadline.”
The commissioner has the right to unilaterally implement the length of the season as long as the players get their full prorated pay.
The day featured a characteristically dizzying exchange of statements and interviews, as the two sides — consistent with the way they have comported themselves since the sport shut down in March — offered different accounts of what had transpired.
Clark actually released two statements, the first one recognizing his 70-game proposal (featuring expanded playoffs for this year and next) and the second one disputing Manfred’s interpretation of his 60-game schedule, which the commissioner described Wednesday as a “jointly developed framework that we agreed could form the basis of an agreement.”
“In my discussions with Rob in Arizona we explored a potential pro rata framework, but I made clear repeatedly in that meeting and after it that there were a number of significant issues with what he proposed, in particular the number of games,” Clark said. “It is unequivocally false to suggest that any tentative agreement or other agreement was reached in that meeting. In fact, in conversations within the last 24 hours, Rob invited a counterproposal for more games that he would take back to the owners. We submitted that counterproposal today.”
Manfred, in response, said, “I told [Clark] 70 games was simply impossible given the calendar and the public health situation, and he went ahead and made that proposal anyway.”
The PA’s 70-game regular season would end on Sept. 30, only three days later than MLB’s 60-game calendar, with a July 19 Opening Day.
The PA’s counterproposal also included a doubling of the postseason pool from $25 million to $50 million, as well as a 50-50 split of new postseason revenues for 2021, which would feature an expanded, 16-team playoff just like this year; this represents a rare instance of the union supporting the notion of revenue sharing. The players agreed to let the clubs sell advertising on their uniforms and also expressed the willingness to cooperate on broadcast enhancements like players wearing microphones, which generated positive buzz in spring training. The players suggested the possibility of holding the playoffs on neutral sites in order to maximize the likelihood of concluding the World Series, a scenario that respects the unpredictability of COVID-19, and also on the health and safety front, the players would like full salary and service time for their brethren who sit out this campaign because they either are high-risk or they live with high-risk individuals.
The salary difference between the two packages, about $1.51 billion for 60 games and $1.757 billion for 70 games, is $247 million, or a little over $8.2 million per team. Infielder-outfielder Jonathan Villar, whom the Orioles traded to the Marlins last December after placing him on outright waivers, had been set to make $8.2 million this season before the coronavirus shutdown.
For all the tension resulting from both sides pooh-poohing their opponents’ assertions of a ��basis” for agreement, the owners and players have come a long way this week after nearly a month of fruitless negotiations. They also have signed off on the universal implementation of the designated hitter this year and next — and it could easily stay in place following the expiration of the Basic Agreement after 2021 — as well as forgiveness on $33 million of the $170 million lump-sum payment that the players negotiated in March and a mutual agreement to not file a grievance against the other side. Furthermore, MLB would sign over $10 million from unspent health benefits to a social justice initiative, and players would allow $50 million to be transferred from the international tax fund (collected from teams that exceeded their signing bonus pools) to the commissioner’s discretionary fund.
Can they travel the relatively light distance required to finally launch this season — say, split the difference between 60 and 70 to get 65? Would they be shortsighted enough to torpedo each other now? While these talks have taught us to bet the under, the owners and players would need to sink to new lows to not bridge their tiny gap.