Balta1701

That is exactly what happened in 1995 to start the season. Whether labor laws have been weakened since then I cannot say.

I think there’s a chance of a grievance being filed and decided first?

I think we have a good spectrum of hating both sides in the last 2 posts. Now someone has to make a move to break things up. Take the difference between the two sides on every issue and move only 5% of the way, but do it on everything. See if the other side reciprocates - if they don’t, they’re single handedly blocking progress after you made your move. TBH, I would guess that the players would have to do that because the owners wouldn’t get everyone to agree, but either side could do it. Unless something starts moving towards a breakthrough in a major way like that I don’t know what else can happen.

The risk for a team like the White Sox is the "Black swan" event - the White Sox should win 90+ games this year with this roster. But imagine in a short season that there's a key injury like last year. Maybe 2 -pick your players. Then another guy gets off to a slow start - the opposite of Abreu and Anderson in 2020. Now all of a sudden they're on what would have been an "84 win pace", and there's only a couple weeks left to correct it. Example - the Astros in 2020 were a really good team, they made the 2020 ALCS and the 2021 world series, but in 2020 they were below .500. If there was no expanded playoffs...the Astros don't make it. Or alternatively, imagine that Detroit comes out on fire and gets a 4 game lead. That's suddenly really tough to overcome, there's already only a couple weeks left.

I could see outside forces intervening (courts a-la 1994 or politicians since it is an election year), but otherwise, the next deadline I see has to be what, late June, as happened in 2020 - Spring training in July and then a 60 game season that salvages the playoffs? The owners made no proposals at all for a month and a half, and then both sides took their time in responding for the next several weeks, up until this week where everyone can see a legit deadline looming. I don't know what would get them talking again until June. Any of the people who have said that a deal is struck in April or May want to detail that to me?

A question that seems likely to be relevant but hopefully won't be: Let's say they blow past the "deadline" next Monday, another week or so goes by, and it's clear Opening Day won't be happening on time. If the 2 sides are still very far apart at that deadline, what is there to get them talking again any time soon?

Iran in an interesting case though, because under Obama, unified sanctions brought them to the negotiating table and they fully abandoned their nuclear program. For a targeted goal like that, unified sanctions were extremely effective- the program was not worth it to that regime.

That question will be key to whether or not this invasion succeeds. I do not know the answer.

I think right now the players caving is then accepting the owners’ current offer. So, getting like 2%.

It’s not the only factor, but one factor in this happening is actual rising discontent in Russia. Imperial wars are often a counter to that - but wars aren’t cheap, they take an economic toll to run. Russia has very few solid industries, most notably natural gas. They have money saved up from that, but their ability to hold this territory will depend on their population being willing to support it and then having the money to do it. The kind of sanctions that could be imposed by a unified west could,, over time, break this regime now that they’ve committed to the costs of war. But…the west would have to stay United and leave that gas in Russia.

Total revenues crossed $10 billion for the first time in 2019. Obviously "out of control virus" has impacted revenues the last 2 years.

In his career to date, Max Scherzer has earned $221 million. That is 0.1% of his career earnings per day. I think he's fine.

I think I agree with you but someone pointed out an important note last time I said something similar - adding in 2 more teams in the AL puts Vlad Jr and that team in the playoffs (Super fun) and 2 more teams in the NL last year adds an 82 win Phillies team that happened to have Bryce Harper and Zack Wheeler. In Devil's Advocate mode - that's not as gross as it seems?

I think you’re right, and I wonder what will be the end result of blowing past the deadline. If the PA refuses expanded playoffs if they don’t get paid for 162, then once the deadline is blown through, what motivation do they have to actually get things moving on that issue?

The risk of these small moves isn’t just that we are on pace to reach a median in 2024, it’s also that one side may pack up its things and go home if they think the deadline cannot be met. Someone has to make a much more major move to make this happen.

When you make those decisions now, be forthcoming about previous mistakes. “I won’t be a fan of this team if they do this, and tolerating this behavior in the past was a mistake” is a good start. Open to ideas of steps that could be taken to rectify those past mistakes if you want to suggest them?

Then by definition there is not “urgency”.

I know there’s still time left, but the reports on the offer yesterday don’t sell “urgency”. No motion on the luxury tax, legitimately gave money on the arbitration pool but only a small step. We might not be able to guess the exact particulars, but I think you and I could sit down at a bar table, make educated guesses on the arbitration pool, luxury tax, and revenue sharing amounts and come within a couple percent of where they actually wind up. Urgency is making a legit move into that area (for either side I should add).

That is fair, but I also believe if we want to hold to that standard now then we have to face up to the times where we did not.

And the time they traded for Brett Myers, who punched his wife on the street in Boston?

2 weeks of actually talking would increase the amount of talking done by like a factor of 10.

If the owners offered to resume play this year under last years terms while negotiation were ongoing, the players would likely have accepted in November. I’m not sure whether they would now. BUT - this would be a huge risk to the owners. The players could play out most of the season and if talks weren’t progressing, they could vote for a strike to start in September. That would get the players over 80% of their season salaries, but cost the owners their playoff TV revenue if they didn’t come to an agreement. The players make their money in the 162, the owners make the biggest chunk of their money in October. The owners did the lockout starting in December to deny the players that potential leverage.