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MLB To Hold 5-Round Draft

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MLB has decided upon a five-round draft this summer, according to Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel of ESPN.com (links to Twitter). The union had previously agreed to the possibility of a draft as short as five rounds, though more recently had pushed for a lengthier process.

Commissioner Rob Manfred laid down the decision when MLB and the MLBPA could not come to an agreement on the particulars. Interestingly, Passan notes, a ten-round draft was also preferred by baseball operations departments. The version on offer from the league would’ve effectively separated the draft into two five-round sections with greater spending limitations on the latter half, along with a cap on undrafted signings.

Ultimately, it seems, owners were more concerned with avoiding the cost of additional bonuses than they were intrigued by the potential to acquire more high-end talent in the later stages of the draft. Draft-eligible players that are not selected in the five rounds will be eligible to sign for a maximize bonus of $20K.

Teams may struggle to woo players they don’t select. Typically, later-round choices can be paid quite a bit more than $20K. With collegiate play a viable alternative, many will elect to await a (hopefully) more lucrative professional starting point.

Then again, perhaps teams will find some success competing with geography, promises of advancement and opportunity, and other creative inducements. Manfred will no doubt need to be proactive in policing this arena. There’s huge potential upside to be had, which creates some potentially worrying incentives.

Finding value in the draft has long been a chief aim of baseball ops departments. Now they’ll have never-before-seen chances to sign an unlimited number of players for bargain prices. That’ll involve recruitment, of course, but there’s a rare possibility for major imbalance in the talent haul.

Even putting aside worries of rule-breaking behavior, there’ll be potential for havoc. Joel Sherman of the New York Post notes (Twitter link) the possibility of pressure on “late”-round picks to take what they can get or face a $20K cap. There’s also a sense that innumerable soft factors could sway large numbers of players in varying directions, as Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com notes on Twitter. There’ll certainly be downstream effects for players that choose to enter or remain in the collegiate and JuCo ranks.

ESPN Agrees To KBO Broadcast Deal

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10:05am: ESPN has formally announced the deal. They’ll broadcast six KBO games per week — one game every Tuesday through Sunday — in addition to covering the KBO postseason. Broadcast details of the postseason remain to be determined. Game selections will be made on a week-to-week basis and feature English commentary from remote ESPN broadcasters, with tonight’s game being called by Karl Ravech and Eduardo Perez and aired on ESPN 2. ESPN is also acquiring highlights rights throughout the league, and their press release notes that the telecast schedule is “subject to change pending future live event considerations.”

9:30am: After several weeks of negotiation, ESPN has reached an agreement with Korean media counterpart Eclat Media Group to broadcast Korea Baseball Organization games. The KBO announced that ESPN will be airing one game per day, beginning with tomorrow’s Opening Day contest between the Samsung Lions and the NC Dinos (Twitter link via Jee-ho Yoo of South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency). The games will be broadcast live, per the Wall Street Journal’s Jared Diamond, which isn’t ideal for U.S. fans given the time difference between the two countries, but access to any live baseball will obviously a welcome addition to many sports fans. The Lions/Dinos will air tonight at 1am EST. Here’s the remaining schedule:

  • Wed. May 6: Doosan Bears vs. LG Twins (5:30am EST)
  • Thurs. May 7: NC Dinos vs. Samsung Lions (5:30am EST)
  • Fri. May 8: KIA Tigers vs. Samsung Lions (5:30am EST)
  • Sat. May 9: LG Twins vs. NC Dinos (4am EST)
  • Sun. May 10: LG Twins vs. NC Dinos (1am EST)

[Related: Former MLB Players in the KBO]

Games in the KBO are beginning without fans in attendance and with ample health regulations in place. Players will be tested prior to every game and (along with team personnel) will wear masks throughout the arena outside of the field and the dugout. High fives and spitting have been banned. Any player who shows coronavirus symptoms will be quarantined immediately, while a positive test will result in a shutdown of that player’s stadium for a 48-hour cleaning process. A positive test won’t necessarily lead to a leaguewide shutdown, although the league will meet with health experts and government officials to discuss next steps following a positive test.

