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Latest On Collective Bargaining Negotiations

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OCTOBER 26: Commissioner Rob Manfred continued to express optimism about the possibility of hammering out a new agreement by December 1. Speaking with reporters (including Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post) before tonight’s opening World Series contest, Manfred called agreeing to a pre-December CBA the “number one priority” for the league.

OCTOBER 25: The current collective bargaining agreement is set to expire on December 1, and the general expectation is that this round of talks could be especially contentious. Ronald Blum of the Associated Press casts further doubt on the likelihood of a new deal being reached by the end of November, writing that neither MLB nor the MLB Players Association believes the other side has “made proposals that will lead toward an agreement” by December 1.

We’ve gotten glimpses of some ideas being kicked around in the early stages of bargaining over the past few months. In mid-August, Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic reported the league proposed a lowering of the first luxury tax threshold from this year’s $210MM mark to $180MM. That came with a $100MM salary floor ostensibly designed to limit tanking, although the lowered luxury tax thresholds seemed likely to be a non-starter for the MLBPA. Joel Sherman of the New York Post later added additional context on that proposal, writing that the league offered to eliminate service time considerations in favor of an age-based system that would see players hit free agency once they turned 29 1/2.

With a seemingly large gap to bridge, there’s been increasing speculation about how the potential CBA expiration could impact the offseason. As MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes covered in August, teams were permitted to make moves during the last work stoppage (the 1994-95 players’ strike). Blum writes that MLB may try institute a transactions freeze this winter if the CBA expires without a new agreement. Jeff Passan of ESPN wrote last month that speculation about a transactions freeze could increase the urgency for some players and teams to hammer out contract extensions before December 1. Since then, each of Michael A. Taylor (Royals), Antonio Senzatela (Rockies) and C.J. Cron (Rockies) signed multi-year deals, although Jon Gray rejected an extension offer from Colorado.

Further complicating matters is the ongoing dispute about last year’s pandemic-shortened season. The MLBPA filed a grievance against the league a few months ago, alleging that MLB didn’t make appropriate efforts to play as many games as possible during last year’s 60-game schedule. (Player pay was prorated in 2020, so fewer games meant lower salaries). Blum now reports that the hearing on that grievance began during the final week of September. A timetable for its resolution remains unclear.

MLB Proposal To Players Association Included Changes To Service Time Structure

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SEPTEMBER 2: Jon Heyman of the MLB Network reports that the MLBPA “responded very negatively” to the league’s initial proposal. As mentioned, the full terms of the offer aren’t yet known.

SEPTEMBER 1: Major League Baseball proposed a radical altering of the league’s service time structure in collective bargaining discussions with the MLB Players Association last month, reports Joel Sherman of the New York Post. The league’s proposal included an offer to make players eligible for free agency at 29.5 years of age. It also involved a $1 billion pool (which would be tied to revenues in future seasons) that would be dispersed in an unspecified manner to replace the current arbitration system.

Both features were part of a broader package proposal the league made to the MLBPA in mid-August, which Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic reported also included the lowering of the first luxury tax threshold to $180MM and the institution of a $100MM salary floor. Much about that proposal still remains unclear, although the lowered tax thresholds alone seem likely to make it a non-starter for the Players Association, which is widely expected to push for higher tax thresholds in the upcoming CBA.

The current CBA is set to expire on December 1, leaving three months for the parties to continue to negotiate before the current deal lapses. (It’s not entirely clear what kind of impact such a scenario would have on the offseason were it to come to fruition, as teams were still permitted to make transactions the last time the CBA expired without a new agreement). It seems likely those talks will pick up in earnest the closer we move to the winter, but intervening reports offer a glimpse of how those more serious negotiations might take shape.

MLB’s offer to base free agency qualification on age is in response to players’ concerns about service time manipulation. Under the current system, players first qualify for free agency at the end of the season in which they accrue six full years of MLB service time. A full year of service is calculated as 172 days, meaning players first promoted to the big leagues in late April of their rookie seasons fall just short of that benchmark. Not coincidentally, various top prospects have been held in the minors until just after that cutoff point in recent seasons — ensuring their teams essentially gain a seventh year of control over the player.

