While there was widespread joy over the return of baseball yesterday, the decision to agree to the new Collectively Bargained Agreement was not unanimous. There were plenty of players lobbying to continue fighting for more, as evidence by the MLBPA's Executive Council voting 8-0 against the proposal that was eventually accepted. Speaking with 610's Cody and Gold on Friday afternoon, Royals player rep Whit Merrifield expressed plenty of excitement about returning to camp, but did remain a bit skeptical about some aspects of the deal.
"We didn't get to where we wanted to be in a lot of numbers," he said. "But we felt like it was moving in the right direction. Time will tell how it works out. Hopefully the deal works out better than the last deal did. We hope that the ownership group takes this deal and does what it was intended to do, and that's put the best product on the field day in and day out, year after year. Hopefully that's the case, but time will tell."
You can listen to Merrifield's entire interview in the player below: