A couple of New York Mets players have shown they are prominent and influential voices in the MLB – Players Association talks for a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA).
Shortstop Francisco Lindor and star pitcher Max Scherzer were present at Monday’s meeting, and were also there for Tuesday’s round of bargaining.
Specialized New York sports site SNY showed a short clip of Lindor arriving to the stadium in Jupiter, FL for the second day of talks in a crucial week.
Francisco Lindor greets Max Scherzer and the rest of the MLBPA here for today's negotiations: pic.twitter.com/ZwsVPRNvam
— SNY (@SNYtv) February 22, 2022
He was seen greeting his teammate for the 2022 campaign, Scherzer.
Mets Players Are Ready To Defend Players’ Rights
Lindor has been adamant in saying that the union is just looking for a good deal, and has implied players are willing to lose games if that’s what is needed to receive a fair treatment in negotiations.
Scherzer, meanwhile, is one of the biggest advocates for the players’ side, long before his Mets days.
Earlier this month, he went to his Twitter account to explain why players didn’t want external parties serving as mediators in the current talks with the league.
“We want a system where threshold and penalties don’t function as caps, allows younger players to realize more of their market value, makes service time manipulation a thing of the past, and eliminate tanking as a winning strategy,” he said, summarizing most of the players’ demands in the current CBA talks.
We want a system where threshold and penalties don’t function as caps, allows younger players to realize more of their market value, makes service time manipulation a thing of the past, and eliminate tanking as a winning strategy.
— Max Scherzer (@Max_Scherzer) February 4, 2022
The league notified the players last week that February 28 is their deadline to negotiate a new CBA deal without compromising the start of the season.
As of right now, the regular season is scheduled to start on March 31, but if this week passes and there is no deal looming, that date could, and should, be pushed back because players need about four weeks of training before declaring themselves ready to take the field in games that count.
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