Under an age-based system, there’d be no incentive for teams to keep prospects down past the time they’re deemed ready to play at the major league level. It’d also be a boon to late-blooming players, many of whom have to wait until they’re into their 30’s — and potentially past their physical peaks — to market their services around the league. Sherman cites Yankees star Aaron Judge — whose free agency timeline would’ve accelerated from next offseason to this winter if eligibility were set at 29.5 years — as an example of a player who would stand to benefit from such a change.

That said, setting the free agency qualifying age at 29.5 would have an adverse effect on many of the game’s top stars. It’s not uncommon for the sport’s brightest young talents to reach the big leagues in their early-20’s in spite of the existing service time structure. Those players will often reach free agency before turning 29, setting them up well to land lengthy mega-deals. For reference, three of the top four players on MLBTR’s most recent Free Agent Power Rankings — Carlos Correa, Corey Seager and Trevor Story — wouldn’t be eligible for free agency this offseason if it were only granted for players 29.5 and older.

So while an age-based system would benefit some players, it would likely depress the earning potential for some of the game’s top free agents — many of whom land market-resetting deals precisely because they’re young enough to shop around multiple seasons of prime-age performance. Young, extremely talented players who are most likely to land top-of-the-market contracts are also the ones most likely to be impacted by service time manipulation in the first place.

That makes it all the more challenging to find an age the league would find agreeable that meaningfully changes those players’ free agency outlooks. For instance, Kris Bryant — whose delayed 2015 promotion pushed back his free agency until this winter and led the MLBPA to file a highly-publicized service time grievance on his behalf — wouldn’t have reached free agency until this offseason regardless if the qualification age were set at 29.5 years. That’s not to say MLB’s proposed age threshold couldn’t be modified in future negotiations, but it also demonstrates that basing free agency eligibility on age isn’t inherently a universal benefit to players.

As with free agency, arbitration eligibility is presently determined by service time. Under the current system, players qualify for arbitration upon reaching three years of MLB service. Players in the top 22% of service among those with between two and three years will also reach arbitration as Super Two qualifiers. If the team and player can’t agree on a salary, it is decided by a panel of arbitrators, who use comparable player salaries often based upon traditional statistics.

That can lead to a bit of a disconnect between arbitration values and teams’ valuations of players, which are often based on more advanced analytical data. Arbitrators’ heavy reliance on traditional metrics can fuel non-tenders for players whose box score statistics (e.g. home runs, RBI, pitcher wins) are more impressive than a team’s ’wins above replacement’ type of formula or Statcast data.

On the surface, it does seem revamping or replacing arbitration could be a positive endeavor for players. Sherman estimates that arbitration-eligible players made approximately $650MM this past offseason, so the $1 billion pool would be a rather significant increase. But Sherman also notes that a revenue-based pool system might be viewed by the MLBPA as too closely resembling a salary cap — which the union has always rejected. It’s also not clear how that money would be distributed or how arbitration eligibility would be determined if the sides were to abandon service time considerations.

Sherman also offers one additional piece of information on the league’s proposal. While MLB’s offer included a lower first luxury tax threshold, the league was willing to remove escalating penalties for repeat tax payors. The current CBA requires teams to pay a 20% tax on the first twenty million dollars above the lowest luxury threshold. That tax increases to 30% for teams that exceed the threshold in two consecutive years and escalates to 50% for teams exceeding the threshold in three or more years straight.

The escalating penalties have led some high-spending teams to pull off a tax reset. A team that exceeds the threshold in Year One has extra incentive to dip below for a year and reset their penalty bracket before going back above the mark the following season. That seemed to be of particular import this season for the Yankees and Astros, both of whom exceeded the threshold in 2020 but appear to have narrowly dipped below the mark this season.

It bears repeating that MLB and the MLBPA remain in the very early stages of bargaining. Drellich and Rosenthal previously reported that the MLBPA made its first offer in May, and last month’s proposal was the league’s first. The full terms of both sides’ initial offers remain unclear. There should be plenty more about the sides’ back-and-forth that emerges over the coming weeks and months.

