MLB rejects MLBPA's proposal for 70-game season

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred immediately rejected the union's latest proposal for a 2020 season on Thursday, according to Jeff Passan of ESPN.

The MLBPA had proposed a 70-game season, executive director Tony Clark announced Thursday.

"We delivered to Major League Baseball today a counterproposal based on a 70-game regular season which, among a number of issues, includes expanded playoffs for both 2020 and 2021," Clark said. "We believe this offer represents the basis for an agreement on resumption of play."

Additional details from the union's offer reportedly included:

The offer also included a framework for adopting a neutral site during the 2020 postseason, if necessary, a source told Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, and teams would have been permitted to place advertisements on uniforms for the next two seasons.

It was the latest counterproposal to Major League Baseball after the league submitted a 60-game proposal Wednesday.

Owners apparently thought they had already reached an understanding, Jon Heyman of MLB Network reports. Clark issued a second statement Thursday afternoon clarifying the MLBPA's position after talks with Manfred.

"In my discussions with Rob in Arizona, we explored a potential pro-rata (salary) framework, but I made clear repeatedly in that meeting and after it that there were a number of significant issues with what he proposed, in particular the number of games," Clark said. "It is unequivocally false to suggest that any tentative agreement or other agreement was reached in that meeting. In fact, in conversations within the last 24 hours, Rob invited a counterproposal for more games that he would take back to the owners. We submitted that counterproposal today."

"I don't know what Tony and I were doing there for several hours going back and forth and making trades if we weren't reaching an agreement," Manfred responded, according to Heyman.

The commissioner added that while he knows time is running out to reach an agreement, he's unable to give a deadline "until I speak to owners."

The divide between the union and team owners has been linked to player salaries since the work stoppage began. The players have remained committed to receiving full prorated salaries for the amount of games played, while owners have been adamant about players accepting further pay cuts.

The league's 60-game proposal, which included prorated pay, would have resulted in players getting paid $1.51 billion, while the union's latest suggestion had them receiving $1.76 billion, according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post. That still left a gap of about $247 million, or roughly $8.23 million per team.

The league's offer was for 60 games starting on July 19 or 20 with players receiving full prorated salary. Playoffs were to be expanded in 2020 and 2021 and the designated hitter would be adopted in the National League for both years.