Winter Is Over!

I was out taking my dogs for a walk when the news came over my phone that the MLB lockout is over. At first, I wondered if it was some sort of hoax. More than once in recent months, some joker's tweet that Rob Manfred had resigned was solemnly passed to me as fact by Google news. But today's news was verified by multiple news sources I could trust. Baseball is really back — pending, of course, ratification by both sides. Fingers crossed, but it seems pretty unlikely that either side would welcome the bad publicity sure to accrue to whoever chose to renege on this deal.

A Couple of Shout-Outs

I'll be back soon with a regular post, but I wanted to take a minute to give some love to a couple of worthwhile ventures.

With the Present on Hold, We Look to the Future

It was good news that negotiations between MLB and the Players Association resumed Sunday, but I fear we're still a considerable distance from playing major league ballgames this season. Still, the only way this will ever resolve is if the two sides continue talking to each other. Meanwhile, the only baseball being played in spring training camps is with minor leaguers who are not on the 40-man roster. Players on the 40-man, even if they haven't played an inning at the major league level, are still part of the MLBPA and are locked out along with major league ballplayers.

Manfred Practices His Golf Swing While MLB Burns

No doubt that everyone who visits this space is already aware that Opening Day has become a casualty to MLB owners' overwhelming desire to break the resolve of the Players Association. There was some optimism Monday night when the deadline was extended one more day after negotiations lasted deep into the night. I have to admit, despite my better judgment, I allowed myself to cling to some hope. Major League Opening Day is one of my favorite days of the year. It has supplanted Christmas and my birthday at this late stage of my life — particularly the birthday.

Shifting Tides

MLB and the Players Association have kept their word to negotiate every day this week. Sadly, the news out of these sessions doesn't really provide much hope that an agreement will be reached in time to get the 2022 season underway as scheduled on March 31. I started writing a piece on that subject but realized I just wasn't feeling it. Even for folks like myself who write as a hobby rather than for a living, the golden rule is still to write about something that interests you. These CBA negotiations are the equivalent of watching Steve Trachsel pitching on a day that he didn't have it. They're proceeding at roughly the same pace as a bad Trachsel outing, too.

Beware the Self-Inflicted Wound

A CBA Win for MLB Owners Might Cost Them in the Future

I wrote a piece last month outlining why I was skeptical that a new CBA would be reached in time to get the season started as scheduled on March 31. MLB owners seem absolutely committed to not ceding ground to the players on the core economic issues, including the Competitive Balance Tax (or Luxury Tax) and how young players are paid. The owners have relentlessly utilized gains they made in the last two CBAs to hold MLB salary increases well below the rate that revenues have increased over the last few years.

Imagining a Better Mets Farm System

It's been great news that MLB and the Players Association are talking again, even if there is still quite a distance between the two sides' positions. However, it was telling that MLB deputy commissioner Dan Halem felt the need to bring up MLB's willingness to lose some games to get what they want out of the negotiations. We're not even in February, but they just had to dangle that sword over everyone's necks. But there is also news of some progress being made in items that both sides are willing to drop from their demands, so we'll just hold onto good thoughts and optimism for as long as we can. I'm still pessimistic about the MLB season starting on time, but I am a bit less cynical than I was before this week.

Waiting for a New CBA

Back in the early months of the COVID-19 era, I spent a lot of time writing about the negotiations between MLB and the Players Union as they tried to agree on playing some sort of season. I remember that when the talks began, I was reasonably optimistic that a deal would be made relatively quickly. It seemed that both sides had an incentive to come together for the country and give all of us a welcome distraction from the pandemic.

The Worst Kind of Deja Vu

After living through all the awfulness of the MLB/Players Association attempts to play baseball this past year, it's not particularly comforting to see how negotiations are playing out in advance of the 2021 season. Everyone understands that it's to the benefit of both sides to have a DH in the National League this season — MLB wants to protect pitchers from injuries while batting and running the bases, the union wants those 15 DH positions — yet negotiations are going nowhere. The sticking point is that MLB wants to trade something both sides want, the universal DH, for expanded playoffs, which mainly benefit the owners.

Baseball's Uncertain Future, and How It Might Affect the Mets

There was a piece by Evan Drellich in The Athletic last week that caught my eye, but in all of the excitement surrounding Steve Cohen's final approval by MLB owners, I wasn't able to get around to writing about it. The current CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) between MLB and the Players Association is set to expire after the upcoming 2021 baseball season. It's been a long time since the last strike/lockout in 1994-1995, but those of us who lived through it still remember it vividly and dread the potential for a repeat of that event. The ugly negotiations that preceded this season were a red flag that a quarter of a century of avoiding those stoppages is very much in jeopardy this time around. And how cruel would that be to all baseball lovers, even more so to Mets fans like us who have waited so long for a regime change for our club?