Even With No CBA, MLB Transactions Can Happen

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When baseball’s seventh collective bargaining agreement expired on December 31, 1993, there was no fanfare.  Murray Chass of the New York Times dropped it in this way, writing, “If negotiations for a new labor agreement ever begin — the old one expired uneventfully at midnight Friday — the owners will try to put salary arbitration in a time capsule and bury it deep underground, leaving it to be discovered by someone seeking the reason for the decline and fall of the business of baseball.”  The expiration of the old agreement was basically an aside in Chass’ article about the owners’ desire to eliminate salary arbitration.

With the current collective bargaining agreement set to expire on December 1 this year, there’s an assumption a freeze will be placed on free agency and perhaps trades as well.  Maybe that’s because we experienced a transaction freeze quite recently, spanning March 26-June 26 of 2020.  But that was part of an agreement between MLB and the MLBPA, and it was triggered by a global pandemic that halted not just baseball, but life as we knew it.

So, the expiration of the CBA at the end of 1993 seems more instructive when trying to assess the possibility of a freeze this winter.  In January 1994, the MLB offseason continued unabated, with seeming scant consideration for the lack of a collective bargaining agreement.  The Padres agreed to a two-year, $8.5MM extension with star outfielder Tony Gwynn.  The Mets and Royals exchanged problems in a swap of Vince Coleman and Kevin McReynolds.  The Rockies inked free agent shortstop Walt Weiss to a two-year, $2.2MM deal.  All the sorts of typical headlines you’d find on MLB Trade Rumors back in January ’94, had this site existed back then.  None of these linked New York Times articles made mention of the just-expired CBA.

Of course, as Mark Armour and Dan Levitt of The Hardball Times put it, “in the summer of 1994, baseball’s owners and players were headed for the showdown to beat all showdowns.”  MLBPA leader Donald Fehr correctly surmised in July, “We believe absent an agreement the owners will impose a salary cap sometime after the season. That leaves players with two choices — take what’s on the table or try to secure a new agreement by setting a strike date.”  The owners followed by withholding the players’ $7.8MM pension payment, and the players soon followed through on their August 12 strike date.

With the 1994 World Series canceled and acrimony between the owners and players through the roof, it’d only be natural for ownership to implement a free agency freeze.  Instead, they proposed a 45-day delay, which the union did not accept, and the 1994-95 offseason proceeded.  It was far from a normal offseason, with Mets GM Joe McIlvaine saying things like, “We can’t do anything because we don’t know what the rules are.”  Players like Jim Abbott and Jack McDowell were unsure if they had reached the six years of Major League service required for free agency, due to disagreement about whether service time was accrued during the strike.  McDowell would eventually be traded to the Yankees despite that uncertainty.  Other players were thought to be potential restricted free agents as four and five-year players, as part of the owners’ plan to eliminate salary arbitration.

Paradoxically, as Chass put it on October 28, “The business of baseball went on yesterday as if the strike did not exist.”  Managers and GMs were hired and fired, sure, but clubs also continued doing big-money deals with players.  On the eve of free agency, the Yankees and George Steinbrenner signed Paul O’Neill to a four-year, $19MM deal.  A $1.2MM signing bonus included in the deal ran afoul of MLB recommendations, as they’d warned, “Clubs should keep in mind the payment of the bonus amounts to a decision by the club to help fund the continuing players strike.”

Teams continued signing free agents during the strike in the final months of 1994.  “I’m not sure our words match our actions,” remarked Dodgers GM Fred Claire in this Bob Nightengale article.  Angels GM Bill Bavasi commented, “I’m not saying teams are wrong for what they’re doing, it just has people confused. I know I can’t figure it out.”  One of the winter’s top free agents, Gregg Jefferies, inked a four-year, $20MM deal with the Phillies.  Not long after, the Mariners re-upped Jay Buhner for $15.5MM.  December 23, 1994 marked a turning point, as the owners implemented their salary cap plan.  It was only then that the union advised players not to sign free agent contracts, Chass wrote.

