On Sunday, the Pirates played their final game of the 2021 season.
While their next scheduled game at PNC Park is set for March 31, 2022, there is no guarantee that there will be baseball at that time. At least not yet.
The CBA between Major League Baseball and the players association is set to expire on Dec. 1, and while there are still almost two full months before it expires, there is no indication the two sides are anywhere close to a deal. Given the worsening relationship between the players’ union and owners over the past few seasons, it is expected this will be the most heated set of negotiations between the two sides in some time.
However, Jacob Stallings, the Pirates' player rep, is telling his teammates to do their offseason work like a deal will get done and no time is missed.
“I’m going to prepare like spring training is going to start on time,” Stallings told me during the final series of the season at PNC Park. “That’s what I anticipate. That’s what everybody wants. And that’s what I’m going to encourage other guys to do.”
This is Stallings’ first year as a player rep for the Pirates. Last year, Jameson Taillon and Trevor Williams assumed the leadership duties, but Taillon was traded and Williams was designated for assignment last winter. Stallings took their place and knows he can reach out to them if necessary.
Ideally, though, a new CBA is reached before the old one expires.
“I’m hopeful that it goes smoothly and we can get a deal done,” Stallings said.
The Pirates’ first spring training game is February 26, and camp should open in the middle of that month.
Baseball has gone the longest time out of the four major North American sports without a work stoppage, with the last one coming in the 1994-95 players strike. That doesn’t take into consideration the very heated set of negotiations leading up to the 2020 season though, where owners were unable to work out a different compensation plan for players, who had been guaranteed full prorated salaries at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“[Last year] prepared me for it [these CBA negotiations],” Kevin Newman said towards the end of the season. “Who knows what's going to happen. Hopefully we're playing day one. It's out of my hands, so there's no sense in worrying about it.”
There is also the possibility that a new CBA could drastically alter the economics or structure of the game. The league’s first proposal included a salary floor for all teams, but lowered the luxury tax from $210 million to $180 million, making it less appealing to players. Joel Sherman also reported on a proposal that would have arbitration-eligible players split a $1 billion pool and making players eligible for free agency at 29 ½ years old. Even if none of those proposals come to realization, finances, service time, player free agency and team spending are all going to be key points in these negotiations.
That’s going to make this offseason trickier to navigate for Ben Cherington as he constructs a 2022 roster.
“We have to be prepared either way,” Cherington said this week. “We’re not gonna go into an offseason waiting or making anything conditional on what happens with a CBA. We need to prepare for our offseason, business as usual. If information comes from that that we need to adjust to, we’ll adjust to it. We’ll all learn together as we get into this offseason.”
MORE PIRATES
• It was a running joke during his media availabilities the final month of the season that it didn’t take much to get Derek Shelton to start campaigning for Stallings’ Gold Glove candidacy. Stallings excels when it comes to blocking, receiving and throwing, all of which are weighed for that Gold Glove, but Shelton also appreciates Stallings’ leadership and pitcher management, at one point calling him “the one constant” for this team this year. It means a lot to Stallings, who was challenged by Shelton when he first took the reigns in 2020. “He pushed me last year,” Stallings said. “Our first year together, he really pushed me to do some things that he thought would help me, things I could improve on. It’s really helped me a lot this year.” In their last update on August 22, the Society of American Baseball Research ranked Stallings as the top defensive player in the National League, and the Gold Glove is determined based off of those rankings and the coach vote. Stallings is the favorite to win, and assuming he does, Shelton’s campaigning probably will be a small reason why. “I’m sure the numbers will say I’m deserving to win,” Stallings said. “Hopefully I get enough coach votes. It would be a dream come true. But at the end of the day, I feel deserving, and that means more. To know I played well.” -- Stumpf
• The “is Chasen Shreve a free agent this offseason” debate was finally resolved this weekend when Cherington confirmed that the left-hander is still under team control for 2022, but those who read Insider back in May knew that was going to be the case. Shreve came into the year with 5.012 years of service time and was promoted too late into the season to get a full six years and reach free agency. So while most services and sites that track service time (FanGraphs, Roster Resource, Baseball Reference) listed him as a free agent at the end of this year, that was based on the assumption he would spend the whole year in the majors. Coming into the year it looked like Shreve was going to be a part of the opening day roster, but he lost his spot to two of the camps’ hottest pitchers, David Bednar and Clay Holmes. Shreve had a good year, pitching to a 3.20 ERA over 56 ⅓ innings and being worth 1.2 WAR. Perhaps he’ll draw some interest on the trade market this winter. -- Stumpf
STEELERS
