The 2022 Spring Training season is coming to a start for the MLB, but will our Philadelphia Phillies even have a season? As of right now the Phillies are in something called an “MLB Lockout”. On December 2, 2021, the “Collective Bargaining Agreement” for major league baseball expired. In an MLB lockout, teams cannot make major trades and free agent signings, but are allowed to make minor league moves, meaning they can drop down.
Team owners and executive people are not allowed to even be in contact with any of the players involved in a lockout. The union that the MLB players are in, and the owner(s) of the Phillies have to come up with some sort of agreement for the players to get out of the lockout. This is the ninth work stoppage in MLB history.
For that being a downside of the lockout, and potentially not being able to play in the off-season, here is the bright side of all this madness: while working about this lockout the Phillies have signed seven new
pitchers to the minor league.
While the Phillies started off strong with their four-game win streak against the Atlanta Braves, and one game against the New York Mets, they were defeated by the New York Mets in their three game series. As of right now, the odds are not in our favor.
We all are hoping a deal gets struck up, and the Phils will have the go ahead to initiate their season and potentially make up for the mess they had last season. For the people who watched the Phillies 2021 season, you know that they had a “disappointing” ending. For the people who don’t know what happened to them, that’s okay.
Here’s a quick little recap about what went down the second half of their season: missed opportunities and a terrible bullpen, which led the league in blown saves, and ultimately was their undoing. After missing playoffs, again, fans argue that this season was a waste of time for the Phillies star players, Zack Wheeler and Bryce Harper, who were snatched of their potential MVP award (Harper) and a Cy Young Award (Wheeler).
At this point, all we can do is hope an agreement is acquired, and the Phils can continue fightin’ on because the longer this lockout continues, the less time the Phillies have to start anything. It would be in the the owner of the Phillies and unions best interest for the lockout to end sooner than later.