MLB negotiations: Will there now be one final arm-twist?

The ping-pong game between MLB and the MLBPA continues at 35-34, but it very much appears as though very soon one player will throw a paddle in frustration.

All right, here’s where the constipated negotiations between Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association now stand, as near as I can figure: MLB now suggests a 72-game schedule, with yet another, slightly higher percentage of the prorated salary (in the aggregate) that they already agreed to in March. If that was hard to follow, it means less than was agreed to.

Oh, and just by the way, MLB agreed to a new zillion-dollar contract with Ted Turner, or Jane Fonda,  or somebody. And the draft was only a momentary distraction.

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To the 72-game offer, Tony Clark, the leader of the MLBPA, said, “Well, sh*t,” but of course, much more eloquently.

In other words, he has told the MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred to go ahead with his threat to set a schedule, likely (or not) for a paltry, 50-game season without an agreement with the players association.

It’s hard to tell if that means, “Go ahead and try it,” “pound sand after we tell you we’ll be there but won’t,” or what. No amount of parsing Clark’s phrasing means a thing at this point, but for the record, the word “futile” had been seized upon by journalists and social media “experts” before 10 p.m. EST June 13.

It all suggests a recent internet video of two guys on a city street very much like some in New York. They’re aggressively flipping the bird at each other, first at close quarters, then for quite some time more distantly as they walk down opposite sides of the street. This, of course, was seized by a journalist for NJ.com as a metaphor for the negotiations, an idea he posted on Twitter.

Quickly upon the heels of that, one of my editors suggested that if Baseball with a Capital B tries to force a bunch of millionaires to play, the players should strike.

To this, I replied, essentially, maybe there’s a better idea. That is: Let MLB mandate a 50-game season, and see what happens.

Because this is what will happen: Some players will show up.

A player like the Phillies’ Adam Haseley, fighting to make his team for a first full season after his nice showing in 2019 very well may show up. Bigger stars…? Well, we already have a pretty good idea that Blake Snell won’t show.

(Ooh, could we have replacement players???)

Here’s what I’d think as an MLB player. Sure, some of us will show up. But how about this notion as something for Commissioner Manfred to mull over: What if the players decide to strike next season on, for example, the eve of the All-Star Game. Clark could send a letter reading simply: “You ignore contracts. We ignore contracts.”

He could, you know. Sometimes revenge takes a while.