© Troy Taormina | 2019 Oct 23
The next time Rob Manfred guarantees something is going to happen, how many people will believe him? In light of comments made on Monday, that number will likely be close to zero.
Just a week after saying there is a 100 percent chance Major League Baseball would have a season in 2020 amid a stalemate between players and owners over compensation, the MLB Commissioner now is “not confident” it’s going to happen.
“I’m not confident,” Manfred said on ESPN radio. “I think there’s real risk; and as long as there’s no dialogue, that real risk is gonna continue.”
“It’s just a disaster for our game, absolutely no question about it,” Manfred continued, a week after saying “unequivocally we are going to play Major League Baseball this year”.
“It shouldn’t be happening, and it’s important that we find a way to get past it and get the game back on the field for the benefit of our fans.”
Manfred claims that because the players have ended negotiations with the league, which has refused to capitulate to the players’ demand for full prorated salaries, they are not 100 percent committed to playing, something he says he is.
“The owners are a hundred percent committed to getting baseball back on the field,” Manfred said. “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you that I’m a hundred percent certain that’s gonna happen.”
The Major League Baseball Players Association rejected the latest return-to-play proposal from the owners on Saturday evening, and indicated in a strongly worded letter that they are done negotiating. The players have stood firm in their unwillingness to agree to any deal that does not pay players their full prorated salaries.
The latest offer from the owners was for a 72 game season with 70 percent of their full prorated pay guaranteed and up to 83 percent following the completion of the postseason. That is the largest percentage of salary offered by the owners during negotiations, but was still 30 percent too low for the players.
MLBPA lead negotiator Bruce Meyer, in a letter sent to deputy commissioner Dan Halem on Saturday night told the owners that negotiations are over, and that if the league going to exercise their right to impose a 50ish game season, they need to let the players know what the plan is by “close of business on Monday, June 15.”
“I had been hopeful that once we got to common ground on the idea that we were gonna 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 26th,” Manfred told ESPN. “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.”
Now the pending lawsuit from the players has caused Manfred to halt his plans to impose a season. According to Bill Shakin of the LA Times, there will be no season unless the legal claims are waived.
Source: In a letter today, MLB told the MLBPA there would be no 2020 season unless the players waived any legal claims against the league.
— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) June 15, 2020
Although it now looks like there will be no baseball, Manfred has succeeded in doing one thing: He’s somehow come out looking the worst in what has been one of the most embarrassing moments in the modern history of MLB.