Tag: MLB Lockout

MLB is going to be stuck with the awful ‘ghost runner’ rule in extra innings for 2022

Well, that’s a letdown.

When Major League Baseball and the players union came to an agreement to end the 99-day MLB lockout, fans were prepared to see several changes to the on-field product with the new CBA.

Pitch clocks, larger bases and banning the defensive shift were all changes that could be implemented in 2023. But one of the more popular moves was the apparent elimination of the rule that placed a “ghost” runner on second base for extra innings.

It turns out that baseball fans celebrated too soon because the rule is staying for at least another season.

According to The New York Post, the league and union agreed on a few additional changes like expanded rosters and allowing pitchers to remain in the game as a DH (to allow us to enjoy more Shohei Ohtani at-bats). But evidently, the extra-runner rule lives to fight another day — err, year.

Via nypost.com:

The extra-inning rule is probably the most controversial of the batch. It will just be in effect for 2022. It will again have a runner placed on second base to begin each extra inning as a way to create instant action and strategy and get to a resolution without playing long into extra innings.

The league is expected to abandon the ghost runner for 2023 as it’s staying around to cut down on longer games in a season with a shortened spring training. But man, we were so ready to celebrate that rule’s demise. It feels terrible to have it back.

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Major League Baseball made its return official with this tweet and fans were pumped

Baseball is back, y’all! It’s really back!

It’s happening, y’all. We’re finally getting baseball back. It’s here. Major League Baseball’s lockout is officially over.

The players and owners came to an agreement on Thursday evening. It still needs to be made official at this point, but that just seems to be a formality. We’ll be seeing games played very soon.

There are going to be quite a few new changes to the game that we know, but regardless, it’s back and that’s all that matters right now.

To welcome fans back after the lockout, the MLB Twitter account sent out a tweet making things official with two words: Play ball.

Baseball is really coming.

Fans were absolutely thrilled with this.

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These changes are coming to baseball with the new MLB agreement

Baseball will look different with the new CBA.

It took way too long, but baseball is back.

MLB owners instituted a lockout back in December and waited 43 days to even reach out to the players. But after some of the more contentious labor negotiations we’ve seen in professional sports, the league and the players union were able to reach a tentative agreement on Thursday.

With every collective bargaining agreement, there’s change to the sport. And MLB especially has looked to experiment with the game to make it more appealing to a wider audience. Whether those changes will work towards that goal is debatable, but we’re about to find out.

Here are some of the rule changes included in the new CBA.

Baseball is officially back and MLB fans couldn’t wait to celebrate

BASEBALL IS BACK!

Baseball! Is! Back!

After Major League Baseball postponed more games earlier in the week, things looked bleak for the return of baseball any time soon. On Thursday, however, things looked brighter in the early afternoon, finally resulting in the end of the lockout and baseball’s return!

Yes, baseball will be back! With a full season — extended by three days — nine-inning double headers to make up the time, and with Opening Day set for April 7! Spring training games are set to get underway next week as well, with things kicking into high gear relatively quickly.

While we don’t know the full extent of the terms agreed to between the MLB and the MLBPA, the two sides were able to come to an agreement to ensure the full 2022 season is played.

Oh, and free agency is set to begin this evening. What a time!

As expected, baseball fans were over the moon with the news that the lockout has ended, taking to social media to celebrate.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan had a great response after regaining access to his hacked Twitter account

Well played, Jeff.

It turned out that MLB players weren’t the only ones experiencing a lockout on Thursday. One of baseball’s top newsbreakers, ESPN MLB reporter Jeff Passan, was right there with them.

As the players union and MLB owners continued negotiations into Thursday, Passan tweeted that there was an agreement on the international draft — a major roadblock that led to Wednesday’s additional canceled games. It was encouraging news, and plenty of MLB fans were watching Passan’s Twitter feed for additional updates.

Then, something unusual happened.

Passan’s Twitter account shifted from being the page of an ESPN baseball insider with 800,000-plus followers to being a page promoting weird skull NFTs. Passan had been hacked at the worst possible time. His name was changed to Jeff.eth.

Not ideal!

But order was eventually restored two hours later. And, of course, Passan had a great way of signaling his return to Twitter. He changed his header photo as a nod to Michael Jordan’s 1995 press release about his return to the NBA.

Passan’s back. And now that we know he didn’t lose his Twitter account for good, we can enjoy all the jokes from baseball fans.

Is MLB banning the defensive shift really going to make a difference in baseball?

Does baseball really need this?

While MLB owners and the players union have made little progress in negotiations to end the lockout, Sunday did bring news of some major rules changes coming to the big-league game.

The players union agreed to give MLB the power to institute changes like larger bases, a pitch clock and banning the defensive shift starting in 2023 — as long as the union is given 45 days notice. Though the first two changes are aimed at speeding up the game and player safety, the decision to ban defensive shifts aims directly at the strategic approach to baseball.

But will it actually make the huge difference that MLB owners are banking on? It’s debatable.

Jason Heyward broke down how Rob Manfred and MLB owners always planned to cancel games

It was so obvious.

The more we hear from MLB players, the less it sounds like we’re anywhere close to the end of the lockout.

