MLB owners are in a stalemate with the MLB Players Association over the length of the 2020 season, and neither side has shown a willingness to bend.
Players agreed back in March to be paid pro-rated salaries based on the number of games that can be played, but the league now wants a shortened season to offset some of the lost revenue from potentially having to hold games in empty ballparks. MLB recently proposed playing around 50 games, but the players want significantly more than that. The latest proposal from the players to team owners was for a 114-game season, but Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that it was rejected without a counter.
The ideas MLB wants to discuss with the union are about resuming the season without fans. https://t.co/gbQmQQ7gRb
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) June 3, 2020
Team owners want the season to be somewhere between 50 and 60 games, but players have reportedly informed the league that they will not agree to anything less than half a season, which would be 81 games. The two sides know it would be a terrible look to not be able to work out an agreement and quibble over money with all that is going on in the world, but a solution does not appear to be imminent.
If an agreement is not reached in the near future, there has been speculation that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred will simply launch the season and choose the length. He is said to have the power to do that because of the initial agreement between owners and the union back in March.
