MLB requests help from Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, but MLBPA unlikely to approve

Two months after locking out its players, MLB wants to get the federal government involved.

The league requested immediate assistance from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, according to multiple reports Thursday. Such third-party mediation would require agreement from the MLB Players Association, which is unlikely to acquiesce because it views MLB’s move as a public-relations stunt, the reports said.

Further, MLB told the PA that it will not make a counteroffer after it said two days ago that it would, according to The Athletic.

ESPN first reported MLB’s request for federal help.

The FMCS was created in 1947 and exists in part to promote labor-management peace, which the national pastime desperately needs. Spring training, scheduled to begin in less than two weeks, will be pushed back barring sudden agreement between two sides that have made little to no progress since MLB enacted a lockout Dec. 2. Opening Day (March 29) also will be in danger if the parties can’t settle on a new collective-bargaining agreement this month.

"It's possible [MLB deputy commissioner Dan] Halem is requesting mediation to get his own side to stop playing with their food and start making real proposals that might lead to agreement," Eugene Freedman, a veteran union lawyer who has written extensively about baseball labor relations, wrote on Twitter. "That would be a very subtle and astute maneuver, one that is not exactly in MLB's normal playbook.

"It also could be a tactic to place some blame on the Union, if they don't accept mediation . . . The only thing that's clear is that the lockout did not produce the results that the commissioner [Rob Manfred] claimed were the goals of the lockout — speed up negotiations and move the parties toward resolution."