Both sides are having press conferences this afternoon, with MLB commissioner Rob Manfred speaking first.
Following the last offer given by the owners to the players earlier today, both sides have stopped negotiations and have missed the “deadline” MLB gave to get a deal in place without games being cancelled. With the regular season officially delayed now, both sides have scheduled press conferences. Rob Manfred’s conference was up first. Here are the highlights from that press conference. (I apologize that this will mostly be tweets.)
Manfred officially cancels the first two series of the regular season. And you can bet that’s only a start.
— Tom (@Haudricourt) March 1, 2022
Manfred said MLB also proposed to eliminate shifts and add a pitching clock
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) March 1, 2022
MLB and the union have agreed to resume negotiations in New York
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) March 1, 2022
Manfred says MLB’s position is players will not be paid for games that aren’t played. You can bet union will have something to say about that.
— Tom (@Haudricourt) March 1, 2022
“The concerns of our fans are at the very top of our consideration list.” — Rob Manfred, on the day MLB canceled regular-season games, during a league-initiated lockout
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) March 1, 2022
Rob Manfred: “We never used the phrase last, best final offer with the union. We said it was our best offer prior to the deadline to cancel games. Our negotiations are deadlocked right now… but that’s different than using the legal term impasse, and I’m not going to do that rn”
— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) March 1, 2022
.@KenDavidoff gets the walkoff question, asks if Manfred regrets not having done more at an earlier stage to avoid “disastrous” outcome given player dissatisfaction with last CBA: “That environment, someone else created. It’s an environment in which it’s tough to build bridges.”
— Alex Speier (@alexspeier) March 1, 2022
Manfred: ‘Last five years have been very difficult for the league from a revenue perspective.’ MLB has totaled about $43 billion in that period.
— Travis Sawchik (@Travis_Sawchik) March 1, 2022
That’s all for Rob Manfred’s press conference right now. We’ll have comments from the MLBPA press conference when that occurs.