Late Sunday night, the Major League Baseball Players Association proposed a 114-game regular season, giving players roughly 70 percent of their salaries on a prorated scale.
By Monday evening, MLB owners had fired back with a proposal of their own: A 50-ish game season, still prorated, with a July start date.
While that seemed like a clear counter to the MLBPA proposal, Ken Roesenthal reports that notion is now official:
MLB rejected the union’s proposal for a 114-game season and said it would not send a counter, sources tell The Athletic. The league said it has started talks with owners about playing a shorter season without fans, and that it is ready to discuss additional ideas with the union.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) June 3, 2020
Again, this was expected. MLB firing back with what equates to less than half the games (and thus less than half the salary) of the MLBPA's latest proposal was a clear rejection of the 114-game season. Now, this official declaration simply sets the stage for discussions to center around the shorter season MLB owners prefer, without fans.
An 82-game season — virtually half of a normal 162-game slate — initially seemed to be the goal when discussions began back in March. The MLBPA then went for more games and more money with the 114-game proposal. Now, MLB is sticking to their desires and focusing on a schedule that'll come in somewhere around 50 games.
Will the players go for that? Will the owners budge and come back to that 82-game range?
Rosenthal states that "additional ideas" are up for discussion, but right now, it looks like the union will be the side that needs to make the concession, take the hit, and come down to MLB's request if we're going to see MLB action in 2020.
This is obviously not a positive development in the process, but Pirates general manager Ben Cherington remains optimistic we'll have baseball this summer.
“I’m confident just because I know how much effort has gone into building those [health] protocols, and continuing to edit those protocols as we get more information [and] as we get feedback from different groups, including players,” Cherington said during a Zoom video conference call with local reporters Wednesday. "When groups are motivated, it gives us a chance to find a solution. I believe there’s enough motivation to get there.
“Of course, until it happens, we can’t be certain. We can’t guarantee. But that’s why I’m confident.”
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