Manfred not confident of season
League likely headed toward 48- to 54-game season
It took just five days for Major League Baseball’s hopes of staging a 2020 season, as characterized by the person most empowered to make it happen, to go from “unequivocally” and “100%” certain to “not confident.” The sudden turnabout, in remarks by Commissioner Rob Manfred to ESPN, represented a new low point in the sport’s halting, bitter efforts to work out a deal with its union to salvage a season amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.
“I’m not confident,” Manfred told the network Monday when asked whether he was confident that there would be a 2020 season. “I think there’s a real risk. And as long as there’s no dialogue [with the union], that real risk is going to continue . . . . [The dispute is] just a disaster for our game, absolutely no question about it. It shouldn’t be happening, and it’s important that we find a way to get past it and get the game back on the field for the benefit of our fans . . . . The owners are 100% committed to getting baseball back on the field. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you that I’m 100% certain that’s going to happen.”
Manfred’s comments were particularly jarring when juxtaposed with the ones he made Wednesday during an interview ahead of the MLB draft, when he said, “I can tell you unequivocally we are going to play Major League Baseball this year, 100%.”
Between the interviews, the MLB Players Association effectively ended negotiations over an economic deal for 2020, saying Saturday that it would not make a counterproposal to MLB’s latest offer. In a statement, executive director Tony Clark concluded: “It’s time to get back to work. Tell us when and where.” That was a message to Manfred to go ahead and exercise his right to set the 2020 schedule in the absence of a deal. In a scathing letter sent to MLB on Saturday, Bruce Meyer, the union’s lead negotiator, demanded that Manfred set those terms by Monday.
However, a conference call Monday with MLB’s 30 owners failed to spark any movement toward starting the season, as the union’s aggressive stance appears to have hardened the owners’ resolve. It would take eight owners in opposition to stop MLB from moving forward with a 2020 season.
Although a quick implementation of a schedule – which is to say, in the next day or two – would still leave room for a season of 65 to 70 games that ends in September, industry speculation has focused on a late-summer mini-season of between 48 and 54 games, an idea MLB first floated as a possibility earlier this month. MLB has argued it would lose an average of $640,000 per game played without fans; the union has disputed that.
If the dispute drags on another couple of weeks, that 48- to 54-game option may be the only one left, and some union leaders privately speculate it has been MLB’s intention all along to stall until that point arrives.
Manfred’s power to set the schedule in the absence of an economic deal stems from the sides’ March 26 agreement that governed the terms of the sport’s shutdown, and it would require MLB to pay players their full, prorated salaries. The union on Saturday essentially dared Manfred to exercise that power while also indicating that such an action would trigger a grievance accusing MLB of failing to fulfill its duty to make an effort to play as many games as possible.