MLB rejects 114-game schedule, threatens plan of about 50
NEW YORK (AP) — If Major League Baseball and its players take the field for a coronan virus delayed 2020 season, it will be after acrimonious negotiations that resemble their labor war of a generation ago.
MLB rejected the players’ proposal for a 114game regular season with no additional salary cuts, and will turn its attention to a shortened slate of perhaps 50 games or fewer. Owners last week proposed an 82-game schedule starting in early July.
“We do not have any reason to believe that a negotiated solution for an 82game season is possible,” Deputy Commissioner Dan Halem wrote in a letter Wednesday to chief union negotiator Bruce Meyer that was obtained by The Associated Press.
MLB’S plan included a sliding scale of pay decreases that would leave players at the $563,500 minimum with 47% of their original salaries and top stars Mike Trout and Gerrit Cole at less than 22% of the $36 million they had been set to earn.
Players insisted they receive the prorated salaries agreed to in a March 26 deal, which would give them 70% pay at 114 games. That agreement called for the sides to “discuss in good faith the economic feasibility of playing games in the absence of spectators.” The union has said no additional cuts are acceptable.
There has not been a schedule averaging fewer than 82 games per team since 1879.
“Despite what it sounds like with some of the Twitter bickering back and forth and some of the posturing back and forth, I am optimistic that we are going to play baseball this year,” Milwaukee president of baseball operations David Stearns said. “I’m optimistic that both sides genuinely want to play baseball this year, that there’s a path to doing so, even if it’s a shorter season, even if it’s 50 games.”