Well, it is official - no first week of baseball in April - the first 2 series are cancelled now.
More details about that late night negotiating and how the owners tried to pull a few fast ones on players via Ross Stripling...
“It got to be like 12:30 and the fine print of their CBT proposal was stuff we had never seen before,” Stripling said. “They were trying to sneak things through us, it was like they think we’re dumb baseball players and we get sleepy after midnight or something. It’s like that stupid football quote, they are who we thought they were. They did exactly what we thought they would do. They pushed us to a deadline that they imposed, and then they tried to sneak some shit past us at that deadline and we were ready for it. We’ve been ready for five years. And then they tried to flip it on us today in PR, saying that we’ve changed our tone and tried to make it look like it was our fault. That never happened.”
So now the opening series vs Baltimore and home opener vs Tampa are canceled. The next 2 to be lost are a home series vs Texas and a road 4 gamer vs the Yankees, then a home series vs the A's, and a road series vs Boston. After that comes series vs Houston/Boston/Houston. So losing April from a competitive stance is probably a net positive as the Jays lose series vs bad teams twice (O's and Rangers) and vs good teams 7 times (depending how one rates the A's who might be tanking in 2022 or might not have time to tank before games actually start).
In the end this really sucks. We should be debating the results of the first few spring training games right now and wondering how the new guys (and ones the Jays couldn't get) are doing. Instead I've canceled my Sportsnet online subscription (to watch games) and will avoid Rogers products where possible.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20220302135001696