Cactus: MLB didn’t push for delay request

The Cactus League denied a report on Tuesday that said Major League Baseball encouraged the league to push for spring training to be delayed.

Late last week, the Cactus League sent a letter to baseball commissioner Rob Manfred in which it suggested it would be “wise to delay the start of spring training to allow for the COVID-19 situation to improve here.”

MLB has been pushing for spring training to be delayed, but the players’ association has been reluctant to go along with the idea, at least not without assurances of a full, 162-game season, something the league has not guaranteed, according to reports.

The Athletic reported that MLB executives intimated during a Jan. 13 call with Cactus League officials that a letter would be beneficial in negotiations with the players. The report cited two sources.

“The representative was very direct,” one source told The Athletic. “They believe it is time to push off spring training for a month, but they’re having problems with the players because a change would be necessary to the (collective bargaining agreement) for that to happen. He supported a letter to put pressure on players to push back spring training, a full month.”

That version of events was disputed by both the Cactus League and MLB, both of which issued statements to The Republic on Tuesday.

“These quotes are a mischaracterization of what was said during the call,” Cactus League executive director Bridget Binsbacher said in a statement. “At no time did any MLB representative request a letter to pressure players on negotiations. During that meeting, leaders shared their views and discussed a letter with the goal of recapping those views — and any suggestions that there was pressure from any entity to write the letter is false.”

MLB’s statement called it “categorically untrue” that MLB asked for the letter, noting that Binsbacher, who wrote it, would confirm as much.

“There was no need for such a request because officials from the Cactus League had publicly stated their desire for a delay prior to the meeting,” MLB's statement continued. “In the meeting, MLB officials, consistent with our prior public statements, expressed a willingness to reevaluate our plan to open camps on time in light of the public health situation. Also, consistent with our prior public statements, we acknowledged the need to work with the MLBPA, which has opposed any delay.”

Pitchers and catchers are set to report to camp starting the week of Feb. 15 with games beginning on Feb. 27.

In an interview on Monday, Binsbacher shot down the suggestion that MLB had wanted the letter to be written, though she acknowledged it did not come as a surprise to anyone at the commissioner’s office.

“Honestly,” she said, “this letter was a sincere representation of our local leaders to encourage the safest possible scenario.”

MLB and its players have been at odds in recent years over a variety of issues, much of it stemming from slow-moving free-agent markets over the past several winters. The sides had an ugly and public negotiation last summer, when they were unable to reach agreement on terms of a shortened season, forcing Manfred to implement a 60-game schedule.