Owners Threaten To Cancel A Month's Worth Of Games

As the labor talks reach an MLB-imposed deadline today to save the start of the season, the owners have threatened the players with the cancellation of a month's worth of games if an agreement is not reached soon.

MLB today indicated a willingness to miss a month of games and took a more threatening tone than yesterday, sources briefed on the day’s first meeting between MLB and the Players Association tell me, @Ken_Rosenthal and @FabianArdaya. Full context of conversation not yet known.

— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) February 28, 2022

The owners have taken a "more threatening tone" according to Evan Drellich, and as noted by fellow MLB Insider Jeff Passan, the players have taken it as a clear threat.  

This is a curious turn of events, as less than three weeks ago, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said that losing any games would be "a disastrous outcome."

Manfred had set today, Feb. 28th, as the date that a new collective bargaining agreement needs to be reached, in order to have enough lead-up time to start the season on time on March 31st. 

With the two sides still far apart on the key economic issues of CBT (luxury tax threshold), the pre-arbitration pool of funds, and minimum wage, only minor leaguers remain at spring training facilities, and it's highly doubtful, at this point, that we see major league baseball on the planned season start date. 

This all flies in the face of rumors yesterday sent out by insider Jon Heyman that a deal could be close. 

We'll be keeping watch on the situation. 

Photo Credit:  Michael Chow/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK, Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports