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Major League Baseball has requested a federal mediator’s assistance to help settle the league’s lockout, ESPN and The Athletic reported Thursday.

The MLB Players Association would need to agree to mediation for the sport to take that path.



The owners and players have met four times since the lockout began Dec. 2. Reports said the two sides had a “heated” 90-minute meeting on Tuesday with neither side feeling there had been any progress.

Progress Lost?

Further, the league told the union Thursday that it would not make a counteroffer to the union’s latest proposal, two days after saying it would, The Athletic reported.

Their longest meeting reportedly took place Jan. 24, where players rejected a league proposal concerned with raising the minimum salary and incentivizing teams not to manipulate prospects’ service time.

As the players seek to increase their wages and bargaining points, some of the chief sticking points have been service-time manipulation, the pre-arbitration bonus pool and the players’ desire for teams to implement an eight-team draft lottery.

This is the first baseball work stoppage since the infamous 1994 strike that led to the cancellation of the 1994 World Series and didn’t resolve until April 2, 1995 (after beginning Aug. 12, 1994). Since then, the players and owners had reached five collective bargaining agreements without any shutdowns.

The work stoppage threatens to postpone the start of spring training, scheduled as usual for mid-February.

–Field Level Media (@FieldLevelMedia)