That's a good take. Kinda hard to show up in Arbitration hearing and argue for something when you can't pitch. Means should just take the 2.7M at this point.
In theory the hearing should proceed based only on prior facts, ignoring 2022, as that's what the decision is supposed to be based on. In reality that's hard to do, it's like telling a jury to simply ignore that damning confession that they heard but weren't supposed to.
I could almost see an arbitrator going further the other way in Means' favor, almost to show everyone that they are definitely not being biased by 2022. So I wouldn't necessarily give up yet. But people with these types of jobs are supposed to be able to figure out the appropriate weight to give to things.