Though Major League Baseball team owners and the Players Association remained far apart on an economic plan and other key aspects for the 2020 regular season, commissioner Rob Manfred provided some reassurances last week by guaranteeing play will resume this summer.
It was the first bit of positive news surrounding MLB in quite some time. However, Manfred changed his tune on Monday, stating that he was less certain about a 2020 campaign being played due to negative developments over the weekend.
During an appearance on ESPN’s “The Return of Sports,” Manfred specifically pointed to the league’s belief the union decided to end good-faith negotiations and their threats to file a grievance as reasons for his pessimism:
“We had a couple of developments over the weekend that were really negative in terms of our efforts. The first was the Players Association’s decision to end good-faith negotiations. I understand that the players were frustrated by the lack of progress on the monetary issue, but this is about a lot more than money. We need an agreement with the MLBPA on health and safety protocols in order to put the game back on the field safely. And even more important, we need a commitment from players that they can abide by those health protocols. Given the course of the virus and what’s going on right now around the country, those health protocols are absolutely crucial. We’re only going to get there with dialogue that the union apparently is not prepared to have right now.
“Equally important, I had been hopeful that once we got to common ground on the idea that we were going to pay the players’ full prorated salary that we would get some cooperation in terms of proceeding under the agreement that we negotiated with the MLBPA on March 26. Unfortunately, over the weekend, while Tony Clark was declaring his desire to get back to work, the union’s top lawyer was out telling reporters, players and eventually getting back to owners that as soon as we issued a schedule — as they requested — they intended to file a grievance claiming they were entitled to an additional billion dollars. Obviously, that sort of bad-faith tactic makes it extremely difficult to move forward in these circumstances.”
MLBPA executive director issued a response to Manfred’s comments, criticizing him for going back on his word and accusing team owners of negotiating in bad faith.
While Manfred has the option of imposing a shortened schedule, he is reportedly reluctant to do so over the possibility of the union filing a grievance, with the claim that Manfred did not act in good faith to play as many games as possible.
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