Dodgers: Dodgers: Justin Turner Accuses MLB of Planning Extended Lockout
Plenty of MLB players have weighed in on the frustrating turn of events with baseball’s CBA negotiations. On Wednesday, Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner joined his wife, Kourtney Turner, on an episode of Holding Kourt to provide his long-form thoughts on the MLB lockout.
Turner believes that the league tried to leverage the MLBPA to the hilt with instituting the lockout and then implementing a deadline for a new CBA.
“They went into this whole offseason with the intentions of shutting the game down and trying to put the players up against the wall and force them into a corner to make bad decisions and have another bad collective bargaining agreement.”
The Dodgers veteran stated that the entire MLB lockout did not need to happen.
“It’s angering because it seems like it all could have been avoided. It seems like we shouldn’t be in this position. It seems unnecessary. We could have been negotiating all winter long, and instead the commissioner decided to lock us out on December 1.”
Turner’s sentiments are further framed by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s response when asked why MLB and the MLBPA only began negotiating in earnest more than two full months after the start of the lockout.
“I think the best answer is the question is the last ten days. We’ve been here, ready to bargain. Full committees, owners, players, for ten days and it got going two days before the deadline, that’s the best explanation I can give you.”
Manfred’s…interesting answer to that question only added fuel to the fire for MLB players and fans who believe that the league never planned on submitting a fair proposal before the deadline that they themselves imposed.
According to ESPN’s Jesse Rogers, MLB and the MLBPA met on Friday for approximately 90 minutes. The two parties will need to come to a deal over the next few days to prevent additional games from being cancelled.
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If the MLB didn’t incur the lockout, right or wrong, would the MLBPA incur a ‘strike’ and possibly an extended strike under the same conditions? If the answer is a ‘no’, than we are dealing equally with liars as the players call the Owners. Neither side is totally wrong or right in how these negotiations have been performed. If I want to here name-calling, I’ll go where it’s done best, grade school schoolyards. The players need to plan by remembering they are no longer the school bullying jocks, and the Owners are not the teachers who idly allow it to happen.
I’d agree there’s blame on both sides:
99% MLB 1% MLBPA and that’s not hyperbole.
If the MLBPA believe they’re only 1% of the blame as like you, no wonder there isn’t a deal.
Fire all the whine baby players and bring up the minor league players. Do this every time they ask for crap none of with real jobs can get. Cap player salary at 100k add add performance incentives.
The fact is they did declare the lockout, companies declare lockouts when they feared employees physically sabotaging equipment. I don’t think that applies here. They did it to delay negotiations, then conduct them only when they announced them and then laid out arbitrary deadlines, and dropped new items immediately prior to those deadlines. These are all methods from 50 years ago for seasonal industries. The players have professional negotiators, but no professional media relations people on staff and they desperately need some. A couple of players griping after the fact is not going to get it done. The owners have been so completely ham handed during this fiasco it’s laughable. The players need to shut up and file for unfair labor practices, request federal binding arbitration, releas ‘best estimate’ team finances if the teams won’t provide them. The players are familiar with hardball they need to start playing it.
I’ve been a loyal Dodger fan for 63 years. but all this $$$$$ talk has given baseball a bad name…it’s shameful.
The owners obviously are trying to eliminate the least profitable part of the season, the expenses that go with it, but play enough games to honor tv contracts. An upfront lock out instead of negotiating, negotiation only after setting arbitrary deadlines, and bait and switch prior to deadlines. These are all old school labor breaking tactics to reduce wages paid during non peak periods only to end the lockout when the weather improves, kids are out of school and people take vacations. The players negotiating team should be aware of tv contract details and prepare to work around the penalties within them. It will cost them more upfront this season, but if the owners are making the money that the players think the shoe will be on the other foot at some point as the tv money goes down the drain. They should ask for mediation or better yet arbitration. Otherwise the clock will run until tv money is at risk and the owners will end the lockout by tossing in a few bones to the players.