MLB fans tuning in may recognize some familiar faces; as we covered here two weeks back, there are more than 30 former big league players slated to play in the KBO this season. The Dinos (Aaron Altherr, Mike Wright, Drew Rucinski) and Lions (Seunghwan Oh, Tyler Saladino, Ben Lively, David Buchanan) have seven such players. There are some well-known names in the coaching ranks, too — Matt Williams will manage the KIA Tigers this year, and Julio Franco is the hitting coach for the Lotte Giants. More than 83 percent of the 11,000 respondents in our poll last week said they’d watch some KBO coverage should ESPN (or another media outlet) acquire broadcast rights.

Emmanuel Clase Receives PED Suspension

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Indians reliever Emmanuel Clase has received an 80-game suspension, per a league announcement. He tested positive for banned PED boldenone.

Clase, acquired in the trade that sent Corey Kluber to the Rangers, had been rehabbing a teres major strain this spring. Precisely when the positive test was recorded isn’t known, though it certainly may have taken place prior to the shutdown of play. Clase would have had an opportunity to appeal the suspension before it was announced.

The Indians were disappointed to see Clase go down in camp. But it seemed he’d have a chance to accomplish much of his rehab work while the season was on pause. That’ll still be the case, but he’ll now be sidelined regardless when the 2020 campaign gets underway. The suspension will begin once the season gets underway, even if Clase is still rehabbing.

It obviously hasn’t been the smoothest start to Clase’s tenure with the Cleveland organization. The club pinned big hopes to the 22-year-old hurler, who was the chief asset brought back in a deal for one of the team’s best-known players.

Clase wasn’t a widely known player entering the 2019 season. But he zipped up the Texas farm system ladder and opened eyes with his MLB debut at just 21 years of age. Featuring a triple-digit heater, Clase turned in a 2.31 ERA with 8.1 K/9, 2.3 BB/9, and a hefty 60.6% groundball rate over 23 1/3 innings.

There is quite a silver lining here for the Indians — and a big dent to Clase’s long-term earnings outlook. He had only accrued 59 days of service in 2019 and will not be able to add enough days in 2020 to reach a full season of MLB service (172 days). Though he could ultimately qualify for arbitration in 2023 as a Super Two player, his anticipated free agent clock will end up moving back a year.

Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony Postponed Until 2021

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April 29: The National Baseball Hall of Fame confirmed today that it has postponed this year’s induction ceremony until next year. Jeter, Walker, Simmons and Miller will be inducted along with any 2020-21 inductees on July 25, 2021. Said Hall of Fame chair Jane Forbes Clark:

Induction Weekend is a celebration of our National Pastime and its greatest legends, and while we are disappointed to cancel this incredibly special event, the Board of Directors’ overriding concern is the health and well-being of our new inductees, our Hall of Fame members, our wonderful fans and the hundreds of staff it takes to present the weekend’s events in all of its many facets. We care deeply about every single person who visits Cooperstown. In heeding the advice of government officials as well as federal, state and local medical and scientific experts, we chose to act with extraordinary caution in making this decision.

You can view the full announcement at the Hall of Fame’s web site.

April 28: The National Baseball Hall of Fame is likely to announce this week that its annual induction ceremony and all of the surrounding festivities will be postponed and combined with the 2021 ceremony, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reports. The Hall’s board of directors is meeting this week to make a final determination. The possibility of a virtual ceremony wasn’t seriously considered, per the report. Induction weekend had been slated to take place on July 24-26.

Earlier this year, the Baseball Writers Association of America voted to induct Derek Jeter and Larry Walker into the Hall of Fame, while the Modern Baseball Committee added eight-time All-Star catcher Ted Simmons and the late Marvin Miller to the class as well.

