Phillies Season Delayed As MLB Lockout Continues

PHILADELPHIA, PA — Major League Baseball has announced that the start of the 2022 regular season will be delayed, as a coalition of billionaire owners have failed to reach a new collective bargaining agreement with players regarding issues like minimum salaries, equitable pay for younger players, and tax thresholds to balance competitive advantages for teams with more financial resources. For the Phillies, this means that the first week of the regular season will not be played as scheduled.

If the owners can reach an agreement with players within the week, the Phillies season would ostensibly begin on April 8 at Citizens Bank Park against the Oakland Athletics. Spring training games will begin no earlier than March 12. But that's the best case scenario, as the latest reports indicate a wide gulf between the two sides.

"This (cancelation of games) is the culmination of a decades-long attempt by owners to break our Player fraternity," the MLB Players Association said in a statement. "As in the past, this effort will fail."

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said the league and owners put forth a "best and final" offer forward shortly before 5 p.m. Tuesday, the time set as a deadline by the league to reach an agreement before games were canceled. The deal included only marginal raises for young pre-arbitration players, and did not address other issues brought forth by the Players Association. The group said they were "disgusted but not surprised" by the offer.

It marks the first time regular season games have been canceled due to a lockout in 28 years, when the 1994 strike blighted the sports world.

MLB has taken drastic public measures in an attempt to leverage its stance. Starting the lockout last December was the choice of the league and the owners, it was not a mandatory step. When the lockout was put in place, the league removed all current players from the MLB.com website, a move which the players union took as a show of bad faith. Shortly thereafter, veteran and widely respected reporter Ken Rosenthal was fired by MLB Network, months after writing commentary that unfavorably portrayed league commissioner Rob Manfred.

In a piece analyzing the circumstances that led to the lockout, ESPN baseball insider Jeff Passan noted that "MLB did this. The owners' arrogance. The mistreatment of players."

Player frustration with the talks has spilled over to social media. Some players changed their profile pictures to a faceless MLB logo, in mockery of MLB's removal of player faces from their website. Others have called out owners directly. Phillies superstar and reigning MVP Bryce Harper shared a photoshopped image of himself on Instagram earlier this week wearing the uniform of the Yomiuri Giants, the preeminent team in the Japanese league. "Got some time to kill," he wrote. In jest, everyone assumes.

Aside from financial considerations for players, a number of changes to the game itself are on the table in the new CBA talks, most notable of which are the implementation of a designated hitter in both leagues and an expansion of the current playoff format to include 14 or 15 teams, instead of 10.