MLB just gave MLBPA it’s economic proposal. The players’ union is not happy about it.

Major League Baseball and the players’ union have been in negotiations for months now as to how to go about a baseball season in 2020 if at all. COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on our daily lives in a number of ways, but the complexities of making organized professional sports happen during this pandemic has proven to be a very difficult problem to solve on a number of levels.

The first obstacle was reaching an agreement between the two sides regarding the actual logistics and safety protocols regarding how to operate and while nothing is set in stone yet, it does seem to be true that both sides are making progress towards an agreement there.

However, the biggest problem has widely been predicted to be the economics of how much players will get in a potential 2020 season. The players were already irate that the league was seemingly backing out of an agreement to pay players a certain amount in 2020 regardless of whether it happens or not although there is some disagreement as to whether or not that is actually the case. The league was expected to give players their economic proposal today and they did, in fact, do so....with predictable results.

One can be excused for being less than optimistic given MLBPA’s tone here, but it is worth mentioning that they JUST got the league’s proposal and this could very easily just be a bargaining maneuver. Both sides are acutely aware that the optics of not having a season over money are not great, so hopefully once the players get this out of their system, they can put together a counter-proposal that can be the basis of continued talks.

All of that said, both sides are running out of time. It stands to reason that after the first week of June, each day that passes without an agreement decreases the likelihood further and further that we are going to have baseball at all.