Last year’s induction ceremony drew an estimated 55,000 attendees to a city of just 1756 residents, and Nightengale notes that the enshrinement of Jeter and Walker led to some attendance projections that approached 100,000. An event of that size at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has led to government regulations on public gatherings has long seemed implausible. Beyond the sheer size of the crowd the event would draw, thousands of attendees would’ve been flying into New York City, the current U.S. epicenter of the coronavirus, under normal circumstances. And, as Nightengale observes, many attendees would be higher-risk due to their age, including a significant number of the game’s legends; there are 38 Hall of Famers who are 70 years of age or older — including 19 Hall of Famers who are at least 80.

Yadier Molina Intends To Play Beyond 2020, Whether Or Not With Cardinals

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In an interesting twist on the post-2020 catching market, long-time Cardinals backstop Yadier Molina tells ESPN.com’s Marly Rivera that he’s open to playing in another uniform if and when he reaches free agency.

That’s quite a different stance than the one Molina announced just a few months ago. He made clear then that he was interested in continuing to play, but only in St. Louis, where he has been a fixture behind the dish since 2005. The team reciprocated and launched extension talks that seemed likely to come to fruition.

Now? Molina explains to Rivera that “the situation with this pandemic has changed everything.” While he still prefers to remain with the Cards — the only team he has ever played for — the likely future Hall of Famer says he’s “willing to go into free agency” and find another organization.

It seems the change of heart is less about Molina’s feelings towards the team than it is his feelings for the game of baseball itself. He says he’d like to “have that conversation” again about an extension with the Cardinals, at least once baseball finally starts back up. And Molina says he’s “confident” an agreement will come together.

But the time away from the game has also convinced Molina he wants to keep going past a (likely shortened) 2020 campaign.  In fact, the 37-year-old says he intends to keep playing for two more seasons no matter the outcome of his talks with the Cards.

ESPN Reportedly Nearing Agreement To Broadcast KBO Games

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Less than a week after ESPN’s negotiations to acquire broadcast rights to Korea Baseball Organization games were reported to be all but dead, Jee-ho Yoo and Chang-yong Shin of South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency now report that a deal is nearing completion. Yoo reported last week that ESPN had sought to acquire broadcast rights from Korean counterpart Eclat without any up-front payment — ultimately offering only a percentage of revenue if broadcasts proved profitable — despite the increased production costs for Eclat.

Additional details remain sparse at this time, though the Yonhap duo adds that the deal being discussed would allow ESPN to broadcast multiple KBO contests per week. South Korea’s 10-team league is slated to begin its regular season on May 5 — a bit more than five weeks after the initially scheduled season opener on March 28. The KBO season will begin without fans, although MBC’s Daniel Kim tweets that the league is discussing a plan to gradually allow fans back into stadiums, beginning with a 20-25 percent capacity and incrementally increasing from there.

[Related — Poll: would you watch KBO broadcasts?]

Several health regulations will be in place for players and gameday personnel as well (multiple tests per player prior to games, no spitting allowed, players and personnel in masks throughout the stadium except on the field/in the dugout, gloves and masks for umpires, strong discouragement of handshakes and high-fives). A player showing symptoms of COVID-19 will be immediately be tested and quarantined, while his stadium would be subject to a 48-hour closure for cleaning. A positive test from a player wouldn’t necessarily shut down the league but would prompt an immediate meeting between owners, league officials and health experts about the potential stoppage of play.

There’s still no concrete plan for when Major League Baseball can attempt to resume play (or whether it definitively will). The lack of baseball and other professional sports has been an obvious enormous strain not only on ESPN but all sports media outlets throughout the world. ESPN’s interest in airing some KBO play, then, isn’t surprising — but it’s also not without risk. Some sports-starved fans will surely flock to any competitive play, but there’s no guarantee on the extent of fan interest, and advertisers could be wary paying a hefty rate for an untested product in the United States.

