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This week could be argued as the most significant of the entire Major League Baseball offseason. It’s the first in which the owners and union have committed to interacting every day. Unfortunately, it’s produced a whole lot of nothing. A contingent for both the owners and players arrived at Roger Dean Stadium in Florida on Monday. The respective sides have spent time meeting both separately and together. A handful of notes have been cycled through the days that have come and gone. Most notably, we’ve seen the players continuing to move ever so slightly on their already negotiated proposals. The league has done little to counter and close the gap, but there has been no movement on the suggestion that February 28 is a hard deadline for Opening Day to go as planned. The league has suggested that any games missed will not result in rescheduling and that players will simply lose pay with the schedule picking up where it left off. Before spending 42 days with no action, Rob Manfred penned a letter to fans saying the lockout he instituted was designed to jumpstart negotiations and was done with the utmost desire to protect the integrity of the schedule. As we sit not, that letter doesn’t look good (to be fair, it didn’t then either). After being let go from MLB Network due to minor criticisms of Major League Baseball’s Commissioner, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal has continued to produce excellent writing. This week he took the kid gloves off, put out a framework for a deal, and called the league out for the lunacy that is taking place. Further tilting the scales towards the already known realities, financials for the Atlanta Braves ownership group were released today. Despite Rob Manfred suggesting owning a team is not all that profitable and the stock market producing better returns, every bit of data continues to laugh at that idea. There’s no denying the owners will come out ahead in any CBA, and they probably should, but clawing for every dollar in an effort to win over the players have only the consumers losing. Although the next two days are non-business days, it would benefit both sides to continue with their discussions. Monday’s deadline looms large, and while the only real leverage the players have is lost games, fans watch as a season hangs in the balance. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email View full article

This space has been on pause the past few weeks because baseball has done absolutely nothing. This week that changed a bit, but I’m not sure it was for the better. We’re farther away from MLB’s return, and now worse off for it. Earlier this week one of the best reporters in the game, Ken Rosenthal, was let go from MLB Network. This stems from his criticism (and that should be used lightly) of overlord Rob Manfred. Major League Baseball’s commissioner is a steward of the owners, and while he actively seeks to line their pockets, he doesn’t need anyone on his airwaves sowing doubt about his leadership. Rosenthal is still employed by The Athletic (who was just recently acquired by the New York Times) and Fox. Seeing players rally in support of Rosenthal was a great thing as well. On Wednesday a piece was penned by ESPN’s Jeff Passan in relation to the state of baseball’s CBA issues. Some of the highlights, or maybe lowlights, don’t paint a pretty picture at all. We’re closer to Spring Training and yet the sides have not had a single meeting to suggest any sort of progress. A source was frank to Passan in simply stating, “What the (expletive) are we doing?” Passan talks about the decreasing optimism among those in the know that there will be a full season. The last discussion lasted just seven minutes, and we saw these two sides struggle mightily when it came to generating an agreement for 2020. Ultimately Manfred implemented a 60-game season, but that was due to the outlined agreements within the CBA rather than a compromise between both parties. As has been the case from the beginning most within the sport don’t see the sides coming together until later this month. With Spring Training being just weeks away at that point, you can all but guarantee time will be missed there. The problem, as Passan outlines, is that the issues surrounding the CBA are far more contentious than those discussed during the Covid-shortened 2020, and will need a much longer runway. There’s a way to work through them, but if Manfred’s letter to fans after locking out the players was any indication, he doesn’t appear willing to do so in good faith. This excerpt from Passan’s piece couldn’t be more spot on: While the players continue to be frustrated with ownership as spending dips and the Competitive Balance Tax is used as a soft cap, ownership wants no part of granting players free agency sooner or relinquishing control over cost effectiveness. A source told Passan, "The only thing that's gonna move either side is mutual assured destruction." The piece goes into an avenue where a CBA could take both sides, and while each needs to make concessions, the reality is that there’s a ton to work through. A deal not being close by February 1 would almost assuredly cancel Spring Training games. A handful of free agents still need to be signed, and a sport with many foreign players needs runway for Visas and travel arrangements to be made. Should things not be agreed to by May 1, we’re going to see the first substantial work stopped since the 1994-95 calendar. It’s on both sides to fix this, but make no mistake, this will be Rob Manfred’s legacy. Do you think we see Spring Training start on time? How about whether regular season games are missed? MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook, or email View full article

It’s been eight days since our last update, which not coincidentally came at the commencement of Major League Baseball deciding to lock out its players. After a flurry of moves in the leadup, we’ve now experienced the darkness of a league conducting no business. We’re now over a week into the lockout, and there hasn’t been a slew of developments. What is maybe most notable is that the league isn’t trying either. That’s not exactly shocking, given the owners have nothing to lose until games are lost, and with so much time before that reality, their incentive to negotiate likely is at an all-time low. Although talks about working through a new CBA have not yet taken place, there have been a couple of notes surrounding the sport. Let’s get into those. Rule Changes Disappear Over the past few years, we’ve heard plenty from Rob Manfred regarding the pace of play. Baseball is consistently suggested as a dying sport, and the need to create action has been one of Manfred’s chief concerns. Everything from pitch clocks to banning the shift has been suggested, and most of it appeared to be a matter of when not if. As of right now, all of that is off the table. According to The Athletic’s Jayson Stark, Manfred publicly stated that Major League Baseball has not made “any specific rule-change proposals” to the players. Whether that changes in future rounds of negotiations remains to be seen. It is odd that a year in which rules were implemented across many different leagues with an aim at the highest level, none are currently planned to see the light of day. Apparently, the belief by Manfred is that rule changes would be a point of contention to players and, therefore, something the league is trying to avoid. It’s a weird stance, given that any rule changes would need to be collectively bargained. Not allowing the players to discuss them in a formal setting is counter-productive to them ever being applied. A Laid Out Plan Of course, this is just one man’s opinion, but Ken Rosenthal is among the best in the business. He penned a piece for The Athletic that outlines what a new CBA could (or, by his estimation, should) look like. Everything from the luxury tax to free agency is discussed. Rosenthal does an excellent job expanding on each topic and viewing the outcome through the lens of both parties. Without giving up too much of the meat and potatoes, I appreciate his conclusion that expanded playoffs would be less than ideal. However, that’s something the owners want, and he notes it would be beneficial for the players to bend on that point. If nothing else, the concluding point that “reasonable people working off an existing framework should not find it so difficult to reach an agreement” hits right in the sweet spot. That’s it for this week; not much. Pretty expected, though, considering the lack of effort put in from both sides to this point. Let’s hope for some positive developments in the week ahead. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook, or email View full article