Around the Empire: Yankees news - 2/4/22

MLB Trade Rumors | Mark Polishuk: After receiving the union’s latest offer on Tuesday, the owners have opted not to counter-offer, putting a pause in negotiations after a recent spat of small progress. Instead, the league is looking for federal assistance in the form of a neutral mediator in order to get the two sides to start talking about bigger issues that have so far gone untouched. The other three major professional sports leagues have used federal mediators in the past decade with mixed results, and MLB attempted to use one back in the 1994 strike to no avail.

The Athletic | Evan Drellich (subscription required): It appears that the players’ union is not thrilled about the prospect of a mediator entering these talks. The union sees this move as a lose-lose situation for them: accept the offer and potentially waste weeks only to lose ground in negotiations, or reject it and lose the court of public perception. The owners have been negligent in offering good-faith negotiations so far in this process, so the skepticism is fairly warranted. Either way, it seems like the lockout is still far from over.

CBS Sports | Dayn Perry: One of the points of contention for the players has been the revenue-sharing system between teams, which might sound confusing since it revolves around money purely between the different clubs. It affects the players in a big way, however, since it incentivizes small-market teams to not invest much into payroll and cuts into the excesses of the big market teams, leading to situations like the Yankees placing priorities on remaining below the luxury tax.

MLB.com | Mark Terranova: The hype around Jasson Dominguez is clearly still building. The uber-prospect’s 2020 Bowman Chroma autographed card has been put on auction and is pushing to nearly $200,000 with a few days left to climb. Dominguez’s card is drawing comparable prices to Rays phenom Wander Franco and Nationals superstar Juan Soto, albeit with a slightly higher rarity to his specific card.