With the weather getting better and spring upon us there is nothing baseball lovers think about more than the thought of Spring training and Opening Day.

But this year, plans changed a bit. 

The Major League Baseball (MLB) was sent into a lockout after the MLB and the players association could not reach an agreement on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). This is the first time since 1994 that the league has not been able to come up with an agreement before the deadline. 

Since they were not able to come to an agreement all players and transactions were frozen. So, what that meant is that no trades, signings, any contract talks, nothing could be done. Everything was put to a halt.

This wouldn’t be the first ever lockout nor the longest lockout ever. The longest lockout in baseball history was in 1994. This lockout ended up being 232 days. The current lockout is the second longest lockout in baseball history standing at 99 days. 

Many people believed that the lockout was going to last the whole season.

Dallastown High School teacher Mr. Colasuonno said, “For the amount of days it took, it was pretty intense. I have a group of people here that I talk to about it. I had lost hope, and thought that we were going to lose the whole season”.  

The lockout is now officially over as the MLB and the players association agreed to terms on March 10, 2022. With this the season was in fact saved and there will be MLB action this season. But, there were many intense discussions that ended up being the reason for this lockout. 

On the players side they wanted some changes in the money aspect. First, they wanted the revenue share to be split evenly between the league and the players. The players also wanted the league to give younger players an earlier compensation. 

Colasuonno’s  opinion was that “ there needs to be a little more pay for the younger players and minor leaguers to figure out a solution to make the minor league have a little more of a livable wage and pay the younger guys earlier”. 

The players were also upset with the average salary of 4 million being plateaued and not keeping up with the amount of money the team makes. They also wanted tanking to be addressed and put to an end. 

For the owners’ side of things, they wanted to keep the revenue share where it was at. The MLB wanted to expand the playoffs, and add advertisements to the jerseys. This would lead to the MLB earning more money because adding more teams in the playoffs would create more games which would mean more money for the league. 

 One of the big things that was added to the new CBA was that the new deal added 2 million dollars a year to the competitive balance threshold in 2024, 2025, 2026. Which will have teams be willing to spend more money to try and win games. 

The new CBA still needs to be ratified by both sides but the MLB is back.

Opening Day was held on April 7, 2022. After 99 long days, a deal was struck and MLB baseball will return.