History shows us that if the current collective bargaining agreement expires on December 1 without a new deal in place, a freeze on free agency and/or trades is not fait accompli.  It’s fair to say that the environment now is less contentious than it was 27 years ago, as ownership isn’t attempting to impose a salary cap and the players aren’t planning to strike this season.  There is technically nothing stopping Carlos Correa, Corey Seager, Kris Bryant, and all the rest from signing free agent contracts despite the lack of a CBA.  While uncertainty around things like the new luxury tax thresholds and the universal designated hitter seems likely to suppress hot stove action, an actual free agency freeze won’t happen unless MLB or the players impose it.

MLB Reportedly Proposes $180MM First Luxury Tax Threshold, $100MM Salary Floor To MLBPA

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With the current collective bargaining agreement set to expire on December 1, 2021, Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have been in talks regarding the potential structure of the next CBA. MLB made its first core economic proposal to the MLBPA this week, report Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic.

MLB’s proposal included a lower threshold for taxes on team spending, with teams subject to a 25% tax on any spending above $180MM, report Drellich and Rosenthal. There would be three additional tax brackets at some point above that mark (for a total of four tax brackets), with the tax rate increasing as teams hit those higher overage levels. As a trade-off, MLB proposed that teams be subject to a $100MM salary minimum. MLB’s entire proposal was presented as a package deal as opposed to a series of one-by-one potential provisions.

For comparison’s sake, the current CBA contains three tiers of luxury tax penalization. For the 2021 season, the first tier begins at $210MM and contains a 20% tax on overages up through $230MM. There’s a 32% tax on overages between $230MM and $250MM and a 62.5% tax on any payments beyond $250MM. Those penalties escalate for teams that pay the tax in multiple consecutive seasons.

(Under the current CBA, a team’s luxury tax number is calculated by tabulating the average annual values of its financial obligations — not its actual payroll in any given season. It’s not clear whether MLB’s proposal would continue to be based on contracts’ AAV’s as opposed to current-year obligations).

The luxury tax has become an obvious deterrent to spending for most high-payroll teams. Only the Dodgers have been comfortable blowing by the thresholds to incur the loftiest penalties associated with the third bracket this season. Teams like the Padres, Yankees, Phillies, Red Sox and Astros all have CBT numbers hovering right around the $210MM lowest threshold and either contemplated or were seemingly dead-set upon avoiding the tax during their offseason and trade deadline maneuvering. Of that group, it seems only San Diego might have exceeded the threshold by a narrow margin, although it’s not yet clear that’s the case. Even if the Friars did go over the first threshold, they didn’t exceed it by enough to incur particularly meaningful financial penalties this year.

Given that the luxury tax has served as a de facto salary cap for some of the league’s top spenders, it doesn’t seem likely the MLBPA will be particularly enamored with the idea of lowering that first threshold such a substantial amount. Indeed, it’s widely expected the MLBPA will be pushing for a dramatic increase to those thresholds during the current session of CBA talks. MLB also offered the union an option to leave the luxury tax status quo, report Drellich and Rosenthal, although it’s not clear what other conditions would be involved in that scenario.

MLB is obviously aware that getting the MLBPA’s assent on lower tax thresholds will be extremely difficult (if not impossible). That’s likely the reason for the inclusion of the proposed salary floor, with the league reasoning that setting a minimum payroll would increase some teams’ spending and more equally divide team payrolls for competitive balance reasons. Twelve teams (Pirates, Indians, Marlins, Orioles, Rays, Mariners, Tigers, A’s, Royals, Rangers, Diamondbacks and Brewers) entered the 2021 season with an actual payroll below $100MM, in the estimation of Cot’s Baseball Contracts. (Seven had an estimated luxury tax payroll below $100MM). The league’s proposal contained some method of redistributing tax money collected from the higher spenders to spur spending among those lowest-payroll clubs, Drellich and Rosenthal report.

Of course, there’s plenty about the league’s proposal that’s unknown. Drellich and Rosenthal note that it’s unclear how the league would penalize teams that don’t reach the spending minimum, or even in what season that minimum would go into effect. It’s also debatable whether the presence of a salary floor would actually increase free agent spending or truly disincentivize teams from conducting long-term rebuilds. It’s equally easy to envision a low-payroll rebuilder acquiring an underperforming veteran player on an expensive contract — along with prospect talent — from a high-payroll club looking to duck under the tax threshold.

