Major League Baseball has submitted another proposal to the players association for how to compensate players for the 2020 season, calling to give players 75-percent of their prorated salaries over a 76 game season, but it seems to be dead on arrival.
Karl Ravech of ESPN was the first to report on this proposal, which calls for the regular season to end Sept. 27.
MLB has made proposal to Players. 75 percent Prorated salary. 76 game season. Playoff pool money. No draft pick compensation for signing player. Season finishes September 27th. Post season ends at end of October. Significant move towards players demands and effort to play more.
— Karl Ravech (@karlravechespn) June 8, 2020
This proposal would do away with the tiered salary structure that would have cost players like Mike Trout and Gerrit Cole over 80-percent of their original salary.
That would be a plus for players, and this deal would indicate the two sides are slowly coming closer to a deal, but players are insistent that they will not take any further paycuts besides prorated salaries. As a result, MLB insider Jon Heyman reports the players are still "not thrilled" with the proposal.
I would take this as a terrible sign: MLB usually makes offer with a presentation. MLB made written offer this morning and union said no need for a presenation.
— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) June 8, 2020
Or, for a more concise opinion from a player:
Lol
— andrew mccutchen (@TheCUTCH22) June 8, 2020
Yeah, it doesn't look like this is going to pass.
The owners' have slowly been increasing how much they would pay players if there is a season. In the tiered structure, which had an 82 game season, they offered a little less than 25-percent of the players' original salaries, as a whole. They also offered full prorated salaries over a 40-50 game season, which could be up to 30-percent. This proposal would pay players about 35-percent of their original salaries.
The players have offered one proposal so far, calling for full prorated salaries over a 114 game season, or about 70% of their original salaries. However, this proposal was mostly a counter to the tiered structure, which they thought was extremely low.
Heyman reports that under MLB's plan, the season would start about July 10. That would mean the campaign is 79 days long, so unless there are scheduled double-headers, there would only be three off-days during the regular season. In March, both sides agreed to play more double-headers and have fewer off-days in order to play as many games as possible.
Spring training 2.0 is going to be three weeks long, meaning that players would have to report no later than June 19 to make that July 10 start date. That means there is not much time to for either side to accept this, or any, proposal without adding more double-headers or cutting the number of games.
Originally, MLB hoped to restart spring training on June 10 and then the regular season on July 4, but without a deal in place, there is no way for that to be possible now.
Owners are insistent in not allowing the season to go into November, which means the regular season would have to end before October. While both sides originally agreed to make that an option in March, owners want to make sure they get the postseason in since that will be a huge source of revenue this year. The owners are worried the second wave of COVID-19 could hit in November, costing them the most lucrative part of the season.
To compensate for some of the regular season cuts, owners have offered $400 million in postseason money to players, according to Evan Drellich. Its first proposal offered $200 million.
Players offered to deffer some of their salary if there is no postseason in their proposal.
Owners also promised to not have draft pick compensation for signing players, like the qualified offer system. That could generate a little more interest in this offseason's free agent class.
This is expected to be a tough offseason for free agents. Even though there will be some great players on the market -- like Mookie Betts, Marcus Stroman and J.T. Realmuto -- teams are going to be budget conscious. That could also mean some small market teams could trade or non-tender expensive arbitration players, like Francisco Lindor and Trevor Story, making the market even more crowded.
The current collective bargaining agreement between the league and union is set to expire after the 2021 season. If some of the game's best players fail to get good deals in the final offseason leading up to that, it could potentially be even more fuel to the fire for what are expected to be contentious negotiations.
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