OPEN SEASON
Manfred, owners impose 60-game sked, but players still must approve safety protocols
The near-end of a tortured process. The near-beginning of an ugly outcome.
Major League Baseball announced Monday night that it would move forward with a 2020 restart, the conditions unilaterally implemented by commissioner Rob Manfred, after the MLB Players Association voted down Manfred’s last offer.
The length of the regular season, if the coronavirus allows it to happen, will be 60 games, the same length as the schedule proposed last week by Manfred. There will not be expanded playoffs.
Describing the owners as “disappointed” by the PA executive board’s 33-5 vote to reject its package, MLB added, “In order to produce a schedule with a specific number of games, we are asking that the Players Association provide to us by 5:00 p.m. (ET) [Tuesday] with two pieces of information. The first is whether players will be able to report to camp within seven days [by July 1]. The second is whether the Players Association will agree on the Operating Manual which contains the health and safety protocols necessary to give us the best opportunity to conduct and complete our regular season and Postseason.”
Given the tension that has defined these talks, the two sides easily could haggle further over the health and safety protocols and further imperil what’s left of this COVID-shortened campaign. In the best-case scenario, however, spring training could start next week with Opening Day tabbed for around July 24.
MLB’s announcement capped another turbulent day amidst a hellish stretch for MLB. Just hours earlier, the PA said in its (near-) daily statement, “While we had hoped to reach a revised back to work agreement with the league, the Players remain fully committed to proceeding under our current agreement and getting back on the field for the fans, for the game, and for each other.”
It divulged the benefits on which the players passed: The universal designated hitter this year and next (it could still be in place this season for health reasons), a $25 million playoff pool, forgiveness on $33 million of the $170 million lump sum the players received in March and the cancellation of next year’s expanded playoffs if this season didn’t finish due to COVID-19.
The players and owners spent nearly four weeks, with MLB making its first offer on May 26, angrily exchanging financial proposals and forging little progress ... until last week, when the owners finally relented on giving the players their prorated pay over 60 games and the players countered with 70. It sounded awfully close, yet the owners felt like they had a deal at 60 following a face-to-face meeting between Manfred and PA executive director Tony Clark in Arizona. Hence the mention in MLB’s statement Monday of “agreement framework developed by Commissioner Manfred and Tony Clark.” The plot twist added another layer of tension. The players’ resolve appeared to galvanize throughout the process and their lopsided vote by the executive board — which includes the 30 team representatives as well as eight members of the executive subcommittee — underlined their anger against the owners. Manfred earned the right to unilaterally implement these terms, as long as the players received their prorated salaries, by virtue of the March deal. Nevertheless, he wanted to avoid that nuclear option because 1) It opens up both sides to file grievances against the other for bargaining in bad faith; 2) It could lead to star players opting out as a result of the ill will; and 3) It doesn’t feature the lucrative extra postseason contests. The implementation also could cancel features like tie games and placing a runner on second base in extra innings on which the two sides had agreed, although those still could be featured as safety/health features. And with the Basic Agreement expiring after next year, this failure to find common ground during a pandemic bodes very poorly for the owners’ and players’ ability to collectively bargain a longer deal without a lockout or strike occurring in 2022.
Throw in the concerns that COVID-19 might prevent this season from finishing, as numbers spike in important baseball states like Arizona, Florida and Texas — all teams consequently will now hold their spring trainings at their home ballparks rather than their development complexes — and baseball has its hands full, to say the least.
Trevor Bauer, the Reds’ outspoken starting pitcher, made clear his displeasure with the owners as well as the players in a couple of tweets.
“It’s absolute death for this industry to keep acting as it has been. Both sides,” Bauer wrote. “We’re driving the bus straight off a cliff. How is this good for anyone involved? Covid 19 already presented a lose lose lose situation and we’ve somehow found a way to make it worse. Incredible.
He added: “If there’s going to be a fight the time for that fight is after the ’21 season when a new CBA is negotiated. 5 years of potential change. We’re doing irreparable damage to our industry right now over rules that last AT MOST 16 months. WTF kind of sense does that make?:
The right-hander punctuated both tweets with the emoji of a man slapping his own head in exasperation.