For baseball fans, though, it’s an easy win — creating a readily accessible means of viewing one of the world’s top professional leagues and even offering a chance to see a handful of former big leaguers suiting up overseas. MLBTR ran through more than 30 former Major Leaguers who are set to play out the 2020 season in the KBO last week.

MLB Announces Findings Of Investigation Into 2018 Sign-Stealing Allegations Against Red Sox

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Major League Baseball has concluded its investigation into 2018 sign-stealing allegations against the Red Sox and imposed the following disciplinary measures:

  • The Red Sox are stripped of their second-round pick in the 2020 amateur draft
  • Red Sox advance scout/replay coordinator J.T. Watkins has been suspended without pay for the 2020 season and is prohibited from holding his previous role for the 2021 season
  • Former manager Alex Cora, fired by the Red Sox earlier this year, has been banned through the 2020 postseason — although only for his role in the Astros’ 2017 sign-stealing scandal.

Those penalties pale in comparison to what many felt was a light Astros punishment in response to their 2017 trash can scheme; Houston GM Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch were both suspended one year (and subsequently fired by the team), while the organization was fined the maximum permissible $5MM and stripped of first- and second-round picks in each of the next two drafts.

Red Sox CEO Sam Kennedy issued the following statement via press release:

As an organization, we strive for 100% compliance with the rules. MLB’s investigation concluded that in isolated instances during the 2018 regular season, sign sequences were decoded through the use of live game video rather than through permissible means. MLB acknowledged the front office’s extensive efforts to communicate and enforce the rules and concluded that Alex Cora, the coaching staff, and most of the players did not engage in, nor were they aware of, any violations. Regardless, these rule violations are unacceptable. We apologize to our fans and Major League Baseball, and accept the Commissioner’s ruling.

The league announced the findings of what it terms an “exhaustive investigation into allegations of improper use of the video replay room.” Within, commissioner Rob Manfred offered the following breakdown of his findings:

  • “I find that J.T. Watkins, the Red Sox video replay system operator, on at least some occasions during the 2018 regular season, utilized the game feeds in the replay room, in violation of MLB regulations, to revise sign sequence information that he had permissibly provided to players prior to the game.
  • I find that unlike the Houston Astros’ 2017 conduct, in which players communicated to the batter from the dugout area in real time the precise type of pitch about to be thrown, Watkins’s conduct, by its very nature, was far more limited in scope and impact. The information was only relevant when the Red Sox had a runner on second base (which was 19.7% of plate appearances league-wide in 2018), and Watkins communicated sign sequences in a manner that indicated that he had decoded them from the in-game feed in only a small percentage of those occurrences.
  • I do not find that then-Manager Alex Cora, the Red Sox coaching staff, the Red Sox front office, or most of the players on the 2018 Red Sox knew or should have known that Watkins was utilizing in-game video to update the information that he had learned from his pregame analysis. Communication of these violations was episodic and isolated to Watkins and a limited number of Red Sox players only.
  • I find that the Red Sox front office consistently communicated MLB’s sign-stealing rules to non-player staff and made commendable efforts toward instilling a culture of compliance in their organization.”

Manfred goes on to emphasize that while he has previously granted players immunity in exchange for truthful testimony in both the Astros and Red Sox investigations, the findings of his Red Sox inquiry would not have led him to consider disciplining players anyhow (which surely would not have been the case with regard to the Astros). The loss of the draft pick, per the commissioner, stems from the fact that he still felt the organization should be held accountable for benefiting from data that was obtained improperly.

Manfred’s report on the investigation details that every player who spent time with the 2018 Red Sox was interviewed in some capacity and provided what were deemed truthful testimonies. A total of 65 witnesses were interviewed during the course of the investigation, and MLB’s department of investigations (DOI) reviewed “tens of thousands of emails, text messages, video clips and photographs,” per the report.

