Blue Jays: Hoping this is the wake up call before the next CBA talks

We now know that MLB plans to follow the eight week absence recommended by the CDC, and hopefully owners and players remember what it’s like to have no baseball when the next round of Collective Bargaining Agreement talks come up in December of next year.

I don’t think I have to tell you that it sucks that there’s no baseball to watch right now, and the news on Monday didn’t give us a lot of hope for the short term. In fact, it looks like MLB is going to follow the recommendation of the CDC, suspending baseball for a period of at least eight weeks. Hopefully they’ll be able to resume immediately when that timeframe passes, but we’ll see how things develop in the next few weeks and then we’ll likely have a better gauge on it. It’s the responsible thing to do, and I support the decision, but it still sucks.

I already wrote about how baseball returning by June might be a best case scenario, and Monday’s news pretty much cemented that theory. An eight week absence would take us into the middle of May, and players would need some time to ramp things back up before getting into regular season games, especially pitchers. Realistically though, I think we can root for baseball to return before the calendar hits July, and hopefully sooner.

While this whole thing has taken a while to process for yours truly, it’s also got me thinking ahead to another problem that Major League Baseball could face in the not so distant future, their next round of CBA talks.

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As you’re likely aware, there are several issues that the Player’s union would like to bring forward in the next negotiation, and with TV money flowing in the game like never before, there are bound to be some issues to work through. One of them will be service time of young players, especially as the game continues to trend younger, and the issue of holding back players to manipulate service time continues to pop up. Another could be compensation for minor league players, and there are certainly other grievances as well.

If you’ve followed the situation much at all over the last year, many writers have predicted that there could be a pause in play once the current CBA expires on Dec 1, 2021, especially because of a few contentious issues that will almost certainly come up. It happened as recently as back in 1994 when there was no World Series winner, and no one wants to see it happen again.

Now that the game has been forced into a pause, I hope it gives both sides a chance to remember what life without baseball is like. These guys want to be on the field, and for many minor leaguers who don’t make millions, they need to be. Baseball fans are bummed out and even feeling a little bit lost, especially at a time when we could really use some entertainment on our televisions. Don’t get me wrong, it’s incredibly important to guard against public safety, and I’m in support of what’s happening in North America right now, but having no baseball to watch just feels like being kicked while we’re down.

I realize there are a lot of issues to be worked through before the end of next year, but perhaps the two sides can use this time they’ve been given now to try and make some major advancements on a future deal. If it means we can avoid having another baseball work stoppage in the future, then both sides should be doing whatever they can to make sure that’s exactly what happens.