MLB commissioner Rob Manfred says ‘we are playing’ but ‘players need to be better’

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred remains confident the 2020 season can continue, telling ESPN’s Karl Ravech on Saturday that “there is no reason to quit now” despite positive coronavirus tests that have led to the postponement of 17 games in 10 days.

“We are playing,” Manfred told Ravech. “The players need to be better, but I am not a quitter in general and there is no reason to quit now. We have had to be fluid, but it is manageable.”

Manfred acknowledged Saturday that not every team might play all 60 games this season, and winning percentage could be used to determine playoff teams.

“We’ve got to be flexible on that,” Manfred told The Associated Press on Saturday. “Look, this is one of the reasons that we revisited the issue off the expanded playoffs. If it turns out that some guys play 60, some guys play 58, they have this new thing called winning percentage. We can sort that out.”

Rob Manfred thinks Mike Rizzo was insubordinate with comments

After canceling Monday’s workout, Nationals GM Mike Rizzo said, “We will not sacrifice the health and safety of our players, staff, and their families. Without accurate and timely testing it is simply not safe for us to continue with Summer Camp. Major League Baseball needs to work quickly to resolve issues with their process and their lab. Otherwise, Summer Camp and the 2020 Season are at risk.”

Per Barry Svrluga of The Washington Post, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred considered Rizzo’s statement to be insubordination. The anonymous source Svrluga quoted said, “The commissioner jumped on him for that.”

Rizzo isn’t the only member of the Nationals to criticize MLB’s testing implementation. Reliever Sean Doolittle pointed out yesterday that the Nationals haven’t been given the personal protective equipment (e.g. masks, gloves) they were promised. In a short thread on Twitter, Doolittle wrote, “We need help to make this work. Faster test results, PPE for high risk individuals and players/staff with high risk family members. The individual efforts have been great so far but we can’t rely solely on individuals. The efforts have to be structural as well.”

Rob Manfred admits MLB never intended to play more than 60 games

When asked to rate the job he did during the negotiating process, Manfred quickly veered to the following.

“The reality is we weren’t going to play more than 60 games no matter how the negotiations with the players went, or any other factor,” Manfred told Patrick. “I think this is the one thing we come back to every single day: we’re trying to manage something that has proven to be unpredictable and unmanageable. I know it hasn’t looked particularly pretty in spots, but having said that, if we can pull off this 60-game season, I think it was the best we were going to do for our fans given the course of the virus.

“It’s the calendar. We’re playing 60 games in 63 days right now. I don’t see, given the reality of the health situation over the past few weeks, how we were going to get going any faster than the calendar we’re on right now. No matter what the state of those negotiations were.”

For something so unpredictable, Manfred seemed pretty convinced that the coronavirus would only give MLB a 60-game window.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred now less confident about 2020 season

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred told ESPN on Monday he’s “not confident” there will be a 2020 baseball season and that “as long as there’s no dialogue” with the MLB Players Association, “that real risk is going to continue.”

In a conversation with Mike Greenberg for ESPN’s “The Return of Sports” special, Manfred walked back comments made to ESPN last week, when he said “unequivocally we are going to play Major League Baseball this year” and pegged the likelihood at “100%.”

“I’m not confident. I think there’s real risk; and as long as there’s no dialogue, that real risk is gonna continue,” Manfred said when asked if he was confident there would be a season.

Manfred: “We’re Going To Play Baseball In 2020”

Major League Baseball is preparing yet another counter-offer to the Players Association after the MLBPA proposed an 89-game season with prorated salaries yesterday, commissioner Rob Manfred said minutes ago in an appearance on MLB Network (hat tip: Bill Shaikin of the L.A. Times, on Twitter). More encouragingly, Manfred emphatically stated: “We’re going to play baseball in 2020 — 100 percent.” The commissioner’s preference remains for a negotiated agreement between the league and union, but Manfred does have the ability to implement a shorter season (at fully prorated salaries) under the standing March agreement.

The details of the forthcoming proposal will be telling. Manfred acknowledged that it’ll be in the “players’ direction” but also suggested that he hopes the union will back down from its insistence on prorated pay. That has been the crux of the players’ entire argument to this point, and it has not seemed likely at all that they’ll be swayed.

