Baseball Closes in on a Deal for a Season as Manfred and Clark have Sit Down in Arizona

Baseball fans have been waiting for good news in regard to the 2020 season and if it's going to get played, and finally Wednesday they got it as Rob Manfred and Tony Clark had a sit down over the weekend in Arizona which was "productive" towards starting a shortened season.

Baseball fans who have been anxiously waiting for the game they love to return finally have something to celebrate.

Reports from various sources including Jon Heyman of MLB Network state that baseball commissioner Rob Manfred and union chief Tony Clark had a ‘secret’ meeting in Arizona to try and hammer out the differences keeping the 2020 season from starting.

Heyman went on to tweet that “MLB and players union are closing in on an agreement to play the 2020 season, via players. Deal expected to be for prorated pay and include expanded playoffs.”

The prorated part of the deal was likely the toughest hurdle the climb, as it seems that from day one the players did not want to lose anymore money, while the owners have stated over and over without fans in the stands that it would be impossible not to take a huge bath on the season.

The last offer that owners made was to pay players 75% of their prorated salaries in a 76-game regular season.

How much that might have gone up or down remains to be seen, but Saturday players rejected the offer and said they were done talking, and for the league to just put a schedule together and tell them “where and when” to report to play the shortened season.

Another aspect reported by Heyman is that the union has agreed to waive any grievance, which means that the season should be able to get underway quicker and the league won’t fight in courtrooms the rest of the summer.

It sounds like the season will be somewhere between 60 and 70 games, and that the expanded postseason means that instead of three division winners and two wild card teams there would be an additional pair of wild card teams added to the postseason bracket.

There have been safety measures to combat the covid-19 pandemic agreed upon by both sides, which again is a plus to get the season started sooner than later.

Spring training 2.0 would come before the start of the season, and the Indians likely would hold that at Progressive Field, playing a handful of intersquad games before the 2020 season would officially begin.