Major League Baseball turns to federal mediator to try and help end lockout

Sadly, there is no positive news in regards to the lockout ending. However, there was some new news yesterday that hopefully will get things rolling to resolve this dispute.

According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, Major League Baseball requested the immediate assistance of a federal mediator to help resolve the sport’s lockout. Passan also added that the league reached out to the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, which is a governmental agency that attempts to help resolve labor disputes, sources said.

Mediation is not mandatory, per the article. In addition, the MLB Players Association would need to agree to the involvement of a third party.

To sum things up, we’re not closer than we were last week.

Links

• Fabian Ardaya had his second mailbag over at The Athletic. He answered a number of questions, including potential closer options should Kenley Jansen leave and what third base looks like moving forward with an aging Justin Turner
• The Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation unveiled the new name of their sports-based youth development program. Rowan Kavner at Dodger Insider wrote about the changes the Dodgers announced on Thursday
• ESPN dropped their Top 100 MLB players of all time. There were a number of Dodgers who cracked the list, including Clayton Kershaw who had a very questionable ranking