Yeah the assumption all along was that this was the CBA where the players finally make up ground but it appears MLB was never especially interested in giving any, and in fact, wants to continue the wins they've already been having.
Based on the way things went during the lockout not sure ownership is bluffing about cancelling games. They will exchange lost games/revenue for not having to pay salaries,not to mention in exchange for all the money they expect to pocket over the course of the CBA by not budging on some things.
And meanwhile if you are the players you probably don't want longer than a three-week spring training anyway, since you're not paid.
Though I'm not sure the pandemic example applies; in that case there had already been almost a month of spring training previously. May not have been useful in terms of actually preparing the players to step on the field but all the administrative and medical stuff was already done, and there had been informal workouts and even several small rounds of cuts and reassignments to minor league camp.
