Major League Baseball threw a high, hard brushback pitch at Minor League Baseball late Friday night: Shut up and negotiate, or we’ll run our own minor league system without you. MLB quickly responded, choosing not to rebut the MiLB statement point-by-point but instead to threaten to end minor league baseball as we know it. On Wednesday, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred criticized minor league owners for approaching negotiations with what he called “a take-it-or-leave-it, status quo approach.”MLB says that minor league teams have refused to address inadequate facilities, that major league owners subsidize too much of the cost of minor league operations, and that additional independent leagues could fill the void left in towns where the minor league team is cut. MiLB says that it is willing to discuss facility improvements, that the major league owners simply want to pass the cost of higher minor league player salaries onto minor league owners, and that independent leagues have not succeeded in the small markets that would largely be abandoned. Manfred ripped minor league owners for taking the fight public, a criticism that outraged one minor league owner.

Source: Los Angeles Times December 14, 2019 07:22 UTC