Happ weighs in on labor talks as MLB deadline nears originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
A fan who had a trip scheduled to attend spring training in Arizona with their kids DM’d Cubs outfielder Ian Happ recently.
But Happ, the Cubs players union rep and one of their most active players on social media, didn’t reply.
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“I didn’t know what to say,” Happ said Friday on 670 The Score’s “Bernstein and Rahimi.”
That doesn’t mean Happ — who attended this week’s bargaining sessions between MLB and the players union — doesn’t have thoughts on the ongoing MLB lockout and negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement
“I think that the point there is that this is a lockout that's imposed by MLB,” Happ said. “We could continue to negotiate and play baseball. It’s not mandatory for them to do this.”
As MLB’s lockout of the players nears the end of its third month, a deadline of Monday looms for reaching a deal to avoid the league’s threat of canceling games.
“I hope that that's not the case,” Happ said. “Players are so committed to trying to get 162 games in and get the product back to the fans.
“I think players experienced this [with pandemic protocol and schedule negotiations] in 2020, when we wanted so badly to be out there and provide a product when our fans needed it the most, and we couldn't. We’re trying as hard as we can to avoid that again."
Negotiations in 2020 over terms of starting that abbreviated season were very public and contentious. Both sides vowed an effort to avoid that this time around in the months leading up to the Dec. 1 expiration of the CBA.
But if anything, according to countless reports in recent weeks, these talks seem to be more contentious, slow-moving and frustrating — at least from the side of the table Happ sits on.
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The league and union have met every day this week with no movement toward an agreement.
"There’s still a lot of things left to close out," Happ said. "If day by day we can't start to close out some of those things, we're not going to be able to finish this thing up by the weekend.
"That's the frustrating part."
Happ, who said he was frustrated by the inability to solve some of the ancillary issues and clear the decks earlier in the week for talks on more core issues, specifically addressed some of those issues.
- On the sizable gap to close on the luxury tax issue, both in terms of threshold levels and severity of penalties:
“It would be crazy in an industry that is growing the way that baseball is to think that we would be in a place where the luxury tax would be flat for the next two years,” Happ said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
- On raising the $570,500 minimum salary to $775,000, compared to owners' offer of $640,000:
“Right now, we have the lowest of the four major sports,” Happ said. “I think it’s pretty clear that that doesn’t make any sense with what league revenues are, and especially with how much gambling is going to benefit the game of baseball.”
- On whether the owners are bargaining in good faith:
"I think it's very difficult because it is such a narrow definition," Happ said.
- On what it might take to push through on what looks like a stalemate heading into the weekend.
"We're closer to a point where we just want to make some small gains for players, and kind of balance out what the young guys are getting paid versus what their value actually is to the teams," Happ said.
- On the spirit of cooperation between the two sides after daily talks this week:
Said Happ: "That's one of the more frustrating parts of this, is that you really want a partner in this negotiation that wants to grow the game together and make things as best as they can possibly be for fans. It just doesn't feel like we have a partner right now.”
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