Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred is using his office’s authority to implement a 2020 season. Manfred announced last night that owners voted unanimously to begin the process of beginning a shortened season of around 60-games with ten playoff teams. That number of games will be the shortest season of Major League Baseball since 1878. The Union now has until 5 p.m. today to acknowledge that players will report to training camps by July 1st and agree on an operating manual of health and safety protocols.
Cincinnati Reds pitcher Trevor Bauer is criticizing both his own union’s and MLB owner’s actions at the negotiating table. Bauer has been vocal throughout the weeks-long process and tweeted on Monday both sides were driving the sport off a cliff and had somehow managed to make the lose-lose situation COVID-19 created even worse. Bauer said the process was doing irreparable damage to the sport over a set of rules that will expire in 16-months anyway when the current Collective Bargaining Agreement ends.