#MLB players union planning counteroffer of roughly 70-game 2020 season

The players and owners, having finally set up camp in the same galaxy just earlier this week, might actually be hurtling toward the same planet.

Multiple industry sources confirmed an ESPN report that the Major League Baseball Players Association intends to counter commissioner Rob Manfred’s latest proposal, one calling for the players to get their full prorated salaries for 60 regular-season games, with a 70-game schedule at the same level of pay as the two sides attempt to restart the 2020 season.

The difference between the two packages, about $1.51 billion for 60 games and $1.757 billion for 70 games, is $247 million, or a little over $8.2 million per team. Infielder-outfielder Jonathan Villar, whom the Orioles traded to the Marlins last December after placing him on outright waivers, had been set to make $8.2 million this season before the coronavirus shutdown.

On Wednesday, commissioner Rob Manfred announced that he and his PA counterpart Tony Clark, following weeks of fruitless negotiation during which they couldn’t agree on the level of pay, had reached “a jointly developed framework” for a package that included an expanded postseason and the universal designated hitter this year and next as well as a $25-million postseason pool and forgiveness on $33 million of the $170 million lump-sum payment that the players negotiated in March. Clark did not put out a matching statement, the PA merely denying that an agreement had been reached, and now it’s increasingly clear the bargaining hasn’t concluded.

A tiny 10-game gap, however, brings some hope, even given the epic enmity the two sides hold each for each other.