Bitterness replaces business as lockout grinds Major League Baseball to a halt – Toronto Sun

Article content

After an unprecedented spending spree by billionaire owners to millionaire players in recent weeks, the chains are on Major League Baseball.

Article content

Who knows what awaits, but most are expecting a long, drawn-out winter of rhetoric and futile negotiations possibly putting the start of the 2022 season in peril.

As the clock struck midnight on Wednesday, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred did the expected and issued a lockout of players, triggering pro baseball’s first work stoppage since 1994.

Even as owners handed out more than $1.4 billion in future contracts this off-season, last-ditch talks between the league and the Major League Baseball Players Association created zero traction.

Given the laughable attempt at negotiations — and given all the money tossed around in recent days — it’s impossible for the average fan to pick a side in this dispute. And expect the bitterness from both parties to escalate the closer we move towards spring training.

Article content

Choosing such a hard line in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic and within a sport that has had multi-layered challenges over the past number of years will be difficult to stomach for fans already disillusioned with the game.

And with negotiations broken and the lockout chains in place, both the league and the players are already launched in the blame game of the opposite side.

Claiming he was “forced” to impose the lockout, Manfred said in a letter “to the fans” that from the outset the MLBPA has been unwilling to compromise or collaborate.

And thus began what we’d expect to be months of bitterness before any hope of a settlement is reached.

“Simply put, we believe that an off-season lockout is the best mechanism to protect the 2022 season,” Manfred wrote. “We hope that the lockout will jumpstart the negotiations and get us to an agreement that will allow the season to start on time.

Article content

“This defensive lockout was necessary because the Players Association’s vision for (MLB) would threaten the ability of most teams to be competitive.”

Manfred said that imposing the lockout now gives both sides the opportunity to reach labour peace in time for the season to begin on time in late March. Naturally, the union dismissed that narrative.

“The shutdown is a dramatic measure, regardless of the timing,” MLBPA president Tony Clark said in a statement. “It was the owners’ choice, plain and simple, specifically calculated to pressure players into relinquishing rights and benefits and abandoning good-faith bargaining proposals.”

The effects of the lockout will be felt immediately.

All dealings between teams and players — including offers to free agents and trade talks — are on hold. The annual Winter Meetings, which encompasses a wide variety of league and player business and was scheduled to be held in Orlando next week has been scrapped.

Article content

And as of Thursday, players are forbidden to show up at team facilities for workouts.

It will affect teams across baseball in different ways, including Canada’s lone team, the Toronto Blue Jays, which had been riding the momentum of a positive off-season. Jays general manager Ross Atkins was active in free agent and trade talks and the team spent more than US$250 million in free agent deals and contract extensions since the season ended in early October.

As well, the team’s state-of-the-art training facility in Dunedin, Fla., a significant asset used by many players for off-season development, is effectively off limits.

Though both sides are talking in the tone and language of any work stoppage, the bitterness is evident. There were three reported meetings this week in Texas, the last of which lasted just seven minutes.

Article content

Realistically, there is indeed time for a deal to get done, albeit no visible middle ground that will get a deal done. Pitchers and catchers are scheduled to report to spring training sites on Feb. 14 — which now seems highly unlikely — and the sense is the start of the season can be salvaged if agreement is reached by March 1.

The issues are many, ranging from restrictions on free agency, to players accusations that too many teams in the league are “tanking” to accumulate better draft picks, to talks of an expanded playoff format.

The players association certainly seems determined to dig in its heels.

“These tactics are not new,” MLBPA president Clark said in his statement. “We have been here before and players have risen to the occasion time and again. We will do so again here.

“We remain determined to return to the field under the terms of a negotiated agreement that is fair to all parties.”

There’s plenty of ground to cover before that happens, clearly. And given the tenor of dealings between the league and union over the past couple of years, the unwillingness to play ball at the negotiating table is risking the prospect of playing ball in stadiums across the league.

rlongley@postmedia.com