This latest update from the MLB-MLBPA bargaining table won’t make anyone happy.
After both sides met for a session for the first time in 2022 amidst an ongoing lockout… well, they may as well have never even met.
According to ESPN National Baseball Insider Jeff Passan, the meeting was unproductive. Surprise, surprise.
The owners are on the hook for this failure, as they made the proposal to the players, who promptly rejected it. Chalk it up just like the ones that have come before.
MLB and the MLBPA failed to reach an agreement again
Passan did report that MLB offered some concessions to the players, such as funneling money to players with two-plus years of service, awarding draft picks to teams that don’t take advantage of service time rules and adjustments to a proposed draft lottery.
In total, those seem like very minor concessions, and it’s easy to understand where the players are coming from. Why show up to the bargaining table if the owners are going to just keep offering the same proposal? The players have demands too, and while it would be unrealistic to meet every one of them, some legitimate movement on this front would be nice.
The owners seem content to leave the sport in disarray as well, since they implemented in a lockout in the first place. Their motivations are quite clear.
At the end of the day, we all know this is going to be a painstakingly long process. Bargaining a new CBA is not something that happens overnight. And more often than not, it happens last minute, such as when the season would theoretically begin in late March.
With no other meetings currently scheduled between the two sides, it’s anyone’s guess as to when these terms will be ironed out, but one thing is for sure: baseball is shooting itself in the foot and the owners are a big reason why.