Major League Baseball’s continued non-starter proposals and incessant stalling tactics finally came to fruition on Monday evening with the MLB Players’ Association rejection of the league’s final offer, leaving the fate of the 2020 season in the hands of Commissioner Rob Manfred.
Bob Nightengale of USA Today Sports reported shortly after the union’s rejection that a number of owners were “pleading” with Manfred to exercise his right to impose a season as soon as possible.
If how the commish has conducted himself throughout this process was any indicator of his aptitude to get this right, forgive us if we weren’t overly confident in what was going to come next in this unprecedented saga.
Later Monday night, MLB indeed announced they would impose a season, hinging on a final agreement from the union on safety protocols and a willingness to report to spring training by July 1.
Oh, that’s rich.
Where was this enthusiasm over the last two weeks? The last two months?? Last we’d heard, there were a half-dozen or so owners who were perfectly fine with shuttering things up until next season.
An 82-game — then 75-game, 70-game, and 65-game — season was a real possibility, coronavirus notwithstanding. Not anymore, on both accounts. Sixty games (maybe) it is.
Since the owners weren’t willing to budge off of their bottom line — persistently offering players an array of variables with monetarily similar end-products — the inevitable Imposition Season of 2020 (Prorated salaries? Sure! As long as we don’t lose any money in the process) is now presumably upon us.
At the end of the day, baseball being played is a plus. But what happens next? The seeds of acrimony sown over the last few months are going to harvest division — even more so than we’ve seen since March — until that pot finally boils over after the 2021 season.
A compromise was always in the center of this negotiating table. What that middle-ground was, we’ll never know. But rest assured, it was there. Instead of the league making the progress of our game the priority through these embarrassing proceedings, battle positioning took a front seat.
Tony Clark and the MLBPA’s message — “tell us when and where” — has remained intact since it became clear the league wasn’t going to move off their demands. That was over a week ago and — until the logistics of a restart are finalized — still rings relevant.
MLB’s choreographed running out of the clock spawned the scenario they’d hoped it would: play by our rules or don’t play at all. That interaction speaks volumes for where this is all headed.
You got your wish, Bobby. Don’t mess it up.
