With MLB “on board” with allowing players to participate in the 2028 L.A. Games, the league “wants the players to make an extraordinary commitment to back up their talk” -- play, “or else,” according to Bill Shaikin of the L.A. TIMES. Shaikin wrote the “or else” is “not rhetorical.” Per the league’s proposal to the players’ union, if a player is not on the injured list and is selected for the Olympics but declines to participate, the player “would be subject to fine and/or suspension” and would be “ineligible to play for the first 14 days when the season resumes after the Olympics.” A player “selected for the Olympics but on the injured list as of July 9 would be excused, but he could not be reinstated to his team’s major league roster until Aug. 4, even if he had recovered from the injury before then.” The league also “does not want to undermine its All-Star Game,” and it is “reasonably foreseeable that some players might wish to skip the All-Star Game ... if they are going to play the next week at the Olympics.” In that scenario, under its proposal, the league would “have the right to declare the player ineligible for the Olympics, and the player would be subject to fine and/or suspension as well as ineligibility for the first 14 days of the second half.” Interim MLBPA Exec Dir Bruce Meyer said that said the union “plans a counterproposal.” Meyer: “The proposals that they made ... in our view, are extreme” (L.A. TIMES, 7/14).
NO WORKAROUNDS: THE ATHLETIC’s Evan Drellich noted MLB in its proposal is “trying to prevent ‘any attempts to manipulate’ the injury list.” The league also said that during the 2028 season, it “may apply heightened scrutiny to any requests to place” would-be Olympians on the IL. Approved absences from the Olympics outside of an injury would be “at Manfred’s sole discretion” and the punishments for unapproved absences “would not be challengeable through a grievance process.” MLB “doesn’t appear to view its participation proposal as the primary holdup” in Olympics negotiations. MLB Special Assistant/Baseball Operations Glen Caplin said in a statement, “We made a proposal to the union which included a schedule and a mandatory participation agreement. The union then pursued a negotiation with (the local organizing committee) LA28 over largely economic issues, including housing and tickets, and told us they would not respond until they finished with LA28.” Drellich wrote the negotiations are “complicated by the number of parties at the table: beyond just MLB and the MLPBA,” the IOC and LA28 “are involved as well.” The World Baseball Softball Confederation is also “part of the process” (THE ATHLETIC, 7/14).
