MLB players vote down MLB owners’ latest proposal

MLB players had scheduled a vote on the owners’ latest proposal, a 60-game season with full prorated pay, for midday Monday.

There had been rumors flying of last-minute haggling to try to work out some sort of deal, but apparently that didn’t happen and a vote was taken:

The next step in this process is expected to be Commissioner Rob Manfred enforcing a season of some specified length. That’s expected to be somewhere in the 50-game range. The players are likely to file a grievance over that, saying the owners and the Commissioner’s office have not bargained in good faith about a season, something that was agreed to on March 26. That’s less than three months ago, when owners and players were all puppies and rainbows. Here’s what was in that March memorandum of understanding:

Some of those things still could happen when the Commissioner implements a season, others not. An arbitrator is then likely going to be called to decide what happens, since players will not likely accept any implemented season, despite their “tell us when and where” mantra of a few days ago. We’ll see if that happens this quickly:

If you think it’s ugly now, it’s going to get worse... and that’s not even taking into consideration the uptick in outbreaks of the novel coronavirus in many areas hosting MLB teams, and the possibility of further outbreaks elsewhere or a second wave later in the summer.

As always, we await developments.