Watkins, the employee on whom the entirety of the wrongdoing is blamed by commissioner Manfred, was an advance scout tasked with using video to decode signs before and after Red Sox games — a permissible act that falls within MLB’s guidelines on the implementation of technology within the game. However, he was also the team’s replay reviewer, responsible during games for coordinating with Cora on whether to challenge a call or not. The report notes that other clubs had that same setup, but an investigation into the Red Sox found that Watkins would, at times, alter pre-game sign sequencing information in the middle of an active game. While most players who were interviewed said they had no knowledge of any wrongdoing by Watkins, others acknowledged that they had suspicions after the data coming from Watkins changed over the course of a game.

Watkins, per Manfred, has “vehemently denied” any such practice, although clearly based on the punishment levied by the league, Manfred and the DOI felt sufficient evidence to the contrary was present. Moreover, the commissioner’s report highlights that Watkins was a “key participant” in the 2017 Apple Watch incident that led to a fine for the Red Sox and helped bring questions about improper use of technology to light on a national basis.

With regard to any potential postseason wrongdoing, Manfred adds that the commissioner’s office positioned “full-time, in-person monitors in replay rooms to prevent the improper use of video equipment.” Such measures were not in place throughout the regular season.

It’s not yet clear precisely why the investigation was so prolonged in the first place and perhaps never will be. Major League Baseball was initially planning to release its findings before the end of February. When the investigation lingered into March, the COVID-19 pandemic obviously and understandably took precedence, thus bringing about a delay of nearly two months that only seems to have heightened the general public reaction that the Boston organization escaped mostly unscathed. But the initial delay into March was never fully explained.

The loss of that second-round pick will give the Sox one less selection in an already shortened draft and dock $1,403,200 from Boston’s pool (the would-be value of that vacated second-rounder). Previously, they’d been slated to have a $6.514MM pool in the event of a five-round draft and a $7.482MM pool for a 10-round format. Put another way, they’ll lose anywhere from 18.8 percent to 21.6 percent of their 2020 draft budget due to the league’s ruling.

Unexplained within Manfred’s report is just why the punishment for Cora, who was called out as an architect of the trash-can-banging setup with the 2017 Astros, is lighter than those which were brought upon Luhnow and Hinch. Cora’s rank within the organization was lower, but his role in the team’s transgressions appears to have been much more integral. Yet Luhnow and Hinch were banned for one year, beginning Jan. 13, 2020 and running through Jan. 13 of 2021, while Cora is only barred through the end of postseason play in 2020. Technically, he could have a job in baseball again before the bans on Hinch and Luhnow have been lifted — despite a pivotal role in the Astros’ scandal and, if not a direct role in the Red Sox’ 2018 infractions, then some negligence or a lack of oversight that one would think should be deemed alarming.

Ultimately, the light punishment for the Sox boils down to the fact that Manfred and his charges are convinced that the wrongdoing was more limited in scope than that of the Astros and largely fell on the shoulders of one employee. Fans and onlookers will, of course, draw their own conclusions about the legitimacy of that finding the the pervasiveness (or lack thereof) of similar setups throughout the league. At this point, however, that’s all largely rendered moot; the commissioner’s punishment has been set, and the matter has been put to bed.

The Red Sox announced not long after Kennedy’s statement that they’ll host a conference call with reporters tonight at 7pm ET, at which point they’ll surely field additional questions on the investigation and its ramifications.

Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic first reported the findings of commissioner Manfred’s investigation, minutes prior to the official announcement.

Minor League Baseball Issues Statement Regarding Negotiations With MLB

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3:05pm: Minor League Baseball has issued the following statement in the wake of this mornings report on contraction:

Recent articles on the negotiations between MiLB and Major League Baseball (MLB) are largely inaccurate. There have been no agreements on contraction or any other issues. MiLB looks forward to continuing the good faith negotiations with MLB tomorrow as we work toward an agreement that best ensures the future of professional baseball throughout the United States and Canada.

