Forget an illegitimate mini-season, the 2020 Major League Baseball season may well be on its way to outright cancellation.
Major League Baseball has told the MLB Players Association that it will not set a schedule for an abbreviated 2020 season until the union agrees not to file a grievance against the league, according to multiple reports Monday.
MLB is reportedly concerned that the union may win a grievance alleging that the league failed to live up to a March 26 agreement in which it pledged to schedule as many games as conditions would allow. If MLB does set a schedule in the absence of an agreement with the union, it is widely expected to pursue as short a season as possible as the players agreed to prorated salaries based on the number of games played.
While MLB could argue that not all of the conditions for playing during a pandemic have been met, settling a 48 or 50-game season when more games could have been played would potentially expose the league to billions in damages in the event of a successful grievance.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, who last week characterized the chances of a season taking place as “100%,” said on ESPN Monday that he is no longer confident that any games will be played. Appearing on an SportsCenter special titled “The Return of Sports” set to debut Monday night, Manfred said the threat of a grievance — which he called a “bad-faith tactic” — would make it “extremely difficult to move forward.”
Monday’s development follows a weekend in which the Players Association rejected the league’s latest proposal — a 72-game season in which players would be paid 70-83% of their prorated salaries, per ESPN — and instead called for an end to negotiations. The union said the league should set a schedule without an agreement in place, a move that commissioner Manfred is allowed to do under the terms of the March 26 agreement.
[News from AP 6.15, LA Times 6.15, New York Post 6.15, ESPN.com 6.15]
