Major League Baseball won’t counter the MLB Players Association’s latest offer to play 70 games this season.
Instead, the league is sticking with its most recent offer of 60 games at full prorated salaries.
“MLB has informed the Association that it will not respond to our last proposal and will not play more than 60 games,” MLBPA executive director Tony Clark said in a statement Friday. “Our Executive Board will convene in the near future to determine next steps. Importantly, players remain committed to getting back to work as soon as possible.”
Players now have two options: Accept the 60-game offer with expanded playoffs, along with a promise not to file a grievance. Or they can reject it and force commissioner Rob Manfred to implement his own schedule, potentially without extra playoff teams but still with their right to grieve the terms of the late March agreement between the two sides.
Complicating matters is the coronavirus, which has spiked in Florida and Arizona. The Philadelphia Phillies closed their spring training facility in Clearwater, Florida, on Friday after five players and three staff members tested positive for the coronavirus, and the Toronto Blue Jays shuttered their site in Dunedin, Florida, after a player showed symptoms consistent with the virus.
In Scottsdale, Arizona, the San Francisco Giants shut their facility after one person who had been to the site and one family member exhibited symptoms Thursday.
Other teams, according to sources, are contemplating doing the same.
It has been a rollercoaster week for negotiations as both sides continue their public acrimony. On Wednesday, Manfred released a statement saying the league and the players had the framework of an agreement, to play 60 games at full prorated salary. However, Clark refuted that in a statement of his own, and the players countered with their latest offer of 70 games on Thursday.
Many thought the sides would meet in the middle, but Friday’s announcement ended that possibility. Teams will play 60 games, or Manfred will get to dictate the terms of the schedule.