New York Yankees: Zack Britton says that safety drove MLB – MLBPA negotiations, not money

For months, MLB and the players association couldn’t agree on the terms that would allow fans to enjoy baseball. A series of events happened and Commissioner Rob Manfred had to trigger his right to mandate a season, which ended up being 60 games despite players actively looking for more. New York Yankees reliever Zack Britton appeared on WFAN on Friday (link to the NJ.com note here ) and voiced that players are still frustrated after how things unfolded.

“I know he said he was taken out of context. But it that was the plan (to play 60 games all along), that’s frustrating,” Britton said. “We wanted to play, and we wanted to play as many games as we could, understanding the environment that we were in. It just kind of added fuel to the fire for some players.”

“There wasn’t a lot of progress throughout the whole ordeal, and it took three months to finally agree to the agreement we already agreed to in March,” Britton also stated.

Commissioner Manfred said that players wouldn’t get more than 60 games on The Dan Patrick Show- After taking some heat, he then clarified that he meant the timeline for the schedule never would have allowed MLB to make that happen.

“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. “Sixty games is outside the envelope given the realities of the virus. I think this is the one thing that we come back to every single day, we’re trying to manage something that has proven to be unpredictable and unmanageable.”

The Yankees’ reliever was confident on a deal

Despite the hostile nature of negotiations between the two parties, the Yankees reliever was always confident that a deal would be struck.

The lefty, who is part of the New York Yankees’ deadly bullpen, said that players were more concerned about safety than schedule and money.

“Being a part of the talks, I always felt like we were going to play, it was just a matter of when and how much,” Britton said. “Honestly, I think the biggest question among the players was about testing; not just how we were going to keep players tested and healthy, but staff and everyone in the clubhouse. Our biggest concern was keeping everyone involved as safe as possible. I think a lot of teams still have those questions, but the Yankees have been outstanding. I feel like we’re going to go above and beyond protocols to make sure everyone in our organization is safe.”