Fearing Olympics participation issues, MLB proposing stiff penalties for players who skip out

PHILADELPHIA — Go to the Olympics or suffer the consequences.

In a May proposal to the union, Major League Baseball said it wants big leaguers to face an effective suspension longer than three weeks — a period that would last into the second half of the regular season — if they are chosen to participate in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles but skip out without an approved excuse.

From as early as July 10 through Aug. 3, 2028, players who choose not to play in the Summer Games would be on the restricted list without pay or service time, per a copy of the proposal reviewed by The Athletic. Placement on the injury list would technically be an approved excuse, but with a wrinkle: such players would get pay and service time, but would not be able to return to regular-season action until after the same day, Aug. 3.

Bruce Meyer, the head of the Players Association, on Tuesday called the league’s proposal “extreme.” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, meanwhile, said the proposal was made on the premise that the 2028 Summer Games are “a unique opportunity to market the sport with our very, very best players.”

“It is a disruptive undertaking for us,” Manfred said Tuesday. “Put money to one side. You’re disrupting an entire season, and if we’re going to undertake that effort, we want our very best out there so that people see how great our game really is.”

The league, the union and the Games’ organizers are in the early stages of negotiations over player participation in 2028, something that would be a novel development for the top baseball players in the world. Never before have big leaguers en masse gone to the Summer Games.

But the parties have a bevy of issues to work out first, including whether Olympic participation is mandatory. The league doesn’t appear to view its participation proposal as the primary holdup, however.

“We made a proposal to the union which included a schedule and a mandatory participation agreement,” MLB spokesperson Glen Caplin said in a statement. “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.”

To accommodate the baseball portion of the Olympics, which is set to run from July 13-19, 2028, the usual midseason All-Star break would be extended. The first half of the regular season would wrap up July 9, and the All-Star Game is then set to be played July 11, likely in San Francisco. The regular season would resume on July 21.

In MLB’s proposal, a player who skips the Olympics and who was not “elected or selected to participate” in the All-Star Game would be on the restricted list from July 10 — the first day of the long midseason break — through Aug. 3, a 25-day span.

And a player who “participates” in the All-Star Game on July 11 but then declines to go to the Olympics would be on the restricted list two fewer days, starting with the day after the All-Star Game, July 12.

Players in either scenario could also be fined.

An absence from the Olympics would be excused if a player is on an injury list in the majors or minors as of July 9, the last day of the first half. But there’s a catch: any player who forgoes the Olympics for injury cannot return to regular-season play or begin a rehab assignment until Aug. 4 “irrespective of the injured player’s status or readiness to play,” the league proposed.

In other words, MLB wants players who skip the Olympics for injury to do so only if they’re comfortable sitting out until August.

MLB is trying to prevent “any attempts to manipulate” the injury list, the league said in its proposal. 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. The league’s proposal would let the commissioner determine whether a health or safety risk or “other exceptional circumstances” were valid.

MLB does not have similar participation requirements in place for the World Baseball Classic, the international tournament that the league and the union hold every few years. But to Manfred, the events are not equivalent.

“Big differences between the WBC and the Olympics,” Manfred said Tuesday. “The WBC takes place at a point in time when players are just beginning to ramp up for the season. There’s a whole host of reasons why, at that point in the calendar, players might not be ready to play.

“In contrast, the schedule for the Olympics is going to cover days that players otherwise would be playing in major-league games. If they’re not on an injured list, they’d be out there playing. I think that that is a huge difference.”

The league is also trying to deter players from skipping the All-Star Game without a valid excuse and then going on to play in the Olympics. MLB included a provision allowing for an unpaid suspension or fine in that situation as well — or even ineligibility for the Olympics, with again a placement on the restricted list through Aug. 3.

These various punishments would not be challengeable through a grievance process, per the proposal.

An MLB official who was not authorized to speak publicly said the union has not responded to the league’s participation proposal. A union official who was not authorized to speak publicly said that the MLBPA has informed the league that it would respond once players have a broader set of proposals on all the other issues.

A slew of additional things need to be worked out, including player accommodations and compensation for participation, as well as how many tickets are available to players and their guests. In the union’s proposal on those matters, it pushed for big leaguers to have many of the same accommodations that National Hockey League players are afforded for their participation in the Olympics.

The negotiations are complicated by the number of parties at the table: beyond just MLB and the MLPBA, the International Olympic Committee and LA28 are involved as well. The World Baseball Softball Confederation is also part of the process.

“In general, our players want to play in the Olympics,” Meyer said. “They’re patriotic, and for them it’s a special opportunity, and we want them to have that opportunity. Having said that, we want to make sure that they have things like travel and accommodations and things that they deserve based on who they are.”

Said ​​Niccolò Campriani, LA28’s senior vice president of sport, in a statement: “As reflected in our exchanges, we are all working toward the shared goal of seeing the world’s best athletes representing their respective countries at the LA28 Games, and it’s great to see that enthusiasm coming from the athletes as well. Conversations continue to move in a positive direction, and we are confident in the process and optimistic about the path ahead.”

ESPN first reported details of the negotiations on Tuesday.

The U.S., the Dominican Republic and Venezuela have already secured spots in the 2028 Olympics’ baseball tournament. The latter two clubs qualified during the WBC, and the U.S. has an automatic bid as the host country. The last three spots will be determined at upcoming tournaments.