Yesterday’s “deadline” to avoid cancelling MLB regular season games was not met, and there was no deal.
However, after roughly 13 hours, the two sides made significant progress: so much so that the owners pushed back their so-called “deadline” to 5 p.m. ET today.
The owners and players inched closer in several areas such as CBT tax rates, minimum salary, and pre-arbitration bonus pool money, but there is still work to do to come to the middle on these issues.
The two sides now begin day 9 of the negotiations in Jupiter, Florida, in hopes of closing out a deal and securing a new CBA.
There will be no deal on a new collective-bargaining agreement in this early hour, sources tell ESPN. Enough progress was made that MLB and the MLBPA will meet again later today in hopes of finalizing one. Deadline to miss regular-season games has been moved to 5 p.m. today.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) March 1, 2022
Why Was There A Deadline In The First Place?
It’s good that the two sides made progress and are now seemingly closer to a deal.
It seems to be about a 50/50 shot that a new CBA is agreed upon today, and fans are cautiously optimistic.
But if this deadline that the owners set was meant to be fluid, why did they act as if it was a hard and fast deadline?
Why was this deadline even set in the first place?
And where was this urgency in December?
If there had been such urgency back in December, then in all likelihood, this lockout would have been avoided and a new CBA would already be in place.
Again, there’s about a 50/50 chance that the two sides finally agree on the new CBA today, but we’re still left wondering why the deadline was set in the first place if they weren’t going to meet that exact deadline.
Did The Deadline Help?
Obviously, it worked in the sense that the two sides are now making much more progress on a deal and that it could potentially be reached as soon as today, and it also helps that the two sides felt that they were close enough to push back the deadline.
At this point, all MLB fans can do is hope for the best.
NEXT: MLB Owners And Players Stayed Up All Night On Monday