It appears that the return of Major League Baseball in 2020 is still a long way from happening. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported on Wednesday that the league rejected the proposal of the MLB Players Association for a 114-game season this year and won’t be making a counter at the moment.
In recent weeks, the players’ union was vocal in its wishes to play as many games as possible this year and proceed without more pay cuts. On the other hand, MLB is pushing for the 82-game season and insist on further salary cuts in order to avoid big financial losses.
MLB reportedly proposes to have the Opening Day on June 30th and wrap up the 2020 regular season by October 31st. The league isn’t interested in having regular season baseball in November due to concerns that a potential “second wave of coronavirus” would interfere with the postseason causing the league to suffer further revenue losses. This schedule would be possible with 82 games, although there are also reports that MLB owners could even propose a 50-game season this year.
Another part of MLB’s proposal is to lower the salaries to $1.2 billion on league level, which would be a significant drop from the projected $4 billion. The league previously contributed $170 million in advances and guarantees in case that the season is canceled.
Players, on the other hand, are pushing towards a longer season as they previously accepted a prorated salary for this year. This means that they will get paid according to the number of games they play in 2020. Reportedly, the union isn’t ready to accept further cuts and is sticking with their proposal that would pay players up to 70% of their salaries and get the salary total to $2.8 million.
The two sides are expected to continue talking about different options, although an agreement doesn’t seem imminent at the moment.
