MLB Owners Continue To Dig Themselves Into Deeper Hole
Just 36 hours after MLB commissioner, Rob Manfred, said he is now not confident a season will happen, progress was starting to be made. It was started and was centered around an in-person meeting between MLBPA director Tony Clark & commissioner Rob Manfred.
However, after yet another leak from the owners, that progress now looks to be thrown out the window.
ESPNs Jeff Passan released a puzzling but now sensible statement on the Rich Eisen show yesterday. The statement was about an executive of the league telling him that the league had to die before it could come back. The quote was very concerning but after explanation, it now makes sense.
Passan made the reference that with Manfred’s 100% certainty comment last week of a season to be back-pedaled to not 100% confident anymore, somewhat hit the reset button. It appeared from the outside like baseball dying per-say.
But, now after restarting and making some progress, someone jumped the gun and may have reset everything back to square one.
Breaking: MLB and players union are closing in on an agreement to play the 2020 season, via players. Deal expected to be for prorated pay and include expanded playoffs.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) June 17, 2020
MLB Networks Jon Heyman tweet looked to be from the players & was breaking what looked like very promising news about the season returning. Well, unfortunately, that news didn’t come from the players who responded with this…
Reports of an agreement are false.
— MLBPA Communications (@MLBPA_News) June 17, 2020
A statement released that quickly to immediately deny any agreement is not good. With the MLBPA already voicing their displeasure with the misleading & inaccurate leaks, this is not good and may get ugly fast.
What started as very promising news with the Manfred & Clark meeting in person earlier today, has now turned into the players voicing an immediate response to a leak that was said to come from them & is not true.
The owners will not learn and continue to dig themselves a deeper hole. Whoever gave Heyman the information and phrased it from the players, probably didn’t think the players would respond.
Well, with their displeasure already known, it seems the players have had enough and will immediately correct, confirm, or deny anything that comes out about a league restart now.
If Manfred doesn’t correct this fast, there may not be a season or even worse, irreplaceable damage may be done to an already struggling sport.