For instance, the Padres and Rangers reportedly had pre-deadline discussions about a deal that would’ve sent first baseman Eric Hosmer (who’s on an eight-year, $144MM contract) and top outfield prospect Robert Hassell III to Texas to acquire Joey Gallo. That obviously didn’t come to fruition, but it’s a useful illustration of the creative ways teams could work around the lower tax thresholds/salary floor. The Rangers picking up Hosmer would’ve pushed their payroll up over $100MM while shedding money from San Diego’s books — without having any direct impact on the free agent market.

Of course, there’s still a few months for the two sides to bandy about proposals before the expiration of the current CBA. The MLBPA made its first proposal back in May, report Drellich and Rosenthal, with one emphasis being on earlier arbitration eligibility for younger players.

There’s obviously a significant amount of each proposal that hasn’t yet been made public. Drellich’s and Rosenthal’s report sheds some early light on both sides’ vision for the long-term future of the sport, but there’ll be plenty more back-and-forth between the league and the MLBPA over the coming months in what’s widely expected to be a fairly contentious negotiation. The full piece is worth a perusal for subscribers to the Athletic interested in the sport’s labor dynamics.

MLB Hoping To Return To Nine-Inning Doubleheaders, Modified Extra-Inning Rules In 2022

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TODAY: The automatic runner rule in extra innings might be modified rather than removed, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale writes.  The rule could be altered so that the auto runner wouldn’t become part of the game until the 11th or 12th inning, with the first extra frame or two played until regular rules.

JULY 13: “I don’t think seven-inning doubleheaders are going to be part of our future going forward,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters (including ESPN.com’s Jeff Passan and MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand) today.  Additionally, Manfred also suggested that the league could do away with the modified extra-innings rule that saw a runner automatically placed on second base at the start of each extra frame.

JULY 11: As part of the MLB – MLBPA agreements on health and safety protocols, doubleheaders have consisted of a pair of seven-inning games over the past two years. “Barring heavy resistance” from the Players Association, the league is planning to return to the traditional nine-inning affairs for twin bills starting in 2022, reports Bob Nightengale of USA Today.

It’s not clear how hard the MLBPA would need to push back against the return of nine-inning doubleheaders for the league to agree to keep the seven-inning format in place, nor is it even apparent there’s much interest on the players’ side in doing so. The seven-inning doubleheader format has been in place the last two seasons as a COVID-19 mitigation measure. With viral spread among teams contributing to the cancellation of games in bulk (especially last season, before the availability of vaccines), a few teams had to play a series of doubleheaders in relatively rapid succession. Fear of overworking players — particularly on the pitching staff — led the parties to knock two frames off games during doubleheaders. The hope and expectation is certainly that COVID-19 mitigation efforts won’t need to be as prevalent next year.

Concern about overexerting pitching staffs is also a reason for another COVID-inspired rules change of 2020-21: the automatic runner in extra innings. There’s been no indication of MLB’s plans with regards to that alteration beyond this season. (Notably, that rule was put into place throughout the minor leagues in 2018, well before the pandemic).

There’s little doubt the rule has indeed served its purpose of preventing marathon games. There hasn’t been a single MLB game to exceed thirteen innings in either of the past two seasons; there were 23 such games in 2019 alone. Nevertheless, the rule has predictably proven divisive among fans, many of whom perceive the placement of a free runner on second base to start extras as gimmicky.

Of course, any rules discussions will take place amidst broader negotiations between MLB and the MLPA on the state of the game. The collective bargaining agreement is scheduled to expire December 1, setting the stage for a new round of CBA talks in the coming months.

Rob Manfred On CBA, Vaccinations, All-Star Game

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With Major League Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement set to expire Dec. 1, the league and the MLBPA held their first set of talks on a new deal last week. The two sides still have several months to work out an agreement, but considering how contentious their relationship has been over the past few years, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see a work stoppage for the first time since the 1994-95 strike. However, commissioner Rob Manfred is optimistic it won’t come to that.