On Tuesday, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred announced that the league was canceling the upcoming season’s first two series after the players union and league failed to reach an agreement before the owner-imposed deadline. There’s been angry reaction from across the game’s best players — including from Mike Trout — to how the owners have operated since locking out the players in early December.

Cubs outfielder Jason Heyward is convinced that the owners went into last week’s negotiations with just two outcomes in mind: Cancel those less-lucrative April regular season games or get the union to accept an owner-friendly CBA. Nothing else.

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Heyward wrote, calling out Manfred’s smile from the Tuesday press conference:

The look on his face is a sigh of relief… He thought the players were about to accept the deal and we were going to start the season.. Which all along he didn’t want to start on time…

Numbers, rule changes, CBT’s, Super 2’s, League Minimus, Extended Playoffs,Pitch Clocks,Shifts,International drafts etc……

All of these things and more put to the side.. From the last day of the former CBA to the “good faith..” extended deadline of March 1, 2022 at 5pm, they(Manfred and whoever signed up to follow..) have been operating with the intent to delay the season. Period. Similar to the 2020 pandemic season, they drag things out because they have their ideal amount of games they hope we play during the season.

They know the proposals they made were geared towards benefiting them significantly enough that if the players ever elected to accept the terms it would be a big win for them and a huge loss for the current and future players of this game. Each time both sides “went to the table..” they chose to acknowledge bits and pieces of what needed to be discussed to delay and drag out the whole process..

They continued to make offers they know were in the players best interest to refuse.. Hoping both sides could continue to “disagree..” and that they would get their end GOAL… their GOAL of delaying the 2022 MLB season….

Bottom line.. they know the amount of games we need to play in order for them to profit.. they view the first month of the season as debt… season delayed = they meet their goals..

As players, all of us make different amounts of money each year.. regardless of the contract we went into these negotiations in hopes of actually discussing the game we “thought” they cared about.. the outcome to this date has been one side in the players(MLBPA) negotiating with ourselves because the other side wants division and they truly don’t care to play the scheduled 162.. that’s the route they chose..

Heyward broke down exactly why the players are so frustrated. The owners locked out the players and waited 43 days to make contact. And when a dialogue finally started, there was no real intention to negotiate.

By canceling games early in the season, the owners save on salary and avoid those April games that lag behind in attendance and revenue. And really, it’s difficult to dispute anything that Heyward wrote as the owners never displayed any urgency to get a deal done until they could use regular season games as leverage.

It shows where the league’s priorities are.

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Mike Trout directly called out Rob Manfred for Major League Baseball’s collapsed CBA negotiations

Mike Trout went directly for Rob Manfred. Wow.

Just when you thought Major League Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement negotiations couldn’t get any messier, they do.

Things completely fell apart on Tuesday when the league and the player’s association failed to come upon an agreement by their self-imposed 5 p.m. deadline on Tuesday to start the regular season on time.

After things fell apart, Commissioner Rob Manfred canceled the first two series of the season, continuing the lockout. And then he laughed while doing it.

Now, here we are nearly 24 hours later, and players are calling Manfred out. That includes arguably the best player in the game  — Mike Trout.

Trout placed the blame for negotiations falling through squarely at the feet of Manfred in a social media post.

“I want to play, I love our game, but I know we need to get this CBA right. Instead of bargaining in good faith – MLB locked us out. Instead of negotiating a fair deal – Rob canceled games. Players stand together for our game, for our fans and for every player who comes after us. We owe it to the next generation.”

Those are some pretty strong words aimed right at the league’s commissioner. Players and fans, alike, weren’t happy about this. Everyone is in agreement with Trout.

Ross Stripling said MLB owners ‘tried to sneak some (expletive) past’ the players late in lockout talks

It gets worse.

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred announced on Tuesday that the league would be canceling its first set of regular season games after players and owners failed to agree on a CBA before the league-imposed deadline.

The news was sad for all fans of the sport, especially when there was some late optimism Monday night/Tuesday morning. But the reports of progress turned out to be an insincere move by the owners to shift blame to the players. And Blue Jays pitcher Ross Stripling revealed just how disingenuous the owners were in the late-stage negotiations.

Stripling, who is the Blue Jays’ player-union rep, said that once the negotiations went past midnight, the owners tried to “sneak” things into the deal that weren’t even discussed. He said via sportsnet.ca:

“It got to be like 12:30 and the fine print of their CBT proposal was stuff we had never seen before. They were trying to sneak things through us, it was like they think we’re dumb baseball players and we get sleepy after midnight or something. It’s like that stupid football quote, they are who we thought they were. They did exactly what we thought they would do. They pushed us to a deadline that they imposed, and then they tried to sneak some (expletive) past us at that deadline and we were ready for it. We’ve been ready for five years. And then they tried to flip it on us today in PR, saying that we’ve changed our tone and tried to make it look like it was our fault. That never happened.”

At the same time this was going on, the owners were playing off the negotiations as nearing an agreement before abruptly pinning stalled talks on a change in the union’s tone. No wonder the players were upset at how poorly the talks went in Jupiter, Fla.

And if what Stripling said is true, it shows just how far things have to go before a good-faith negotiation can even take place.

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