Commissioner Rob Manfred, Bud Selig to be deposed in injury lawsuit

A judge ruled Thursday that baseball commissioner Rob Manfred, his predecessor, Bud Selig, and his top deputy, Dan Halem, are to be deposed by April 3 in a lawsuit over injuries a fan suffered three years ago when he was hit in the head by a foul ball at Wrigley Field.

The negligence suit against Major League Baseball alleges that MLB failed to take proper action to protect fans after conducting a 2015 review of safety in the stands regarding foul balls and thrown and broken bats.

Manfred, who succeeded Selig in 2015, has never officially mandated safety netting guidelines, but he did recommend extensions of the netting to the near ends of the dugouts by 2016. All 30 teams had extended netting to the far ends of the dugouts by 2018.

The plaintiff, Jay Loos, now 62, lost the sight in his left eye and suffered multiple facial fractures.

Fifty years from now, there’s a decent chance that the contents of these depositions may be of great interest to the social historian.

Rob Manfred has a history of botching investigations

Back in 2012-13, long before the Houston Astros became known for banging garbage cans and avoiding significant punishment, Rob Manfred was in charge of a different, high-profile, baseball scandal.

That one centered on Biogenesis, a South Florida “health clinic” that turned out to be supplying performance enhancing drugs to star players, most notably Alex Rodriguez.

Manfred was just Major League Baseball’s Chief Operating Officer back then, not the lofty Commissioner job he currently holds.

The investigation, however, was every bit the train wreck of this Astros one, except it stemmed from MLB’s overaggressive techniques and a drive for “justice” that stand in stark contrast to the low-key, small-sanction controversy of today.

Wait a minute- I thought the Peter Principle was suppose to hit in at the first level incompetence was shown…..

Feinstein: In the Astros scandal, Rob Manfred has taken a bad situation and made it worse (WaPo)

Some will argue that stripping the Astros of their title does little. But they’re wrong, it would have a great deal of meaning. Taking away the trophy means the team can’t display it in perpetuity and forces it to take down all banners that proclaim “World Champions.” Remove the Astros’ name from the record book, leaving a blank for the 2017 World Series winner, as there is for 1994, when the World Series was called off after the owners forced the players to strike by violating the rules of collective bargaining.

Rob Manfred offers little insight, shows contempt for reporters in press conference

Commissioner Rob Manfred spoke at a press conference, addressing the Astros cheating scandal and other topics on Sunday evening. It did not go well.

To start, the press conference was not broadcast officially on MLB’s own TV channel (it aired the 1988 movie Bull Durham instead), nor could any mention to it or link to the live stream be found anywhere on MLB.com. When the actual questions began, Manfred’s answers were circuitous or simply illogical given other comments he has made in the past. On more than one occasion, he showed contempt for reporters for doing their jobs — and, some might argue, doing his job — holding players and front office personnel accountable.

Last month, Jared Diamond of the Wall Street Journal broke a story about the Astros’ “dark arts” and “Codebreaker” operation, based on a letter Manfred sent to then-GM Jeff Luhnow. Diamond was among the reporters present for Manfred’s press conference on Sunday. Per The Athletic’s Lindsey Adler, Manfred addressed Diamond, saying, “You know, congratulations. You got a private letter that, you know, I sent to a club official. Nice reporting on your part.” MLB’s response to the depth of the Astros’ cheating ways was lacking and, without Diamond’s reporting, we would have known how deeply lacking that response was. It is understandable that Manfred would be salty about it, since it exposed him as doing his job poorly, but it was an immature, unrestrained response from someone in charge of the entire league.

Onto the actual topic at hand, Manfred said he felt like the punishment doled out to the Astros was enough. Per Chris Cotillo, Manfred said Astros players “have been hurt by this” and will forever be questioned about their achievements in 2017 and ’18. Some players disagree. Former pitcher Phil Hughes even suggested the players have a work stoppage over this issue.

So, what does Manfred have to do at this point before the owners decide it isn’t worth it to keep him around?

Five Losers of MLB’s Offseason

Pitchers and catchers officially begin their preseason workouts this week, ending an eventful offseason where many teams improved their rosters heading into 2020.

For all the winners of the winters, though, there are the offseason losers. These are the clubs that failed to make the necessary roster upgrades, the free agents who miscalculated their values and the aging players in the twilight of their careers whose services are no longer desired. Below are the five biggest losers this winter.

So, any losers who you’d like to add to the list?