• It appears Stephon Tuitt is getting closer to returning to the field. In fact, I'm hearing the Steelers are looking at a potential return to practice -- at least -- sometime around their Week 7 bye week. They would have 21 days to activate Tuitt once he begins practicing again. But the Steelers do play the Browns in Cleveland in Week 8 before coming home to play the Bears and Lions. Tuitt could still suffer another setback, but that's the plan I'm hearing for now. The Steelers have already had offensive tackle Zach Banner and running back Anthony McFarland return to practice, starting their 21-day window for a return from the disabled list. What they don't want to do is have Tuitt start practicing and then have another setback. If the player coming off injured reserve isn't ready to go after 21 days, the team has to make a decision. It can activate him and carry him as an injured player or keep him on injured reserve for the season. The Steelers don't want that to happen with Tuitt. -- Dale Lolley on the South Side
• It's incredible referee Scott Novak's crew blew the blocked field goal call in last Sunday's loss to the Packers. Coaches often give officiating crews things to look for when they're speaking in pre-game warmups. It happens in every sport. "Hey, watch this guy holding, or that guy getting hands up in the face." Special teams coordinator Danny Smith knew the Steelers were going to rush hard off the edge Robert Tonyan was set up on, having his two best guys, Joe Haden and Minkah Fitzpatrick do so. "I study a lot of film," Smith said. "I'm a film junky." But Smith didn't alert the officials in this case because the Steelers weren't doing anything special, largely because Tonyan blocked neither of them and they both came in clean. It looked like it was offside because they both nearly took the ball off the foot of Mason Crosby. As Smith said Thursday, "We were not offsides. I can assure you of that." -- Lolley
• Punter Pressley Harvin has been up-and-down four games into his rookie season. He's averaging 41.8 yards per kick, which ranks 27th in the league, though he has dropped 7 of his 19 punts inside the opposing 20, which is tied for sixth-best in the league. "I love him. Am I happy with him? He’s a better player than he’s playing right now," Smith said. "But I love him. This is a talented young man, and I stress young man." There's a feeling in the front office and among the coaching staff that Harvin is the Steelers' most talented punter since they had Daniel Sepulveda in 2007. Of course, the Steelers used a fourth-round draft pick on Sepulveda, who had multiple knee injuries derail his career. But there's also a feeling Harvin needs to take his craft a little more seriously. For example, sources say he was supposed to angle a kick from the Steelers' 20 in the second half out of bounds, but hit it to the wrong sideline, resulting in a 20-yard punt. That set Aaron Rodgers and the Packers up at the Pittsburgh 40 for what resulted in an easy touchdown drive. Jordan Berry, meanwhile, the man Harvin replaced, is averaging 48.5 yards per punt this season, which would be his career-best. -- Lolley
PENGUINS
• As training camp enters its final few days and the Penguins prepare to pare their roster to the group that will travel to Tampa for the opener Tuesday, it's worth remembering that personnel decisions can be made with more than simple on-ice performances in mind. A young player who would not have to clear waivers to go to the American Hockey League -- Drew O'Connor, P.O Joseph and Radim Zohorna, among others, fall into that group -- is not likely to fare well if he's in a close one-on-one battle with a veteran who does. In general, clubs would prefer to not lose a capable player for nothing more than his waiver fee. When a team is flirting with the salary-cap ceiling, as the Penguins usually are, the average annual value of players' contracts can become a factor, too. Same with two-way contracts; if a player has one of those, with a lower salary when he's playing in the minors, it can be a difference-maker if the choice is between him and someone with a one-way deal, which pays the same whether the player is in the NHL or the American Hockey League. -- Dave Molinari in Detroit
• A lot of hockey players say they like to get into a game-every-other-day routine, that they are particularly comfortable with the rhythm such a schedule establishes. That might well be the case, but results from the 2020-21 season suggest the Penguins actually do their best work when they have two days off between games. They were 5-1 when that happened last season, compared to 26-10-1 when there was one day. And it isn't simply a matter of benefiting from getting extra rest. The Penguins were 0-0-1 on the lone occasion when they had three days off, 1-2 when there were four or more. The Penguins, by the way, will have two days between games 11 times in 2021-22, including three each in December and January. -- Molinari
• The Penguins have qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs for 15 consecutive years, the longest active streak in the NHL. The three teams they are facing during this preseason -- the Sabres, Red Wings and Blue Jackets -- have pretty much forgotten what it's like to compete in postseason play. Oh sure, Columbus did it as recently as 2019 -- remember that sweep of the heavily favored Lightning in Round 1? -- but Detroit has failed to qualify for the past five years and Buffalo hasn't made it past the regular season since 2011. (For those who prefer to track history via something other than time, that was seven coaches ago, when Lindy Ruff was behind the Buffalo bench.) Now, teams tend to build their preseason schedules around geography, not quality of competition, and that makes sense because holding down travel time and costs for games that don't count is significant for a lot of franchises. What's more, just because a team is successful in the regular season or playoffs doesn't mean it will dress a strong lineup for games during the next training camp, because it might put a heavy emphasis on, say, evaluating young players then. But with the chipper-shredder of a schedule the Penguins will have in their first six games at the start of the regular season -- at Tampa and Florida, then at home against Chicago, Dallas, Toronto and Tampa Bay -- a few exhibition meetings with a strong opponent might have served them well. Of course, having Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, both still recovering from offseason surgeries, in uniform for those games would have been even better for them. -- Molinari
