MLB does not want to implement schedule, fears grievance from players

By Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich Jun 15, 2020 524
The owners threatened to implement a season. The players told them to go ahead, and effectively might have called the owners’ bluff.

The risk to the owners in determining the length of the season and inviting a potential billion-dollar grievance from the players appears too great for them to plow ahead without an actual agreement.

Sources told The Athletic that the commissioner’s office is loath to impose a season on players against their will when the Players Association likely would counter such a move by filing a claim for financial damages. The league’s goal, according to one source, remains unchanged: To negotiate a resolution that is satisfactory to both parties.

That message, however, became muddied Monday when the game’s highest-ranking executive took a harsher stand.

Commissioner Rob Manfred made a sharp reversal on ESPN, retreating from a guarantee he made five days earlier that the 2020 season would take place and...