Although Major League Baseball announcement This opening day will not start before April 14, the League and Players Association continues to discuss their roadblock regarding the International Draft and Qualifying Offer (as first reported by Tim Healy from Newsday). Ken Rosenthal athlete Add That the parties “(will) determine the number of matches per season” if a new deal is finalized.
News that the two sides are still in contact can offer little hope of progress. They closed much of the gap on core economic issues, after all, before the university’s desire for an international draft and union pressure for the eligible bid to be scrapped led to a dead end.
However, as it turned out during the negotiations, there is no reason to put the cart before the horse. Jeff Bassan from ESPN Tweets This personal bargaining was completed tonight; Robert Murray from FanSided Add They are “planning to talk more tomorrow,” which suggests there is little optimism about finalizing the CBA in the coming hours. In fact, the MLB and the Players Association have maintained open lines of communication – even those that fall short of true “negotiations” – consistently in recent weeks.
It is unclear how much talks will develop this evening. We have seen rapid changes in the substance of the negotiations many times already. Progress toward an eventual end point has ebbed and flowed, especially as the parties have met frequently over the past few weeks. There is no indication at this point that the league is considering reversing its announcement that it would cancel the first four series of the regular season. This was a one-sided decision for MLB, though, and nothing is stopping them from getting these games back on the schedule if they and the union move toward an agreement in the coming days.