Recently, major league baseball and the major league players association have been struggling to come to an agreement. This has been an ongoing issue for a number of months, including during the 2021 MLB season.

         Late December 1st, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred released a statement to MLB fans, players, managers and everyone else involved with the MLB. Manfred said in the statement: “That is why I am so disappointed about the situation in which our game finds itself today. Despite the league’s best efforts to make a deal with the Players Association, we were unable to extend our 26 year-long history of labor peace and come to an agreement with the MLBPA before the current CBA expired. Therefore, we have been forced to commence a lockout of Major League players, effective at 12:01 am ET on December 2.”

          This has been the first MLB lockout since the 1994 lockout. As of December 2nd, 12;01 am, all MLB activity would come to a halt. No trades, no roster moves, no requirements, a move with a MLB player is not allowed to happen during this time period. This decision was made unanimously by the MLB. 

         Although this was a MLB lockout, moves involving minor league players, managers and owners are allowed to happen and proceed on. 

    When writing about the MLB lockout, ESPN writer Jesse Rogers, explained what the MLB lockout was about:” Economics. Players feel, with the emergence of analytics within front offices, that fewer and fewer second-and third-tier players are getting paid when they finally become free agents after six years of major league service time, which is often when a player turns 30 or very close to it. In general, players would like to be paid more at younger ages because that’s when they are in their prime. The system also favors keeping players in the minor leagues for several weeks extra to slow down their major league service time. Players hate that. Additionally, they feel the cycle of teams rebuilding (aka tanking) is limiting payrolls. They would like some guardrails within the system to prevent those cycles. One good thing for the players: As long as there is no salary cap, the system will always pay the best of the best — something the league likes to emphasize. Owners haven’t even offered a hard cap during negotiations.”

   As stated before, the last MLB lockout to happen was in 1994, which according to CBS Sports on games lost: “In addition to the entire 1994 postseason, 938 regular-season games were lost across the 1994 and 1995 seasons.” 

   The most recent update on the MLB lockout was expressed by sports writer Evan Drellcih from The Athletic: “Major League Baseball is preparing new core economic proposals to deliver to the Players Association. When they’re presented, likely this month, core economic talks in the sport will have restarted for the first time since owners initiated a lockout on Dec. 2, marking a positive development.” This update was uploaded on January 7th, 2021. 

    The MLB lockout has been effective for 39 days so far, with the regular season to start March 31st, only 2 short months away. Fans, Players, Managers, Coaches, all hope that the 2022 MLB season may proceed on time, and no games are lost because of this MLB lockout. 

    Only time can tell what the outcome for the MLB will be because of this lockout. Will the 2022 season start on time? Will there be sale issues? And will there even be a 2022 season at all? 

Considering all the information we have now it is hard to make up any definite answer right now.