After asking for the intervention of a federal mediator a few weeks ago, MLB was rebuffed by the union, who rejected the notion of any third-parties entering the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations.
Yesterday, during the bargaining session, MLB once again offered the possibility of a mediator, but players remain firm in their idea of solving the conflict with any external help.
Owners have to realize that they just can’t ask for help to solve a situation that they started and implemented.
They can easily lift the lockout and there will be a baseball season.
That likely won’t happen, as attorney Eugene Freedman explained in a Twitter thread.
MLB may have asked for mediation because of internal communication problems/misunderstandings. Owners may have mistakenly believed that a lockout would pressure players to give in. Now that they haven't, they don't know how to get out of the box they've built for themselves. 1/ https://t.co/8bGOJQK0B0
— (((EugeneFreedman))) (@EugeneFreedman) February 23, 2022
He said that the league “may have asked for mediation because of internal communication problems/misunderstandings. Owners may have mistakenly believed that a lockout would pressure players to give in. Now that they haven’t, they don’t know how to get out of the box they’ve built for themselves.”
Owners Can Lift The Lockout Anytime And There Would Be A Season
In fact, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred explained in December that he hoped a lockout would “jumpstart” negotiations.
Instead, there were no meeting or talks for over 40 days, so the measure had the complete opposite effect.
Freedman thinks that the league ending the lockout “would appear weak without a no strike agreement, which they aren’t going to get.”
That solidifies the theory that MLB could make a season start on time today: if they decide to lift the lockout, spring training would start in a few days and the season would begin on March 31, as scheduled.
That won’t happen, though.
MLB may ultimately decide to unilaterally cancel games, but that’s a lose-lose situation.
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