11:04am: Minor League Baseball has resisted a contraction and realignment push since Major League Baseball launched it last fall. But the stark realities of the coronavirus pandemic have forced MiLB to accept that outcome in advance of negotiations with its big-brother league, J.J. Cooper of Baseball America reports.

That’s not to say that MiLB is willing to accept the MLB plan in full. It seems the focus on the minors side is twofold: First, ensuring that some legitimate form of baseball carries on in the places where affiliated ballclubs are axed. And second, arriving at a system that provides stability and security for the long haul.

If the broad parameters of the MLB plan are indeed agreed upon, then all thirty big league clubs will end up with four affiliated apiece (120 in total). In the 42 places that would lose the chance to field a minor-league roster of players, Cooper writes, the aim is for “baseball of a reasonably high quality in an economic system that would have staying power.” Getting such assurances could force minor-league clubs to cede significant additional authority to MLB as part of the overall workout.

There’s obviously still quite a lot at play with negotiations expected to take place in earnest. You’ll certainly want to read the entire piece from Cooper to understand the full details of the present situation.

Union, League Spar Over Interpretation Of Agreement On Resumption Of Play

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It had seemed that Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association were largely seeing eye to eye on alterations to their preexisting agreements to account for the coronavirus pandemic. The sides struck a bargain in late March to account for numerous significant matters of concern, including part-season salaries.

[RELATED: MLB Player Contracts In A Shortened Or Canceled Season]

The unity may not be long-lived. With little prospect for hosting games with fans in attendance in the near term, league and union are now embroiled in a battle over the meaning of the deal they worked out less than one month ago.

Recent reporting indicated that MLB does not believe the recent agreement resolves the matter of player salaries in the event of TV-only games. Today, union chief Tony Clark announced that he holds precisely the opposite position, as Ronald Blum of the Associated Press reports.

The league claims the question of salary in a no-attendance season simply hasn’t been decided, pointing to a clause providing that the sides agree to “discuss in good faith the economic feasibility of playing games in the absence of spectators or at appropriate substitute neutral sites.” By this reading, the entire original agreement related only to the resumption of a typical season.

The player side says the agreement provides for a pro rata reduction of salary to match the number of games played, regardless of whether fans are in the stands. Clark tells Blum: “Players recently reached an agreement with Major League Baseball that outlines economic terms for resumption of play, which included significant salary adjustments and a number of other compromises. That negotiation is over.”

It’s not surprising that the sides would’ve found it hard to line up on this particular point. Playing without paying fans was obviously foreseeable, since it made it into the deal. Surely this didn’t sneak up on anyone.

But it’s frankly bizarre to see such a misalignment of expectations regarding an agreement that was only just negotiated. The actual dispute boils down to the question whether new negotiations over “economic feasibility” would involve a full reconsideration of player salaries or, rather, that such feasibility would take place regarding only other matters, with the salary issue already decided. It seems there are oddities in the positions of both sides, based upon what has been aired publicly.

In the framing of deputy commissioner Dan Halem, the original agreement was one in which the sides “agreed that the season would not commence until normal operations — including fans in our home stadiums — were possible.” If not, there’d be a need to negotiate a whole new “framework to resume play without fans.”

It may well be possible — even preferable — to read the agreement as the league suggests. But in that case, why not make it all the more explicit? We haven’t yet seen the full agreement in its finished form, but the elements that have been reported suggest it’s less than crystal clear in its structure. It also seems strange that the sides would’ve focused so much energy solely on the function of a “normal” season when that seemed so unlikely to occur.

At the same time, on the union side, it’s hard to imagine the potential ambiguity wasn’t spotted. If the MLBPA really believed the agreement ensured full salaries (on a game-by-game basis) regardless whether fans were in attendance, why would it have allowed such an “economic feasibility” proviso to inject doubt?

Could it be that both sides agreed to disagree? Perhaps, but if that was actually the mutual understanding, then why overlay contractual uncertainty onto the preexisting, underlying state of affairs? If instead one side or the other has been caught by surprise by the other’s interpretation, that’s equally hard to understand.

