With the way that negotiations were going between the MLB Players Association and the owners amid the offseason lockout and before the league's self-imposed negotiating deadline on Tuesday, the writing was on the wall for the inevitable delay of the 2022 season.
Commissioner Rob Manfred officially canceled the first two series of the regular season on Tuesday after the two sides were unable to come to an agreement. Manfred and the league initially imposed this deadline in order to provide teams with at least four weeks of preparation ahead of Opening Day.
Giants outfielder Austin Slater, who also serves as the team's MLBPA representative, joined KNBR's Murph & Mac on Friday morning, where he discussed the ongoing negotiations and how the league's self-imposed deadline -- and eventual delay of the season -- felt like a planned outcome from the start.
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SIGN UP HERE “It’s a really disappointing outcome,” Slater said. “Having sat in on a lot of it, unfortunately, it felt like an inevitability. It felt like a planned outcome in an attempt to break the union and force a deal down our throats last second. When you look at the big picture it wasn’t remotely close to a fair deal.
“The lockout wasn’t a necessary thing to do. They called it a “defensive lockout”. They had the ability to roll over the last CBA, they decided not to do that in an attempt to pressure players. They set an arbitrary deadline to get a deal done before they had to cancel games as another pressure tactic."
The league believes that teams need a minimum of four weeks of spring training, often citing the COVID-19 pandemic-shorted season in 2020 as an example of a similar ramp-up period that took place before the delayed start to the season on July 23.
Slater believes the difference between the delay two years ago compared to now, is the access players have to offseason training facilities and various programs that allow them to prepare for the season amid the lockout.
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"And even now I've told people that this four-week minimum spring training that they've said, I don't see that as being totally necessary too," Slater added. "They point to the 2020 season and the way I see it, that was a totally different world, guys weren't able to go into facilities and work out and even see other people. The four weeks was a bare minimum there, but guys have had a full offseason training at facilities, high schools, colleges and are able to do all their work. Now we have all these training facilities set up in Arizona where guys can pretty much get their full regimen in. It just feels like that was something used as a pressure tactic."
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As negotiations are expected to begin again this week, Slater expects the MLBPA to submit another proposal within the next day or two.
At this point, it remains unclear how much longer this will go on, as both sides are still believed to be pretty far apart on multiple issues.