Speaking at a SporticoLive event this week, Manfred said the owners are “committed to the process” of preventing a stoppage, according to Barry M. Bloom of Sportico. Manfred then noted that he has worked in labor relations for most of his career and added: “The varying nature of labor relations is kind of ups and downs. You’re going to have various times of conflict when you don’t see eye to eye. The trick is getting past those areas of conflict and finding a way to make an agreement and find common ground.”

On the other hand, the union’s executive director, Tony Clark, admitted to Bloom that a work stoppage is “a possibility,” saying MLB could “shut the door and lock us out.”

Although a work stoppage may cause severe damage to the sport, there are several roadblocks that could prevent the league and its players from finding common ground by the time December arrives. Playoff expansion, the universal designated hitter, individual teams’ payrolls, revenue distribution and players’ service time are sure to be some of the main items on the table during negotiations. If the parties can’t settle their differences on those issues and other matters of importance, MLB could experience a shutdown in seven months.

While the league has plenty on its plate with the CBA soon to expire, it’s also trying to navigate through a global pandemic and a divided political climate. On the subject of COVID-19, Manfred said 70 percent of players, on-field staff and support personnel have been fully or partially vaccinated, the Associated Press reports. Once MLB hits the 85 percent threshold, it will loosen its restrictions.

Earlier this month, the Manfred-led league moved this summer’s All-Star Game and amateur draft from Atlanta to Colorado, which many inferred as a rejection of Georgia’s SB 202 voting law. However, Manfred stated that the league made the decision to help its players avoid political controversy.

“We were injected into a very politicized situation. I think we did the right thing,” Manfred said (via the AP). “We thought our players were going to be in an extraordinarily difficult situation given how politically charged it was. And we think that the decision we made will actually be player protective.”

This year’s All-Star and draft festivities will take place from July 11-13.

MLB, MLBPA Hold First CBA Talks

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Major League Baseball and the MLBPA held their first round of collective bargaining talks on Tuesday, Jeff Passan of ESPN.com reports. The meeting took place via video conference and featured “dozens of people,” including members of player leadership, according to Passan. It was the first time MLB and the union have negotiated since the players rejected the league’s proposal for a delayed 154-game regular season on Feb. 1.

The current CBA expires on Dec. 1, and if the two sides don’t reach a deal by then, the sport could experience its first work stoppage since the 1994-95 strike. The relationship between the league and the players has taken an especially contentious turn over the past couple years, which could make it difficult to achieve labor peace by the start of December.  At the same time, both sides understand that failure to reach an agreement could cause serious damage to the $10 billion-per-year industry, Passan writes.

As negotiations continue, the union will turn some of its focus toward “spending and competitive integrity,” per Passan. Along with pushing for teams to spend more, the players would like to earn more money earlier in their careers – which could mean changes to the current service-time setup. Under today’s rules, a player must have six years of big league service time to reach free agency. With that in mind, many clubs have kept talented prospects in the minors for seemingly longer than necessary in order to gain a seventh year of control.

On the ownership side, there continues to be a desire to increase the number of playoff teams per season. More than half of the league’s teams (16 of 30) made the playoffs during the shortened 2020 campaign, but the field reverted to 10 this year after the union turned down an expanded postseason as part of the league’s 154-game proposal.

MLB Payrolls Dropped A Collective $2.47 Billion In 2020

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Per the latest report from Ronald Blum of the Associated Press, payrolls across MLB fell from $4.22 billion in 2019 to $1.75 billion during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. The Dodgers’ $98.6MM payroll, Blum notes, clocked in as the highest mark among the game’s 30 teams. The Yankees finished second with a payroll of $86.3MM.

Of course, the 60-game season meant prorating pay, dropping player salaries by approximately 63% from the full-scale amount. The totals given here mark a roughly 59% year-over-year decrease, suggesting payrolls would have increased had there been a full season. 2018 brought the first year-over-year decrease in payroll since 2010, as Blum reported at the time.

One complicating factor was a rise in buyout options. As Blum writes, “Buyouts of unexercised 2021 options came to $58.2 million, more than double the $26.9 million for buyouts of unexercised 2020 options, a sign of expense-cutting amid the revenue loss.” That’s not a surprise, given the sudden change in expected revenues without fans present, but it is noteworthy.

