Some bleak news was delivered on Thursday regarding baseball’s ongoing work stoppage: Major League Baseball requested the assistance of a federal mediator to help resolve the owner-imposed lockout, according to Jeff Passan of ESPN. The players issued a response to MLB’s request on Friday afternoon:
Evan Drellich of The Athletic also reported that MLB will not make a counterproposal, despite telling the union that they will.
Spring training will almost certainly be delayed and the two sides have less than a month to hash out a deal to start the regular season on time.