The more we hear from MLB players, the less it sounds like we’re anywhere close to the end of the lockout.
On Tuesday, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred announced that the league was canceling the upcoming season’s first two series after the players union and league failed to reach an agreement before the owner-imposed deadline. There’s been angry reaction from across the game’s best players — including from Mike Trout — to how the owners have operated since locking out the players in early December.
Cubs outfielder Jason Heyward is convinced that the owners went into last week’s negotiations with just two outcomes in mind: Cancel those less-lucrative April regular season games or get the union to accept an owner-friendly CBA. Nothing else.
Heyward wrote, calling out Manfred’s smile from the Tuesday press conference:
The look on his face is a sigh of relief… He thought the players were about to accept the deal and we were going to start the season.. Which all along he didn’t want to start on time…
Numbers, rule changes, CBT’s, Super 2’s, League Minimus, Extended Playoffs,Pitch Clocks,Shifts,International drafts etc……
All of these things and more put to the side.. From the last day of the former CBA to the “good faith..” extended deadline of March 1, 2022 at 5pm, they(Manfred and whoever signed up to follow..) have been operating with the intent to delay the season. Period. Similar to the 2020 pandemic season, they drag things out because they have their ideal amount of games they hope we play during the season.
They know the proposals they made were geared towards benefiting them significantly enough that if the players ever elected to accept the terms it would be a big win for them and a huge loss for the current and future players of this game. Each time both sides “went to the table..” they chose to acknowledge bits and pieces of what needed to be discussed to delay and drag out the whole process..
They continued to make offers they know were in the players best interest to refuse.. Hoping both sides could continue to “disagree..” and that they would get their end GOAL… their GOAL of delaying the 2022 MLB season….
Bottom line.. they know the amount of games we need to play in order for them to profit.. they view the first month of the season as debt… season delayed = they meet their goals..
As players, all of us make different amounts of money each year.. regardless of the contract we went into these negotiations in hopes of actually discussing the game we “thought” they cared about.. the outcome to this date has been one side in the players(MLBPA) negotiating with ourselves because the other side wants division and they truly don’t care to play the scheduled 162.. that’s the route they chose..
Heyward broke down exactly why the players are so frustrated. The owners locked out the players and waited 43 days to make contact. And when a dialogue finally started, there was no real intention to negotiate.
By canceling games early in the season, the owners save on salary and avoid those April games that lag behind in attendance and revenue. And really, it’s difficult to dispute anything that Heyward wrote as the owners never displayed any urgency to get a deal done until they could use regular season games as leverage.
It shows where the league’s priorities are.
