And now back to your regularly scheduled baseball: D-backs players return to camp

After 99 days of uncertainty, debates and delays, the MLB Lockout came to an end on Thursday. Players on the Arizona Diamondbacks’ 40-man roster resumed training at Salt River Fields on Friday. It was a day D-backs utility man Josh Rojas has been longing for.

“We’ve been waiting for this one for a while,” said Rojas. “It’s good we got everything done, and I did my best to stay ready for this day, whenever it came. It happened so fast. It was rumored and then we had our little team vote and then 30-40 minutes later I got done taking ground balls and it’s showtime. Report day is Sunday. Physical is Sunday and camp starts Monday.”

The Learning Tree

Players like Rojas are far removed from the prior baseball labor stoppage in 1994. This was their first opportunity to learn more about the business of baseball during the negotiations.

“I felt like we did a really good job,” Rojas said. “I think we had a lot of ground to make up from the last CBA, and I think we did a really good job of staying together as a unit. Old guys, young guys communicating. I learned a lot this offseason. I learned a lot about the business side that I had no idea went on. I was kind of fresh to the game and I really didn’t even know what the CBA was before this year, so I learned quite a bit. Hopefully I’m here for the next CBA and be ready to go at it again.”

The Players Association executive subcommittee — consisting of eight of the highest-paid players in the game — represented the union during these negotiations. The changes the subcommittee members fought for affected younger players more than themselves. Rojas praised them despite the lengthy negotiations.

“It means a lot, especially because they made their money and it’s easy for those guys to say ‘You know what? I made my money. I did my time. Let’s just sign it and get on with the game,'” he said. “We ended up playing 162, but the stance we were taking, they were willing to miss games and they were willing to lose some of their money, which says a lot coming from them when their money per game is pretty high. For them to stand by our side and have our backs and the future players to come and have their backs, it shows a lot. As a younger player, if I make it to the next CBA, I want to do the same for the next guys.”

D-backs staying ready

Similar to the delay during the pandemic, ramping up quickly to play once a deal was done was a concern. However, Rojas revealed that the player-organized training sessions have been more effective than one might think.

“I think as players as the whole, we did a really good job of staying ready,” he said. “There’s a lot of places where 15, 20, 30 guys were meeting up and basically running our own practices. Ground balls, live bullpens, live ABs, hitting on the field. There’s a lot of colleges letting us out on their fields, and it was a really good offseason. I think this was probably one of the most productive offseasons I’ve had.”

Each team has a player representative for the executive board that kept players updated on the negotiations. Nick Ahmed is the rep for the D-backs. But much like the rest of us, Rojas still had difficulty determining what was and wasn’t accurate with the influx of information.

“I think the toughest part is I get all my initial information from the media,” he said. “You see all the stuff that gets tweeted out. You see the ESPN reports. And then you get the updates from the actual meetings and you’re like, ‘Wait, they’re not the same.’ It’s tough when one side’s spewing out certain information and the other side’s spewing out certain information, and then you get the facts.

“I think once I got in the groove of let’s just wait for the updates from the people that are actually in the meetings, it was much easier to get through it. Just being patient, staying ready, when it happens it happens.”

Communication is key

Rojas felt like the team communicated really well during the negotiation. It helped to clarify what he was hearing.

“We had a team group chat before, giving us updates on what was going on in the meetings,” he said. “But then that group chat lit up when we had our team vote obviously, what people disagree on and what they don’t.”

Players on the D-backs had discussions about the CBA in their chat, but there wasn’t much dissension.

“There was a couple of questions and concerns,” he said. “Those were addressed, and then I think we all had a pretty good agreement that we were ready to play.”

Rojas admitted that his view of the negotiations changed throughout the process.

“My perspective coming in was let’s just sign whatever they give us,” he said. “I just want to play. I don’t want to miss games. And then I started to learn about what was actually going on and I was against the owners like most people were.

“I was ready to negotiate and hold out on games and do what we had to do to get a fair deal.”

Luckily for all of us, cooler heads eventually prevailed and all 162 games will be played this season. However, MLB and the PA will still have a relationship to repair and a game to restore. Restoration begins with spring training games next week.

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