MLB Rumors: Owners 'Indicated a Willingness' to Miss a Month of Games amid CBA Talks

Major League Baseball and its team owners may be driving an even harder line in the sand with the MLB Players Association as the two sides continue negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement.    

According to multiple reports, representatives from MLB said the league is prepared to miss an entire month of the 2022 season:   

With the start of spring training already delayed, MLB set Monday as a deadline in order to get the regular season started on time.

Of course, the league could end the lockout whenever it likes and work out a temporary accord with the players that would allow the season to run as scheduled.

In November, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred attempted to put a positive spin on an impending work stoppage by saying it could accelerate negotiations.

However, there was little in the way of progress immediately after the lockout began, and the situation has largely remained the same after MLB and the MLBPA began meeting more frequently. 

On Feb. 10, Manfred said the league planned to put forward a "good faith positive proposal." For some, that sort of negotiating in good faith has yet to materialize.

Threatening to cancel a month's worth of games—whether real or simply intended to be a form of leverage—won't help dispel the narrative that owners are perfectly happy to drag the CBA battle out as long as is necessary to break the players' union.

According to ESPN's Buster Olney, the protracted nature of the negotiations may not have been unexpected by the players:

The short-term health of MLB is good enough that it can weather a work stoppage that consumes some or even all of the 2022 season. 

The league's long-term outlook has been a little less rosy as it cedes more ground to the NFL and NBA. A lockout that extends into March or later might exacerbate that trend.

For MLB, working at all costs to get a CBA that is weighed heavily in favor of the league could have consequences that prove far more deleterious than conceding to the players on some major issues right now.