Last week, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said he was 100 percent confident there will be a 2020 baseball season. Monday afternoon, he backed off of that statement significantly.
Manfred said in an interview with ESPN Monday that his is now “not confident” a season will occur, after the MLB Players Association rejected the owners’ latest proposal and said they will not make a counter offer.
“As long as there’s no dialogue…that real risk is going to continue,” Manfred said. “It’s just a disaster for our game, absolutely no question about it. It shouldn’t be happening, and it’s important that we find a way to get past it and get the game back on the field for the benefit of our fans.”
MLB owners have made numerous offers to players that offered union members less than 100 percent of their prorated salaries. Players have rejected every offer, only counter-offering proposals that guaranteed them no pay cut besides the reduction that corresponds with each game lost because of the coronavirus.
“Given your continued insistence on hundreds of millions of dollars of additional pay reductions, we assume these negotiations are at an end,” MLBPA lead negotiator Bruce Meyer told MLB deputy commissioner Dan Halem, according to ESPN.