The scheduled start of spring training is a week away, yet owners continue to lock out the players with the sides unable to settle on a new collective bargaining agreement. The parties are talking, but progress has been slow. Very slow.

One of those in the room during negotiations is 36-year-old free-agent reliever Andrew Miller, one of eight players on the executive board of the MLBPA.

Late last week, Miller agreed to answer questions about the negotiations, though without going into much detail about specific proposals that are on the table.

Where do things stand?

We're in a lockout, which we don't have to be. The owners have decided to use that as a form of leverage against us. We aren't allowed in the facilities or can communicate [with coaches], so the lockout is a separate story but we are negotiating [re CBA]. Nobody has taken the ball and run home. Ideally, we get to a deal, but that portion [the lockout] of the situation is controlled by ownership.

Our CBA is up. In some ways, a lot of it is financial but we feel like we've been screaming this from the top of the rooftop, we have major concerns about the competition throughout the league. Tanking has become far too common of a term. There are all sorts of pieces. There's major topics fans will understand and things are kind of behind the scenes. There are a lot of moving pieces.