As of Thursday at 12:01 a.m., Major League Baseball was officially locked out. The players and owners were unable to come to terms on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, resulting in the first MLB work stoppage since the 1994 players' strike.
During Thursday's installment of "Nothing Personal with David Samson," David Samson dedicated his entire show to the MLB lockout and touched on several issues that are at play as negotiations unfold.
One of the first points that Samson makes is that the two sides begin negotiating a new Collective Bargaining Agreement as soon as the current one is ratified. For example, when the most recent Collective Bargaining Agreement was put into effect in 2016, the two sides began talking terms for the next one.
"It's the posterizing where you start letting the other side know where you stand on certain issues and why you believe that certain things are fine the way they are," Samson said. "Or certain do like a pitch clock or that the ball needs to be tweaked. Where the players the say 'there's too many things tanking or there's not enough of a market for our union members.' Then you start the face-to-face meetings. The union and the owners met throughout the five years from 2016 to 2021, but they're meeting more about micro-economic issues and things that come up during a given season."
As a result of the lockout, the league is not using any player's name, image, or likeness in any capacity. So that means if you head to any MLB team's official website, or MLB.com, it's going to look different than it usually does. Fans can still find respective teams' rosters, but photos of each player have been removed.
"There's a deal in the Collective Bargaining Agreement in which the league gets the right to the name, image, and likeness of the players. When there is no agreement under which there is an operating business, things that happen under the business, like a website with photos or free agency signings, can no longer take place."
Following the work stoppage, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred wrote a letter to fans of the sport and explained the lockout situation and how both sides got to this point.
"When you send a letter and pretend it's to your fans but do it in a way that you sending it as a message to the players, you're offending your fans," Samson added.
In addition, the players union also had a statement that they released shortly after the lockout began. The union called the lockout the owners' choice and wanted to pressure the union in order to gain more benefits for the owners.
"When hearing about the lockout today, it is so important for you to realize that nothing out of the ordinary is happening," Samson said. "It's not the end of the world as we know it. It is simply a step as we head towards next season under a new agreement. That's all it is."
