Colorado Rockies: MLBPA will not give into pay cuts by MLB owners

According to Washington Nationals starting pitcher Max Scherzer, the MLBPA will not counterpropose the 30 MLB owner’s financial terms for a return for baseball in 2020.

It seems like Colorado Rockies baseball and baseball for the other 29 MLB teams (and likely the minor leagues) were dealt a huge blow on Wednesday night.

Washington Nationals starting pitcher Max Scherzer, who is on the MLBPA’s executive board, tweeted late Wednesday night that after the owner’s proposal, the MLBPA decided that “there’s no reason to engage with MLB in any further compensation reductions.”

He also noted that he (and the MLBPA) believe that “MLB’s economic strategy would completely change if all documentation were to become public information.”

As a result, there will one of two things that are likely to happen. Either MLB and the 30 MLB owners can bring a new offer to the table for the MLBPA or baseball will not return in 2020.

If the latter comes to fruition, both sides will lose tremendously as players will go nearly a year without playing any games and some teams may decide to make more cuts, like the Oakland A’s have with their minor league players, coaches, and their scouting department.

For the owners, they will lose millions due to fans not being at games (which likely would have happened anyway) but also, they will not have any TV or radio revenue coming in. They will still have to play the players (at least somewhat) and they will also lose a year of service time on each and every player on the MLB roster whether or not games will be played or not.

Stay tuned to the site and this article and our Twitter @RoxPileFS as we will have developments as they come in. We also will have a meeting on Facebook Messenger with fans on Thursday so it will definitely be something to discuss then.

EDIT (10:10 PM MT): Jeff Passan of ESPN notes on Twitter that the MLBPA will submit a formal proposal this week. However, that proposal will not have any more compensation reductions.

SECOND EDIT (10:20 PM MT): Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellick of The Athletic report that the MLBPA will propose a longer season as a part of their proposal this week.