For those holding out hope that Major League Baseball owners and players would use the weekend to soften their positions on a plan to start the season, Monday brought only despair.
In their latest offer Monday, owners presented the players with a proposal that brought a swift negative reaction from them, according to industry sources.
Rather than carry through with a trial-balloon plan of an approximately 50-game schedule, the owners pitched a 76-game schedule for which the players would be paid half of their already prorated salaries.
The players would receive another 25 percent, or a conditional total of 75 percent, of their prorated salary if the postseason is able to be completed.
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All along, the players have maintained that they will not reopen the March 26 agreement they forged with the owners that they would be paid 100 percent of their prorated 2020 salaries.
In the latest proposal, the owners offered tacit acknowledgment of the likely reality that this winter’s free agent market will be dismal for the players, so they offered a sweetener to eliminate draft-pick compensation for any team signing a free agent.
The owners again pitched an expanded postseason, a concept the players agreed to in the 82-game proposal. The new proposal has more than half the teams — 16, meaning eight from each league — qualifying for the postseason.
The tenor of the talks has steadily deteriorated.
In their initial proposal, the owners pitched an 82-game schedule in which players would receive 60 percent of their prorated salaries. The owners cited losses of $4 billion, for playing in front of no fans, as too much for them to bear alone.
Before making a counterproposal, the players asked owners to provide economic data that backed up their loss estimation. The owners provided some, not all, of the records the players were seeking.
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The players responded with a 114-game proposal in which they would be paid 100 percent of their prorated salary.
The owners rejected that proposal at the end of last week, and used the weekend to consider the next steps to take.
Monday’s proposal was the response, meaning it will be up to the players to make a counterproposal if they choose.
In terms of guaranteed money, the new proposal, at 50 percent, offers the players 22 percent less than the original 82-game proposal, which offered players 60 percent, guaranteed, of their prorated salaries.
If the playoffs can be completed and the players get 75 percent of their prorated salary, then that amount would be 25 percent more than the original 82-game proposal.
Another way to look at that is using Player X, who was signed to make $10 million this season. At 82 games, one game more than half a season, his salary would be just a tick above $5 million, but for clarity, let’s call it $5 million. At the original 60 percent rate in an 82-game schedule, Player X would make $3 million guaranteed.
Under the 76-game plan, Player X would be guaranteed only $2.5 million.
With the playoffs, the other 25 percent from the owners’ Monday proposal would be added, totaling $3.75 million.
Either way, the amount of money the players would receive in the new proposal is not markedly different from what the owners proposed at 82 games or what it will be if the owners wind up shortening the season to 48 or 50 games and the players earn 100 percent of their prorated salaries.
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With players likely needing three full weeks of a second spring training, the chance of beginning the season in early July is slipping away rapidly.
The owners do have the right to schedule and implement a season, per the March 26 agreement.
That agreement, based on details reported by the Associated Press, spelled out that the players would be paid 100 percent of their 2020 salaries on a pro rata basis — so if, say, 50 percent of the regular season is played, then the players would receive 50 percent of their salary.
The agreement also gives commissioner Ron Manfred the right to create and impose a schedule “using best efforts to play as many games as possible, while taking into account player safety and health, rescheduling needs, competitive considerations, stadium availability, and the economic feasibility of various alternatives."
Michael Silverman can be reached at michael.silverman@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter: @MikeSilvermanBB
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