The collective-bargaining agreement between Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association is set to expire Wednesday night at 11:59 p.m. ET.
If an agreement isn’t reached by that point, team owners will move to lock out their players and pause all major league transactions.
As Sports Illustrated’s Stephanie Apstein reported in our Daily Cover story, the stakes are high as commissioner Rob Manfred and MLBPA executive director Tony Clark square off once again:
Privately, executives and players alike call their sport “unwatchable.” The relationship between the league and the union has grown so toxic that the sides cannot even agree on easy, common-sense plans; two summers ago, with nothing else to do, they stalled in talks to restart the 2020 season and Manfred finally implemented it unilaterally.