Major League Baseball and the MLB Players’ Association have reportedly made progress on a new collective bargaining agreement that will end the owner’s lockout following Monday’s marathon negotiation session, which lasted until early in the morning. Initially, the MLB set a deadline of Monday (February 28) to reach an agreement before canceling the regular season matches and postponing the 2022 Opening Day. However, the league’s self-imposed deadline was postponed until 17:00 ET on Tuesday, according to Jeff Passan of ESPNand the parties will keep talking all day.
The MLB and MLBPA spent more than 16 hours at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Florida, on Monday before calling it ET at about 2:30 p.m. As for the progress made during the marathons on Monday / Tuesday early in the morning, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that there has been “some progress” but “major gaps remain in key areas”.
MLB began negotiations on Monday, informing MLBPA that it was ready to miss the games for a month and taking a more threatening tone, according to Evan Drelic of The Athletic. Hours later, numerous reports said the two sides had agreed on an expanded play-off format with 12 teams. However, discussions on the issue of the competitive balance tax (also known as the luxury tax) – and the related sanctions for exceeding this threshold – continue.
Where MLB, MLBPA are still divided
- Competitive balance tax: The “tax on luxury” of baseball was a problematic point in the negotiations. Owners want to keep the CBT threshold low and penalties high, so it serves as a de facto wage ceiling. The MLBPA aims to raise the threshold to $ 230 million, for John Heyman of MLB Network. The owners want that figure to be close to $ 220 million.
- Minimum wage: MLBPA insists on raising the league’s minimum wage – the lowest of the four major men’s sports in the United States in 2021 – $ 575,500 – to over $ 700,000 in 2022. MLB’s latest offer reached $ 675,000 for Drellich.
- Bonus pool for pre-arbitration players: Another way the union wants to get paid for younger players is through a bonus pool for the best players who do not yet qualify for arbitration (meaning they have less than three years of service ). The latest MLB figure for the bonus pool is $ 25 million, according to Heyman.
More trivial issues, such as restrictions on moving to defense, were also reportedly part of the discussions. There were a total of 13 separate face-to-face meetings between the two countries at the spring training base on Monday. The bottom line is that there is a glimmer of hope that the season will start as planned on March 31, but there is still hard work on Tuesday when the parties meet again.
CBS Sports provided a timeline of the block here, but the short version is that the owners put the padlocks on when the previous CBA expired on December 1 – exactly three months ago. They were not obliged to do so, but this was described as a defensive maneuver. The league then waited more than six weeks to make its first offer. Since then, the two sides have held a number of personal talks, some of which are major obstacles, including a tax on the competitive balance; revenue sharing; the breakdown of players qualifying for Super Two status in arbitration; and the league – the minimum wage.
CBS Sports provides live updates for Tuesday’s talks. You can follow below.