Major League Baseball's 2020 Season to begin July 1-4

[John Anthony]

All this back and forth and we’re gonna end up starting right after the all star break. Hope it was toying with the fans.

[CincySportsFan]

Players have basically said "tell us when to show up, and we'll play" (at the already agreed upon prorated salaries), putting the onus strictly on the owners to determine the season length. And the owners....do nothing. Un-freakin'-believable. Manfred should be gone. He's got he spine of a jellyfish.

 

There's a good article by Bill Plaschke describing the current situation...but, if you can find the Trevor Bauer twitter response, it's great. I'll see if I can find both of them to post here.

[MJAlltheWay24]

Seems like the owners want to play the least number of games possible, so that they can pay the players the least amount, while raking it in with the playoffs.

 

They could easily play about 70 games right now, but they are gonna screw around so that they only have to play 50, thus paying the players less.

 

Am I about right with that?

[MJAlltheWay24]

Saw a tweet yesterday that said something about 2020 is a bad year for everyone, but baseball owners are still going to make sure they turn a profit, no matter what. The Florida Marlins haven't had anyone in their stadium for ages and yet they can still afford to pay players and make a nice profit in normal years.

 

Giving that I won't be beer vending if they do play in 2020 and who knows about 2021, its going to be tough for me to have much interest. It was bittersweet to me before all of the arguing back and forth, now I'm pretty turned off by it all.

[CincySportsFan]

Seems like the owners want to play the least number of games possible, so that they can pay the players the least amount, while raking it in with the playoffs.

 

They could easily play about 70 games right now, but they are gonna screw around so that they only have to play 50, thus paying the players less.

 

Am I about right with that?

 

Pretty much spot on. To quote Plaschke, the players grooved a fast ball down the middle when they offered to play however many games the league decides. But the owners want the PA to sign off on declining to file an grievances based upon that number. And the reason why, is that the owners agreed to play as many games "as possible" back in March...and are now trying to backtrack on that. Which means, they (the owners) know that the players would have a legitimate case if it went to court. So, now they've got to come up with some way to "stall" for an extra 2 or 3 weeks, so they can get down to the 50 game number.

[CincySportsFan]

Here's Trevor Bauer's tweet(s) from yesterday. Hammer, meet nail...

 

"So, Rob, explain to us how you can be 100% sure that there’s going to be baseball but not confident there will be baseball at the same time? hmmm. What changed between those statements? Players told you to set the season, but it’s too early to set the season right now, isn’t it Rob? Because then you’d have to explain why you’re only going to impose 50 games when we could easily play 70+ right now. The tactic is to bluff with “no season” again and delay another 2-3 weeks until you clear the risk of “not negotiating in good faith by trying to play as many games as possible”. The public backlash combined with potential of having to explain yourself in front of an arbitrator isn’t too appealing, is it?

Let’s see...the way I have it figured you want to play between 50 and 60 games. Can’t make it 50 cuz that would be too obvious to everyone what you were trying to do. And no one would think that was a “representative season” so you’d risk not getting your precious playoff money. Nope, can’t have that. So gotta make it more than that. But not too many...you’ve gone as high as about 55 games full prorated salary, so you’ll probably settle somewhere around there, potentially a couple games higher than that to throw people off the scent, isn’t that right, Rob? So in that scenario, let’s see, sept 27 end date to protect playoff tv schedules, 60-ish games, going to have to be at least 4 off days in there...so that’s 64 days. Plus about 20 for spring training...84 days. Sept 27-84 days is July 5. Plus about a week to get players to spring training. So tack on another 7, that takes us to June 28. As I have it figured, that’s your deadline.

But today Is June 15, so how do you delay another 13 days? I guess we all got that answer today. Threaten to cancel the season. Threaten arbitration. Threaten grievances. All the while, hold the fans for ransom. Hold the future of the game for ransom. No one believes your bluff, bud. You’re holding a losing hand. Unfortunately, it’s a losing hand for everyone involved, not just you. There’s some saying out there about not killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Check it out on the ole google machine. It’s worth knowing."

 

Bam.

[GrantNKY]

Somehow, someway Rob Manfred has made Roger Goodell look good. I didn’t think it was possible.

[CincySportsFan]

Somehow, someway Rob Manfred has made Roger Goodell look good. I didn’t think it was possible.

 

Heck, all the other commissioners are probably doing a happy dance right now.

[mcpapa]

I’d sure like to see some uncooked books.

[GrantNKY]

It is kind of amazing that literally all of this could be solved and we’d probably be playing baseball already if they just had a salary cap.