The MLB season continues to spin on a slippery axis as team owners and the players’ union again seemed to be drifting apart on Thursday.
League commissioner Rob Manfred felt the framework for a 60-game season was put in place earlier this week — an opinion panned by MLB Players Association chief executive Tony Clark on Thursday.
The union on Thursday submitted a 70-game counteroffer that apparently rankled some owners.
Clark made it clear that there was never an agreement reached during his Tuesday meeting with Manfred.
“In my discussions with Rob in Arizona, we explored a potential pro rata framework, but I made clear repeatedly in that meeting, and after it, that there were a number of significant issues with what he proposed, in particular the number of games,” Clark said in a statement. “It is unequivocally false to suggest that any tentative agreement or other agreement was reached in that meeting.”
“In fact, in conversations within the last 24 hours, Rob invited a counterproposal for more games that he would take back to the owners,” Clark said. “We submitted that counterproposal today.”
Manfred had a totally different view of their meeting.
“I don’t know what Tony and I were doing there for several hours, going back and forth and making trades, if we weren’t reaching an agreement,” Manfred told MLB Network and USA Today.
According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, the union’s proposal calls for the 70-game season to run from July 19 to Sept. 30, with spring training beginning on Friday next week.
The counterproposal calls for full prorated play, expanded 16-team playoffs this year and next year, and opt-outs for any players who are high risk or live with high-risk individuals amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The union’s latest plan, which includes a universal designated hitter this season and next season, also calls for a mutual waiver of potential grievances under the sides’ March agreement.
It also reportedly calls for approximately US$300 more million than the MLB’s 60-game plan, according to MLB Network’s Jon Heyman, who tweeted that “MLB owners are so upset by the players’ counterproposal ... that no response is expected to be immediate.”
That was different from the spin given on Wednesday by Manfred, who felt that the Let’s Make a Deal conversations had the sport on the verge of ending an ugly battle between billionaire owners and millionaire players, during a time in which millions of Americans have lost their jobs.
“At my request, Tony Clark and I met for several hours [on Tuesday] in Phoenix,” Manfred said. “We left that meeting with a jointly developed framework that we agreed could form the basis of an agreement, subject to conversations with our respective constituents. I summarized that framework numerous times in the meeting and sent Tony a written summary today. Consistent with our conversations, I am encouraging the clubs to move forward and I trust Tony is doing the same.”
Manfred said that Clark called him on Wednesday night to inform him that he was going to present the deal to the union’s eight-man executive subcommittee.
“I told him 70 games was simply impossible given the calendar and the public health situation, and he went ahead and made that proposal anyway,” Manfred said.
So the impasse continues as the window to fit in a season diminishes.
“We’re at the same place. We want to play. We want to reach an agreement,” Manfred said. “We’re doing everything necessary to find a way to play.”
Manfred has the authority, if negotiations reach a halt, to call for a schedule of about 50 games and traditional playoffs.
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