2022 MLB season to be delayed

All of the optimism that was brimming after the late-night negotiations on Monday and the subsequent delay of the owner-imposed deadline for a deal appears to have been for not. Things did not go nearly as well on Tuesday, and really the positives from Monday appear to have been overstated, and the players ended up declining the “last and best” offer that would come from the league side. As a result, no deal was struck by the aforementioned deadline at 5:00 PM ET on Tuesday, and Rob Manfred has announced that Opening Day will be delayed. He says that, for now, the first two series of the season will not be played. For Boston, that means three-game sets against the Rays and Orioles, both of which were to be played at Fenway.

There’s a lot to be said on this, and I’ll say at least some of it tomorrow, but for now it’s just a bummer. I bought too much into the positivity on Monday, and this just feels crushing. The two sides never really got very close at all, it seems, on luxury tax thresholds and a pool for arbitration-eligible players, and no deal could ever be struck. That last and best offer from MLB was unanimously declined by the players side.

As far as where they go from here, there will be more negotiations, but the nine-day session in Florida is over and it’s not yet clear as of this writing when the next meeting will take place. It’s hard to have too much optimism for it happening at any time soon at this point, though. There is still baseball, of course, but for now it appears any form of MLB action is going to a ways away.