“It’s a good day”: Twins’ St. Peter ready for baseball to return to Target Field
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Major League Baseball’s players and owners ended their most bitter money fight in a quarter-century Thursday when the players’ association accepted management’s offer to salvage a 162-game season that will start April 7.
The work stoppage ended Thursday night, closing an acrimonious 99-day lockout that delayed spring training and threatened to cancel regular-season games for the first time since 1995.
“It’s a good day,” Twins President and CEO Dave St. Peter said Thursday night. “At the end of the day, I think we ended up with a fair deal. One that propels the game forward. Certainly looks out for the interests of our players, but most importantly also looks out for the interest of our fans.”
Training camps in Florida and Arizona will open Friday, with players mandated to report by Sunday. Opening day was pushed back just over a week from its March 31 date.
A frenzy of free-agency action was expected. A freeze on roster transactions was dissolved Thursday night, spurring a wave of speculation about new homes for Carlos Correa, Freddie Freeman and more than 100 other free agents who had been kept in lockout limbo.
“It’ll be crazy but we’ll be ready for it,” St. Peter said as the Twins look to fill out their roster. “I know for us we certainly go into it with an emphasis on pitching, but it certainly isn’t just pitching. I think it’ll be all sorts of areas explored.”
The deal brings major changes that include expansion of the DH to the National League, increasing the postseason from 10 teams to 12, advertisements on uniforms, a balanced schedule that reduces intradivision play starting in 2023 and measures aimed to incentivize competition and decrease rebuilding, such as an amateur draft lottery. Most of the labor fight, of course, centered on the game’s core economics.
The players’ executive board approved the five-year contract at about 3 p.m. in a 26-12 vote. Owners ratified the deal 30-0 just three hours later, and just like that, baseball’s ninth work stoppage ended.