Any hope of an agreement between the owners and players on Thursday regarding the MLB lockout ended in roughly 15 minutes.
That’s how long the negotiating session was between the two parties in New York with — yet again — little to zero movement toward a resolution that would see the 2022 regular season start on time.
Per multiple reports, the players eased off on their request asking for all players with two or more years of MLB experience to be eligible for arbitration.
Instead of 100%, the offer has been lowered to 80% of the player pool while requesting an increase in pre-arbitration bonus pool money from $100 million to $115 million.
The owners had initially raised their originally pre-arbitration offer to $15 million, initially suggesting that the players’ ask of increasing their ask is non-sensical. However, the number of players that will be in pre-arbitration will increase by five times the original proposal — from 30 players to 150 players — due to the decrease in those who will be eligible for arbitration.
Naturally, no deal was struck and the 77th day of the owner-induced lockout brought the same result as the previous 76 days: nothing.
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MLB teams were originally scheduled to report to spring training this week, but seeing as the players have been locked out of their clubs, the only baseball personnel inhabiting team facilities are its front office and leadership.
There they will stay until an agreement is reached — but there is little to suggest that it’s going to happen anytime soon.
Therefore, the start of the 2022 regular season is in jeopardy.
Baseball’s March 1 deadline is looming; the date set as the latest possible time an agreement could be reached to ensure Opening Day can be held on its originally-scheduled March 31 date. A deal on March 1 would ensure MLB has just enough time to execute a two-week offseason and a three-week spring training to properly ramp teams and players up to the rigors of a 162-game season.
An agreement made beyond March 1 all but guarantees baseball begins behind schedule — an outcome that would impact the wallets of both parties who continue to fight over every dollar and cent that’s up for grabs.
