Major League Baseball on Wednesday rejected the Players Association’s proposal of a 114-game season and told the union it would not send a counter, again leaving the parties deadlocked in their quest to begin the 2020 season.
The league, according to sources, also informed the MLBPA it has started talks with its owners about playing a shorter season without fans, and that it is ready to discuss additional ideas with the union on that subject.
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The impasse over player pay, however, shows no signs of abating.
The league will not make another proposal. The union, after agreeing to prorated salaries in March, remains steadfast that its members will not accept a second pay cut and does not plan to negotiate against itself.
MLB is entertaining playing a season as short as 50 games. A scenario exists in which players would earn more total dollars playing 80 or so games at a per-game discount than 50 or so at full price. The league has not proposed such a scenario – the idea, for now, is hypothetical. But the math for this year’s pay is not the only factor for players.
The union wants MLB to honor the terms outlined by the March agreement, and might be willing to sacrifice short-term financial gain in order to establish what it believes to be long-term negotiating strength. Last week, the PA rejected the owners’ proposal of a tiered salary structure that would have resulted, by the union’s estimate, in an additional reduction in total dollars of more than 30 percent.
If the parties are to reach a new agreement, they will need to act quickly to play a season as long as 82 games, starting around July 4. While no hard deadline exists for a deal, the players likely will need a minimum of a month to report to camps and participate in preseason workouts before the season can begin.
Though the language in the March agreement between the parties is subject to interpretation, MLB believes the wording enables commissioner Rob Manfred to determine the length of the season as long as the league pays the players the prorated salaries outlined by the deal.
The union, though, is not without leverage.
The March agreement does not appear to give Manfred the power to dictate the postseason, saying, “The parties shall negotiate in good faith regarding potential one-time changes to the structure, format, qualification rules, or other similar rules regarding the 2020 post-season, which discussions shall include potential ways to expand the post-season beyond its current format.”
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The union offered expanded playoffs in its proposal to the owners on Sunday, but only as part of a larger agreement. The failure to strike a deal would leave the league without the ability to expand the postseason and realize additional income. The league also would sacrifice other potential benefits the union offered, including player commitments to broadcast enhancements.
Either or both parties could pursue a grievance if they cannot resolve their differences. The ensuing arbitration, however, would be time-consuming, and thus is an impractical solution if the parties wish to play an abbreviated 2020 season.
The owners do not see an extension of the regular season as viable. The March agreement allows for such a plan, but Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick told Arizona Sports 98.7 FM on Tuesday that the union’s proposed 114-game season was not acceptable because of the possibility of a second wave of COVID-19 hitting this fall.
The threat of the virus derailing the season will linger even if the major-league players and owners agree on economics and health and safety protocols for 2020. Two players with Japan’s Yomiuri Giants recently tested positive for COVID-19, forcing the team to cancel a practice game against the Seibu Lions and renewing concerns about the game’s ability to return in that country.
“We don’t want to take the risk of putting our players in jeopardy and our game in peril to be playing games beyond the end of October,” Kendrick said. “So our model is and will never be changed that we will not be playing baseball in the month of November.”
Agent Scott Boras responded to Kendrick, saying, “The NFL and college football – contact sports – could be playing in November, let alone December. MLB, a social distancing sport, says it can’t play playoffs in November. Apparently the NFL and NCAA medical experts think differently.”
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Financial considerations also might be driving MLB’s apparent desire to finish before November: Fox Sports and TBS, the networks that carry the bulk of the playoffs, likely would want the league to stick to its current plan and stage the postseason in October.
Pushing playoff games to November would cost the networks lucrative pre-election advertising. Fox, which carries the World Series, also might sacrifice ad dollars if the Series ended around Thanksgiving. The network’s other programming at that time includes the Michigan-Ohio State college football game on Nov. 28 as well as the NFL.
MLB indicated this week it would pay players their full per-game salaries, but only in a schedule that would consist of as few as 50 games. The league says it would lose money for every regular-season game played. The union wants to play as many games as possible to maximize the players’ earnings on a per-game basis.
The league projected the players in 2020 to earn a total of about $4.37 billion. They would receive approximately 31 percent of that sum in a 50-game season with full prorated salaries, or about $1.35 billion.
How, then, might they do better with a second pay cut over 82 games?
If, for example, the owners proposed giving them 80 percent of their prorated salaries in a season of that length, the players would receive 40 percent of their overall salaries, or about $1.75 billion — in other words, roughly $400 million more than they would earn from 100 percent of their prorated salaries in a 50-game season.
Again, the league has given no indication it would make such a proposal, and might simply prefer to play a shorter season and pay a lesser amount. The union, meanwhile, does not want to entertain a second pay cut, believing that players, for the games they work, should be paid in full.
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Abdicating that position now might only give the league impetus to seek other concessions in the future, union officials say. The players do not want to project weakness with negotiations for a new collective-bargaining agreement looming in 2021.
The union gave perhaps an early glimpse of its approach during the negotiations for the 2020 amateur draft. The league proposed a 10-round draft that would have reduced signing-bonus rates by half in rounds 6 through 10, creating a cost of $500,000 per club in those rounds. The union did not accept that offer or negotiate off it because the league’s proposal included other restrictions the union found unacceptable, including a limit on the number of undrafted players who could sign for $20,000 this year.
No new proposal followed, and the league exercised its right under the March agreement to reduce the draft to five rounds from its customary 40. The union’s position indicated it would not allow the league to push for additional sacrifices the players view as disproportionate. The final outcome, after both sides held firm, effectively denied 150 players the opportunity to be drafted and cost them a potential $15 million in bonuses.
The stakes for the 2020 major-league season obviously are much higher. Yet for all the recent tension between the parties, Manfred’s history is that he prefers to settle with the union rather than simply impose his will on the players — he declined to exercise his unilateral right to impose a pitch clock, for example.
The path to resolution, though, remains unclear, and time is working against the players and owners if they wish to play 82 games. The parties also need to negotiate a host of lesser details, including roster sizes, rules changes and payment and service time for players who wish to opt out of the season, whether they are at high risk for COVID-19 or not.
The league fears a second wave of the virus might force the cancellation of the postseason and cost the owners additional millions. The union offered to defer $100 million if that worst-case scenario occurred, and might negotiate a higher amount if the league offered to maintain the players’ full prorated salaries in a season closer to 82 games than 50. But the league, for now, remains opposed to deferrals.
The players’ proposal for 114 games and owners’ suggestion of 50 does offer one potential glimmer of compromise.
The midpoint of those two numbers is 82.
(Top photo: Jim Davis/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)