Players Union Unlikely To Accept MLB's Latest Proposal (76-Game Season, 50% Of Prorated Salaries (75% If Postseason Is Completed))

MLB's latest proposal for the 2020 season is a 76-game regular season with players receiving 50 percent of their prorated salaries (75% if a full postseason is played). MLB has junked its plan of a sliding scale of salary reductions.

The Post reports:

The Players Association did not comment publicly, but ... views this as taking a substantial risk by being guaranteed just half its prorated pay and needing a full postseason just to get half of the remaining 50 percent at a time when it still does not believe the owners will suffer the losses that MLB is claiming.

The union despised MLB's first 82-game plan because of the sliding scale and less than 100 percent of prorated salary. MLB hated the union's counter because it called for not only 100 percent prorated salaries but a 114-game season. Each brought greater fury rather than cooperation. ...

So where does it leave MLB? Already, the best outcome — starting the regular season on Independence Day weekend — is gone with not enough time for a resolution and a three-week spring training. ...

As part of the March 26 agreement with the players, the commissioner gained control of the schedule and MLB believes as long as it pays full prorated salaries the players are obligated to play. The union has not publicly conceded that ...

Bruce Meyer, the players' union top negotiator, wrote to MLB deputy commissioner Dan Halem last Friday:

The league's cynical tactic of depriving America of baseball games in furtherance of their demand for unwarranted salary concessions is shortsighted and troubling. Meanwhile, other leagues are moving forward with their plans for resumption.

Not only can the two sides not agree when the season might start, they cannot agree when it might end. The union's proposal had the postseason going into November. MLB is "unalterably opposed" to having the regular season extend past September 27, fearing a greater risk during a possible second wave of SARS-CoV-2. The union has warned MLB and commissioner Rob Manfred not to force a shortened season on the players.

The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal writes:

The way negotiations are dragging, the start of the season easily might be delayed until August, and 50 to 60 games might prove the only option. ...

A canceled season still seems unthinkable, but failing to make the July 4 opening also seemed unthinkable, and here we are. ... [Both parties] act like a couple about to split, talking at each other instead of to each other, recycling the same arguments, stubbornly insisting the other is wrong. They are trapped in their relationship, trapped by their respective histories. And the perception of the game suffers.

None of this happened overnight. The union's distrust of the owners dates back decades, and stems in part from three separate rulings of collusion and the original fight for free agency ... Meyer voiced that distrust in his letter to Halem, saying, "we note that the league frequently claims that it has negative operating profits from playing baseball yet it still puts on baseball games every year." The union attorney also noted the team's regional-sports network contracts the league submitted to the PA, "were so heavily redacted as to be essentially meaningless." ...

Every move the league has made in these negotiations – an economic presentation the union considered dubious, a delayed, tiered salary proposal that would have hit wealthiest players the hardest, the recent suggestion of a 50-odd game schedule – has stiffened the players' resolve. The players do not believe the owners' claim that they will lose money with each regular-season game played without fans, and want proof of the clubs' financial distress. The league shares certain information, but the teams, like most private enterprises, do not make their books publicly available. ...

[T]he union seems focused on building unity for the looming CBA negotiations, rather than treating 2020 as an unprecedented, short-term situation.