Reports: MLB gives new proposal to players for a 76-game season
Jun 8, 2020, 9:04 AM
General view outside of Chase Field on March 26, 2020 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
(Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
Major League Baseball offered a new proposal to the players association on Monday that would institute a 76-game season in returning from the suspension caused by the coronavirus pandemic, according to multiple reports.
ESPN’s Karl Ravech said players would earn 75% of a pro-rated salary for the 76-game season.
Two weeks ago, MLB proposed an 82-game season with an additional sliding scale of pay cuts that would leave a player at the $563,500 minimum with 47% of his original salary and top stars Mike Trout and Gerrit Cole at less than 22% of the $36 million they had been set to earn. Players countered last week with a plan for a 114-game regular season with no pay cuts beyond the prorated salaries they agreed to on March 26. MLB rejected that plan and didn’t counter.
Per MLB Network’s Jon Heyman, the new proposal on Monday would pay players about 19% more than if they got 100% of prorated salary under an even shorter season, something MLB has threatened.
The season would start around July 10, Heyman said.
According to both Heyman and The Athletic’s Evan Drellich, players weren’t enthusiastic about the new proposal. Drellich said that was because players would take a greater pay cut if a postseason doesn’t get played.
The MLBPA regards today’s offer from MLB to be worse than the league’s last because it shifts greater emphasis on risk sharing in the postseason. Players would receive 50 percent of pro rata if there is no postseason, 75 if there is. @karlravechespn first on a new offer coming.
— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) June 8, 2020
Initial reax of players to MLB proposal: Not thrilled with it. Not at all.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) June 8, 2020
A voice on the players' side responding to the owners' latest proposal: "This offer should have been in April and it would have been rejected." There is concern among some of the moderates on the players' side that rather than pull the two sides closer, it will serve to entrench.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) June 8, 2020
ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported the players have been asked to give a response by Wednesday.
Ravech also said this new proposal would have the regular season finish Sept. 27 with the postseason concluding by the end of October.
Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick said in an interview with Arizona Sports’ Burns & Gambo last week that prolonging the season well into the fall and winter was a sticking point for owners, who wanted to conclude the season at the normal timeline of September and October.
“We don’t want to take the risk of putting our players at jeopardy and our game in peril to be playing games beyond the end of October,” Kendrick said. “So our model is and will never be changed that we will not be playing baseball in the month of November or later.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
