Spring Training is officially delayed. Today was the day pitchers and catchers were originally scheduled to report to camp. But as the lockout continues, there’s little to look forward to baseball wise.
The owners made their most recent proposal on Saturday. The players were left unimpressed by the offer.
The owners proposed increasing the pre-arbitration bonus pool to $15 million, as well as increasing the CBT thresholds and increasing players’ minimum salary to $725 thousand after 2-3 years of service time. The two sides also previously agreed on the implementation of the Universal DH.
Now, the ball is in the players’ court. The Athletic’s Evan Drellich reported today that the next bargaining session has yet to be scheduled, and that the players are still determining how they want to respond to Saturday’s offer.
Last night, another report surfaced which gave us a clue about the owners’ intentions going forward. According to Jeff Passan of ESPN, the league and the owners want to reduce the number of players per organization from 180 to 150. Passan notes that the players are expected to reject this offer from the league.
Passan also noted that the players’ counteroffer to the owners’ proposal from Saturday would come at some point toward the middle of this week. How that next session goes will determine what happens next and where things stand in terms of keeping Opening Day as originally scheduled, March 31.
As of right now, it’s looking less and less likely that the season will start on time. In reality, Saturday’s session was probably the final straw before games are lost this season, and now it’s anyone’s guess as to when they’ll figure all of this out.
FOX Sports commentator Joe Buck stated Sunday on KMOX Sports, a St. Louis based sports radio station, that he believes that something will get done soon.
“I think there’s too much at stake for either side to test the patience of fans any more than they already have,” Buck said, as he made his prediction that as we inch closer to the regular season, negotiations will speed up.
Of course, Buck is a broadcaster, and this is merely a prediction, but we can only hope he’s right. Everything really depends on when the next bargaining session takes place. At this point, if they want to speed things up, they’ll need to negotiate fast.
But at this point, the expectation is that Opening Day will be pushed back. How far it’s pushed back remains to be seen.
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