Perhaps we’re still just seeing posturing. But there’s no question the league and union still have significant issues to sort through in advance of a potential resumption of play, especially if (as seems exceedingly likely) it’ll occur without spectators.

This was always going to be complicated. Holding contests without fans will require tricky logistics, added costs and risks, and atypical economic calculations. And there’s already an important background consideration here. Remember that talk of the uniform player contract, which provides the commissioner power to “suspend” contracts “during any national emergency during which Major League Baseball is not played”? That’s clear enough in some instances. But it’s less obvious precisely how the contracts would be re-started. And what happens if the emergency declaration is formally lifted, but baseball doesn’t resume play … or does so on a modified basis? It’s hard to read this clause as providing that major economic interferences would mandate adjustments of already guaranteed salaries, particularly if there’s no formal nationwide emergency declaration.

There was already ample potential for interpretive disputes revolving around that language, the entirety of the Basic Agreement, and the broader bargaining relationship in these unusual circumstances. A mutually satisfactory resolution never seemed straightforward. And now, the presence of an intervening, already-disputed agreement may only add to the potential for friction.

Report: Owners Could Pursue Further Salary Reduction For Players If Season Begins Without Fans

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As Major League Baseball ponders various scenarios in which the 2020 season could commence in empty parks without fans in attendance, Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic write that empty-stadium games could prompt ownership to ask that the players make further concessions in terms of their 2020 salary.

The two sides already reached an agreement on service time, player salaries and a broad framework for an abbreviated draft late last month. Within that agreement, players agreed to prorated salaries that are directly proportional to the reduction of total games played.

Rosenthal and Drellich suggest, however, that the league “made it clear to the union that economic adjustments would be necessary if games were played in empty parks,” while many on the players’ side of talks believe that the already standing agreement addressed games without fan and/or games at neutral sites. Unsurprisingly, agent Scott Boras ardently pointed to the preexisting “good faith agreement” regarding empty-stadium play while implying that seeking further reductions would be in violation of said good faith.

It seems rather perplexing that the players wouldn’t have pursued precise language expressly underscoring that even neutral-site games without fans in attendance should fall under the purview of the currently agreed-upon salary reduction parameters. That agreement, after all, was unanimously ratified by all 30 owners back on March 27. At that point, the idea of televising games without fans was already widely being speculated upon and surely being discussed by the league and MLBPA. Word of the potential “Arizona” plan trickled out not two weeks after that agreement had been settled.

The owners’ claim in all of this would undoubtedly be that addition of television revenue would not be enough to cover the cost of operations in conjunction with the elimination of gate revenue. Such claims wouldn’t be able to be proven with books closed to the public, but it’s easy to see all 30 owners aligning on that front whether or not the sentiment holds true in actuality.

At this point, all parties involved are flying blind for the most part, as there’s not yet any certainty regarding when or if play will resume, where games will take place or how many games could be played. There’s also been talk of expanding the postseason format, which would create additional revenue on all sides that wouldn’t otherwise exist. Without those details set in place, fiscal specifics are impossible to glean. All of those issues will factor into further negotiations — if it is indeed determined that the existing language leaves ownership ample latitude to pursue such reductions. It’s easy to imagine a contentious set of secondary negotiations eventually being necessary once the logistics can be more clearly defined, though.

At least as pertains to the 2020 season, commissioner Rob Manfred wields the ultimate hammer, as his position gives him the right to unilaterally suspend player contracts due to the declaration of a national emergency. While one would hope that negotiations wouldn’t get to that point, the threat of such extreme action could indeed be powerful leverage against the MLBPA.

All of this comes at a time when the current collective bargaining agreement is set to expire in December 2021. Advance collective bargaining talks were already reported to be in place well before the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. Any rising tensions that stem from further back-and-forth on more immediate issues figure to impact those CBA negotiations whenever they resume in earnest.

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