MLB News: Insider Tees Off on MLB and MLBPA Over CBA Deadlock
Welcome to Day 85 of the MLB lockout. It's been a frustrating saga for baseball fans to say the least. Both sides have met everyday this week, but there's been very little progress towards a new CBA. The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal voiced his displeasure with the "silliness" of both MLB and the MLBPA in how they've handled the negotiations.
“Disrespectful, you say? Gee. I’m sorry. I’ve just been sitting around, like baseball fans everywhere for the past 84 days, waiting for the parties to reach a new collective-bargaining agreement so we can get onto truly important matters such as where Carlos Correa will sign and how many players the poor, starving Oakland A’s will trade.”
Rosenthal also pointed out that the owners leveraging a deadline, that they themselves created, was always in the playbook.
“But the owners’ strategy from the start was to squeeze the union until regular-season games were in jeopardy, all the while recoiling in disgust when the player-serfs rejected their crumbs and refused to view them as benevolent despots.”
On the issue of tanking, Rosenthal is completely in favor of utilizing a draft lottery and incentivizing small market teams to compete with additional draft picks. Once again, the baseball writer let his opinion be known.
“The owners oppose the draft-pick incentives for small-market teams, believing it would make rebuilding that much more difficult for the league’s worst clubs. Good! Those teams, some of which are wallowing in revenue-sharing funds, need a kick in the rear.”
Baseball fans are thinking it. Rosenthal is saying it.
According to MLB, regular season games will be cancelled if the two sides have not agreed to a new CBA by February 28th.
