MLB and MLBPA Couldn’t Come Together on the Following Demands
Service Time
MLB: Keep things the same
MLBPA: Creating an incentivized program to allow rookies to accrue service time for awards and hitting performance milestones.
Opinion: Service time manipulation is my least favorite thing. If a player has earned the opportunity to play at the highest level, then let the damn player play without manipulating their service time to add an extra year. Make it straightforward. It always creates a bad image. Every. Single. Time.
Amateur Draft
MLB: Draft Lottery for the top three selections
MLBPA: Draft Lottery for the bottom eight teams and be weighted based on competitiveness. The anti-tank methodology.
Opinion: Do teams really tank in the MLB? Or do they rebuild for a long period of time? I don’t like to see teams tank at all and there are teams that choose not to pursue high-value free agents to keep their payroll down, some do it and are good at the game like the A’s and the Rays and some do it and are terrible at the game like the Orioles and the Pirates.
Pre-Arbitration Players
MLB: No change.
MLBPA: Create a pool of money that bonuses pre-arbitration players based on performance through awards or WAR.
Opinion: Seems like an easy one to say yes to.
Overall: The difference isn’t insurmountable and I can’t believe that the two sides haven’t figured out how to come together on this. Get it done!
Sources: Ken Rosenthal of ESPN, Ronald Blum of Associated Press
A lockout could be coming in 60 hours. There are plenty of questions answered about it in this piece (https://t.co/ZrNxOrhV27), but I urge baseball fans to heed what I wrote at the end. pic.twitter.com/7CJtgeVyYo
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) November 29, 2021
Joe Swenson is an avid baseball fan and hates that it has resorted to this.