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A few more thoughts about the state of MLB/MLBPA negotiations

They are not going in the direction of a settlement.

Photo by Mark Brown/Getty Images

Four days remain before MLB owners’ declared deadline of Monday, February 28 to get a new labor agreement in place before they begin cancelling regular season games.

We don’t know if this deadline is a hard one — though MLB has stated so — or a bluff intended to try to get the MLBPA to agree to a deal that’s less than players want.

So, let’s take a look at a few of the topics from Thursday’s meeting and what might happen Friday afternoon in Jupiter, Florida.

First, here’s a summary of what... didn’t happen:

“Incremental” changes aren’t going to get things done at this point. There had previously been no news about any discussions on the competitive balance (“luxury”) tax, but this tweet seems to indicate otherwise:

This is potentially good news, although “no proposals were made” isn’t. Maury Brown is correct, this is likely the most contentious issue and players and owners were far apart on numbers the last time the CBT was even discussed.

Now, on to some more of the details of what actually was discussed on Thursday (“STM” is “service time manipulation”):

Maybe I’m wrong, but I see players moving further toward owners than the other way around. That, hopefully, will change over the next four days. But:

So it’s not just me feeling that way. This doesn’t sound like something that will bring the sides closer together. I have previously mentioned that labor lawyer Eugene Freedman is a good Twitter follow, and he posted this excellent thread late Thursday that is worth your time.

They have four days. That might seem like a lot of time but... it’s really not, in order to save the 2022 season. I’m an optimist by nature, but it’s really hard to be that way right now. Final thought to Joe Sheehan:

BCB’s Sara Sanchez will have a different take on what’s happening coming up later today.