Reese Kaplan -- Getting Ready for MLB's Big Nothing Work Stoppage

The GM meetings have concluded in Carlsbad, California with precious little to report.  Yes, the news came out that Michael Conforto via his puppet master Scott Boras has declined the Mets qualifying offer which would have guaranteed him $18.6 million for the 2022 season after his horrific 2021.  

While the agent's agenda is clear -- to get his client a long term and lucrative contract which results in his agent's fee to increase -- people around here must understand that Conforto's Mets career is over.  It is highly improbable that the Mets would go after a long term deal for the man when he essentially kicked sand in the front office's face by turning down the guaranteed 2022 money.  

Now if the groundwork for any future deals was discussed whether internally such as a Javy Baez offer or externally such as trades or free agent signings, we don't really know.  Based upon past history, Sandy Alderson has not ever been particularly aggressive when it comes to player transactions.  

Now some of this hesitation can be written off by the financial constraints imposed by his former bosses, but it is also likely part of his personality, too.  Whatever results occur, it is what it is.

The bigger news for Mets (and all baseball) fans is the impending Collective Bargaining Agreement which has the potential to have quite a few fireworks during what promises to be rather rancorous negotiations.  Take a look at the issues at hand.  

There is the matter of making the DH universal.  There is the lack of pay in both salary and housing allowances for minor leaguers.  There is the size of the roster.  There is the potential for the number of major league team to increase.  There will be a revisit to the way in which foreign-controlled players are brought into the USA.  

Many people are fairly certain a strike or lockout will happen which freezes all player contract negotiations.  That means no free agent signings, no trades and essentially a whole lot of nothing happening for anywhere from days to weeks to an entire baseball season.  About the only thing a strike would do to help the Mets is to extend them a much longer window to fill their front office and field management vacancies which thus far have resulted in once again a whole lot of nothing.  

It's not the first time strikes have interrupted the game we love.  Thus far it's happened eight times, the worst of which was in 1994 when on August 12th the gates closed.  It resulted in not only the rest of the regular season being cancelled but also the entire postseason.  There were no playoffs and no World Series as a result of the labor stoppage.  

What baseball needs to realize is that it is no longer the primary sports focus in America.  It hurts to say that, but the truth of the matter is that more people care about football, basketball, MMA streetfighting and E-games than they do about thrown pitches and batted balls.  Given the somewhat tenuous relationship the league has with its potential customers, a strike is not a good thing at all.  

What it does is reinforce to them the greed of the owners and the players.  More importantly, it provides them with an upcoming summer without baseball to discover other ways to occupy their time and the hole into which they've dug themselves becomes even deeper.

As the off season progresses with its scheduled variety of meetings, none is more important to the future of the game than the upcoming CBA negotiations.  Here's hoping that the adults in the room can behave like adults for once and that any prospective work stoppage initiated by either side is very, very short.