There finally seems to be movement on the return of Phillies baseball
According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, the Major League Baseball Players Association has rejected the latest proposal and has requested a start date by Monday, June 15, which could mean Phillies baseball is coming sooner rather than later.
The latest developments come Saturday evening as players appear to be “fed up” with the way owners are negotiating a deal to return to play.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has the power to unilaterally start a season with a set number of games and it appears that’s the direction we are going.
From MLBPA letter: "If it is your intention to unilaterally impose a season, we again request that you inform us and our members of how many games you intend to play and when and where players should report. It is unfair to leave players and the fans hanging at this point."
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) June 13, 2020
The optics of this are terrible for baseball, mostly for the owners. They gave the players the pro rated salary deal when everything stopped earlier this year and they went back on their promise and but a black eye on the sport.
By rejecting this deal the players, in my opinion, are coming out as the “good guys” by saying, we had a deal, you turned your back on us and made terrible offers, and for the sake of the fans we are giving up and playing whatever the 2020 season may be.
So it looks like we’ve finally hit the end of this phase of the saga and the next step will be for baseball to unilaterally impose a season of around 50 games.
Major League Baseball Players Association Executive Director Tony Clark today released the following statement: pic.twitter.com/d1p3Oj4K70
— MLBPA Communications (@MLBPA_News) June 13, 2020
If players were to report some time next week and they had a one month spring training 2.0 to prepare, look for opening day to be around July 15.
We might have baseball, but it’ll be one of the worst case scenarios to get to it with labor strife and unhappy fans getting an unfinished product.