Morning Mound Visit: MLB reasserts February 28 deadline

An MLB spokesperson confirmed that if the league and the players don’t come to an agreement by February 28, games in the 2022 season will be canceled. Moreover, players will not be paid for the days lost to the owner’s lockout.

After opting to impose a lockout, the owners didn’t meet with the players for 43 days and have yet to make any sort of realistic proposal. If the league were truly adamant about starting the season on time, they wouldn’t have waited so long to engage in negotiations.

Though the two sides have met every day this week, little progress has been made on core issues. The league still insists on minor increases to the competitive balance tax while doubling the penalties for going over it. Currently, the CBT acts as a salary cap, and further penalizing teams who surpass it will only reinforce it as such.

Without any movement on CBT negotiations, it feels unlikely that an agreement will be made before the league’s arbitrary deadline.

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