Parsing owners’ financial positions after this season’s revenue losses will continue to be a topic of discussion as free agency moves forward at its glacial pace. Without transparency from owners, the exact losses are difficult to ascertain. These numbers – presuming their accuracy – do serve as a significant data point, however.

The question of finances has been and will continue to be one of the sticking points between MLB and the MLBPA as the two sides near the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement. Transparency has been at the center of the debate, as owners have resisted the call from players to make their finances public. The Braves, as a publicly traded company, are the only team whose finances are made public in the form of quarterly reports, as Fangraphs’ Craig Edwards reviewed in early December. Of course, only so much can be gleaned from a single team’s financial numbers.

MLB Will Not Make Counter-Proposal On 2020 Season

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6:36pm: An MLBPA announcement confirms the news. Per the release, the league informed the union that it will not schedule a season of over sixty games.

6:30pm: MLB has informed the MLB Players Association that it will not make a new proposal to the union in an effort to resolve the sides’ disagreement over the financial structure of the 2020 season, per Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic (via Twitter).

Just what that means for the potential resumption of play remains to be seen. One might think that commissioner Rob Manfred will simply declare a season length at full pro rata pay — the option that the league has long held in its back pocket, but which brings with it the potential for an open-ended grievance action.

Last we had heard, the league preferred not to take this step. Whether there may be an alternative means of resolving the matter is not immediately clear. Per the report, the league will consider its options over the weekend, which is perhaps yet another indication that the league believes it is well served by allowing time to trickle away.

This latest development comes on the heels of today’s run of worrisome indications that the coronavirus has already made inroads into MLB facilities even before the league has undertaken a resumption effort in earnest. Those reports reflect truly concerning developments. They also play into the hands of the owners that have evidently decided to take a hard line on the 2020 season.

It seemed just days ago that we were finally headed toward resolution on an attempted restart of the MLB campaign. Now, there’s as much uncertainty as ever — greater, perhaps, given the urgent need to launch a season in the immediate future if one is to take place at all.

Manfred: “This Needs To Be Over”

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4:34pm: Manfred evidently acknowledges that, as Clark had stated, he invited a new union counterproposal. (Via Jon Heyman of MLB Network, on Twitter.) But Manfred says he advised Clark that seventy games would be an “impossible” figure to fit in without extending play.

The league is continuing to cite concerns with extending play into November — a legitimate concern, to be sure, given the expectations of public health officials that the coronavirus threat could ramp up yet more this fall and winter. Curiously, though, Manfred indicates that doubleheaders are also deemed specifically problematic by MLB’s health advisors. Heyman explains that the concern is with “players spending too much time together,” though it’s not entirely clear why two games in one day would be different than a string of games on separate days.

4:17pm: MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has responded to the public statements of union chief Tony Clark, as Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports (links to Twitter).

“This needs to be over,” said Manfred. That statement refers, presumably, to the all-too-public spat between the league and player’s union regarding the terms by which the 2020 season will occur.

Beyond the obvious harm to the reputations of all involved, the protracted turmoil is running headlong into the realities of the calendar. If there’s any hope of launching a season of the length under discussion — the league proposed sixty, the union seventy — then a deal must be sewn up soon.

Clark insisted in his most recent statement that he did not reach an agreement with Manfred during their recent sit-down. Manfred offered his own take, though he did so in a rather circumspect manner.

Per Manfred: “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.”

It’s yet another bizarre dispute between bargaining parties that obviously have a strained relationship but no alternative partner. They are still arguing over the interpretation of the last deal they formally agreed to.

In this case, nobody claims that pen went to paper. Manfred himself stated just yesterday that the meetings had resulted in a “framework” that “could form the basis of an agreement.” But the sides evidently now disagree as to whether and to what extent they reached a handshake deal during their in-person talks.

Ultimately, says Manfred, both sides “want to play” and “want to reach an agreement.” In a statement that both contains a rather clear threat and undermines any claim that there’s already a binding deal in place, Manfred concluded: “We’re doing everything necessary to find a way to play, hopefully by agreement.”

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