Wellness

[gardenman]

The players and owners have now called in a mediator to facilitate talks between them. I suspect this is more of a PR move on both parties' parts, but who knows, maybe it will work. Until now each side has basically shoved an offer into the middle of the table that they know the other side won't accept and told them "to take it or leave it" and not surprisingly the other side has chosen to leave it. I think we'll see the mediator try to find areas where there's some common ground (rookie pay scale for example) and solve those issues first and then move on to the more complicated issues.

I suspect we'll see modest progress made over the next few days/weeks, then talks will bog down and the war of words will resume again before talks get serious again. If the war of words only lasts a week or two, then we may see a new agreement before the draft. If the war of words goes past the draft, we may not see any meaningful negotiations until late summer.