Yankees first baseman DJ LeMahieu dropped a pop up during a 2019 ALDS.game.
Photo: Frank Franklin II/Associated PressWith the sports world reeling from the coronavirus-induced shutdown, baseball had a priceless opportunity: a Grand Canyon-sized window to return to the field before its major competitors and stage a triumphant return around the Fourth of July.
But baseball has squandered that chance and is now struggling to reach any kind of deal at all. Team owners and the players’ union remain deadlocked in a bitter labor standoff over how to appropriately divide billions of dollars in a pandemic-shortened season. The possibility of playing on Independence Day is gone.
So, too, is baseball’s opportunity to serve as a positive part of the national recovery process at a time of historic crisis. Rather than rekindling its dwindling fan base, this increasingly hostile conflict now threatens to impart lasting—and perhaps irreparable—damage to an industry waning in influence and popularity with younger audiences.
At the heart of the dispute is an agreement the two parties signed on March 26, which stipulated that players’ salaries would be prorated for the number of games played. The players say they consider the issue of compensation settled and will not accept anything less.
The league, however, points to language that requires good-faith discussion about the economic feasibility of playing games in empty stadiums, a hypothetical that has become a reality. MLB says it must gain further concessions on player pay to help cover what it describes as severe losses from a year with no fans in attendance.
After the parties traded strongly worded letters last week, MLB submitted a proposal Monday, several people familiar with the matter said. It called for a 76-game schedule beginning in mid-July, with players guaranteed to earn 50% of their prorated salaries. They would receive an additional 25% if the lucrative playoffs happen as planned—protecting the owners against the growing fear that a resurgence of coronavirus cases in the fall could lead to their cancellation. The proposal also called for the one-time elimination of several collectively bargained mechanisms that often discourage teams from spending on free agents.
Under the proposal, players could potentially net an additional $200 million from management’s previous offer, which called for a sliding scale of pay cuts. But a big chunk of it, about 31% of the roughly $1.43 billion total compensation, is contingent upon the completion of the playoffs. That’s significantly more than MLB’s previous offer, suggesting that there could be renewed concerns of Covid-19 potentially interrupting the season. (Because of those fears, the league says extending the season past October to play more games—something the union has proposed—isn’t viable.)
As of Tuesday morning, the union hadn’t formally responded to the league—the deadline is Wednesday, two of the people familiar said—but the reaction among players was overwhelmingly negative. Beyond the financial terms, players also expressed concerns about being asked to sign an “acknowledgment of risk,” which they believe undermines their right to challenge MLB if it fails to provide a safe working environment.
If an agreement can’t be reached, MLB will likely move to an unappealing option for both sides: imposing a short season of as few as 48 games without the players’ consent, something the league has the right to do under the March deal. With that arrangement, players would get their full prorated salaries, which would be about $1.206 billion.
Three player agents suggested Monday that some players might choose not to play at all under those conditions, especially those at risk of injury. Union officials caution that doing so could run afoul of labor laws.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred comes from a background in labor relations, receiving degrees from Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations and Harvard Law School. He fashions himself as an expert deal maker and has shown repeatedly during his tenure that he prefers negotiated solutions to problems. In recent years, Manfred had the ability to unilaterally implement a pitch clock, something he advocated to speed up games, but he declined to do so without a deal with the union.
The upshot of the current situation is that there would be baseball on TV sometime this summer, almost no matter what. But the ways that could happen are quite different.
One option involves reaching a deal with the union, playing something closer to a representative baseball season and setting a tone of cooperation to help steer the game forward through this difficult moment.
The other involves playing a shorter season that many fans will see as illegitimate, with aggrieved employees working under duress—a scenario in which everyone loses. (It doesn’t help matters that the NBA Finals this year are scheduled to directly compete with a portion of baseball’s postseason, as basketball ponders a permanent shift in its schedule.)
Manfred recognizes the difference between the two paths, and he delivered that message to owners before they approved Monday’s proposal. A broken season could have consequences for baseball that extend far beyond 2020, including the owners’ worst nightmare: a drop in their franchise valuations.
Fans protested the impending players' strike in 1994.
Photo: APThere is a scenario in which, for the foreseeable future, Major League Baseball is defined by acrimony between two wealthy groups that fans struggle to relate to. Restrictions on large gatherings could continue into next year, which could prompt the owners to once again ask for pay cuts, sparking a whole new round of arguments. Then, after 2021, the current collective bargaining agreement expires, which will lead to an even more contentious negotiation.
Even before all of this, the relationship between the union and owners was already at its lowest point since the strike of 1994 because of player concern over free-agent spending and competitive integrity. Now, as the NBA and NHL quietly finalize their restart protocols, that relationship is even worse.
It took baseball more than a decade to recover from the 1994 strike—with assists from Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa helping attendance to reach previous heights. Baseball is in a far worse place now. Attendance has fallen in four straight seasons. The television audience is aging. The games are longer and slower than ever before.
Playing before the other leagues and commanding America’s airwaves for part of the summer could have had a lasting impact on the health of the game. Instead, baseball has to hope that whenever it comes back, there are still enough people who care.
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Write to Jared Diamond at jared.diamond@wsj.com
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