Reese Kaplan -- A Very Quiet December For Baseball Teams & Fans

About this time the Winter Meetings were scheduled to take place, but the lockout and the staunch positioning by both the owners and the players union will ensure it will not take place.  In fact, right now there aren't even talks scheduled between the two sides.  

While it's understandable that no one wants to concede anything and perhaps a cooling off period is necessary before negotiations begin in earnest, the fact is that unless you sit down together in person or via online meeting to talk then nothing will get resolved.

Some folks feel that the players side has been on the losing end of the last few labor disagreements, so perhaps Tony Clark and company are trying to be a bit more hard lined this time around so that the perception of his side and him as the leader improve somewhat.  Others feel that the owners are the bad guys since they initiated the lockout, but without a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) in place, there's no reason to keep the doors open.  

I wrote last week that the Mets have a number of other issues at hand internally that can be addressed during this period of inactivity which resulted from canceled meetings and a freeze on player movements.  No trades and no free agent signings will take place until a new agreement is in place.  

In fact, even Seiya Suzuki, the premier Japanese free agent outfielder, was about ten days into his 30-day window for attention from American ballclubs.  His remaining 20 days are now on hold, not simply squandered.  

There have been a great many stories written all purporting to identify who the Mets have on their prospective manager list.  Some even go as far as ranking the candidates based upon some arbitrary criteria.  

The fact is that with only the Mets and Athletics in need of managers, there's really not a whole lot of competition.  Some of the prospective managers do not have jobs, so that would seem to make them relatively easy gets if your front office felt that one of them was the right fit.  

Others are coaches on major league teams and there is always the issue of getting permission to interview that person.  Then there are the former players who have never managed before and are readily available to hire but then you're putting yourself back into the "learning on the job" mold of Mickey Callaway and Luis Rojas.  

Part of what Mets fans should be watching right now is the manner in which Billy Eppler, Sandy Alderson and Steve Cohen conduct business during this unusually clear month of December.  There should be no excuses about conflicting travel and meeting schedules.  There is little reason to worry about competitors storming the gate to try to lure your top pick into their employment.  It is a wide open highway and time to appreciate baseball's version of the Autobahn.  Drive as fast as you want to go but maintain control.  

One part of this hiatus from normalcy is the opportunity to view alternate baseball sites in other countries who are not participating in the major league rules and labor stoppage.  It would be a great time to identify folks who might help improve the minor league roster immediately and the major league roster eventually.  

This travel is not just to Central and South America, but the Caribbean, Korea, Japan, Australia and anywhere else people are throwing a ball and swinging a bat.  The Arizona Fall League is over so domesticity is not in the cards right now.  

Perhaps the toughest part for fans and media right now is the lack of news items to report.  There are just so many ways to write and rewrite the same stories about newly acquired players (who are no longer new), managerial candidates, the failed POBO search or players in jeopardy of being moved from the current 40-man roster in trade or Designation for Assignment.  

The challenge right now is to identify issues at hand, historical references or eventually projections of minor league players climbing up the ladder to the majors.  

What hopefully both the team owners and players realize is that the already declining interest in baseball will be self-diminishing the longer they persist in not working together to settle their differences and getting people hyped up about the start of Spring Training and the regular season.