The Mets introductory Zoom for Max Scherzer took place on Wednesday, and while it’s a huge moment for the franchise, reporters and fans are also aware of the impending lockout that will begin soon. Scherzer, a union leader, held the Zoom right in front of where the current Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations are taking place.
With that in mind, Scherzer along with his agent Scott Boras, also field a number of questions about what the players believe need to be changed for baseball to grow.
Right away, Scherzer called a lockout, “very likely” as the CBA expires at 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday night.
“When you look at how the 2016 CBA agreement and how that has worked over the past five years, as players, we see major problems in it, specifically, first and foremost, we see a competition problem and how teams are behaving because of certain rules that are within that. Adjustments have to be made to bring up the competition. As players, that’s critical to us to have a highly competitive league, and when we don’t have that, we have issues.”
The players union has been hoping to eliminate “tanking” for years, and that seems to be a key sticking point for them in negotiations with the owners.
Boras echoed those concerns, “It’s not about any team, it’s the rules. … We have something in our rules that drives non-competitiveness and drives down fan interest.”
