St. Louis Cardinals: Latest proposals move towards baseball in 2020

Things are speeding up for the St. Louis Cardinals as time for a season is dwindling. What are the latest offers for a 2020 season?

It has now been the “most important week in baseball” for about three weeks, but this time, it seems to be real. With all the bluffing, posturing, lollygagging, whining, crying, and frustration that fans have been put through over the past month, we may be arriving at a plan for St. Louis Cardinals in the next couple of days.

After the public poop show that was the MLBPA saying “we’re done negotiating” last weekend, the owners came out on Wednesday and offered the MLBPA a 60-game schedule at full prorated salaries as well as expanded playoffs, a DH, and includes the union waiving their right to a grievance.

That last part was immediately not a good thing, but for the 60 games and full prorated salary, it was clear that the owners had FINALLY started to truly negotiate with the players.

More from St Louis Cardinals News

• Cardinals Rumors: 3 pros and cons of signing Carlos Rodon
• Cardinals: Here is Willson Contreras’ first message for St. Louis fans
• How do the St. Louis Cardinals stack up with Willson Contreras?
• Cardinals: The insane asking price the Athletics had for Sean Murphy
• St. Louis Cardinals: Ask me anything with Josh Jacobs – 12/8

After the complete lack of optimism that I had on Monday, this new proposal on Wednesday brought a ton of hope that the owners actually do want a season.

We are going to assume that the reason that the owners didn’t offer this before was that the owners were still trying to call the players’ bluff, but it’s clear they are talking now. The sad thing is that there is a consensus on both sides that if there is no agreed-on plan by Saturday, the 50-game season implemented by Rob Manfred.

So why are the owners motivated to negotiate? It’s because of that right the players have. If the players file a grievance against the league, the owners will be out a ton more money and likely the entire 2020 season. That is the absolute worst-case scenario.

Wasting no time, the players have fired back with a 70-game schedule on Thursday afternoon.

So the MLBPA has jumped down from 114 games to 89 games and now to 70 games.

By all accounts, the sides are just 10 games apart on an agreement which is what has brought back the confidence that there will be an agreement for baseball in 2020. As we’ve said before, the path forward is abundantly clear.

What’s the difference between 60 and 70? 65 games. Every blue checkmark in the world that has tweeted about this has 65 or 66 games being the clear answer that pains each side just enough to get a deal done.

66 games make more sense because that makes it easier to still have three-game series, but the difference is not really that important now.

Right now, the sides are $250M apart on a deal, let’s just hope the owners are willing to step up and stomach five more games. If it is too much to handle, I once again would like to bring up the simple concept of deferrals. If that extra $120M to get to 65 games from 60 is too much, each team could just divide the $4M extra by five and pay the players that each year down the road.

$130M is a lot of money, but it’s not when you consider that it’s spread over the entirety of the league, it shouldn’t be enough of an issue to derail the whole thing.

The last two sentences are the keys that the players really want to get this done. Both of these are little M&M’s for the owners who may not want to jump up towards 65 or even 70 games. Some fans are going to hate this, but advertisements on jerseys were coming no matter what. Sports all over the world have ads on their jerseys and here, it’s something that could help encourage the owners.

The mutual waiver isn’t a guarantee that the players won’t submit a grievance, but it is a handshake agreement that the players won’t file one if I’m understanding it correctly.

The players are asking a lot here, and it’s no surprise that this offer is expected to get declined. The players aren’t really sticking to their “When and Where” campaign, but they are working to see where they can push the owners and where the owners are going to stand firm.

Even once a deal is reached, there is plenty still left up in the air. Scheduling, safety, international players returning, it’s not easy but the biggest challenge is money and once that’s out of the way, these other issues become things both sides are on the same side on.

It’s disappointing to see deferrals left out of any and all of these negotiations, but that just seems like something that both sides have slid off the table. There is a clear answer of 65 games here, even though the players aren’t exactly remaining steadfast on their message to the owners. There is an end in sight, and hopes are higher now than they’ve been at any point for an agreement for 2020.