MLB extends game cancellation deadline
JUPITER, Florida – Major League Baseball will cancel the first two series of the 2022 regular season on Tuesday after failing to reach a new collective bargaining agreement with the players’ union by a self-imposed deadline, Commissioner Rob Manfred told a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
After Monday’s negotiating day was extended to Tuesday and finally ended at 2:30 a.m., the league canceled its previous self-imposed deadline on Monday to reach a deal with the union to start the regular season, scheduled for March 31. Instead of canceling matches as threatened, the league said the new deadline would be 5pm on Tuesday.
Reason for extension: A league spokesman, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, said the countries have made progress and want to exhaust every possibility of reaching an agreement. But an employee of the players’ union, who spoke on condition of anonymity, given the sensitive nature of the negotiations, expressed caution against muted optimism about the significant gaps that remain.
And after several meetings and a counter-proposal by the union on Tuesday afternoon, hostility between the parties intensified in the last hours before the MLB deadline.
As a result, the league will have its first canceled matches of the regular season due to work stoppages following the 1994-95 players’ strike, which resulted in the loss of more than 900 matches, including the 1994 World Series. is the second longest work stoppage in baseball history, although it occurs mostly in the off-season.
MLB updates out of season
After hearing the union’s proposal on Tuesday, a league spokesman said, MLB believes the union’s tone has changed and that it has made proposals that are inconsistent with previous discussions. He therefore issued another ultimatum on behalf of the league: MLB will present its “best and final” offer before the 17:00 deadline.
However, the union employee did not agree. The union’s concerns about differences in countries’ views on issues such as the luxury tax system, minimum wages and the bonus fund for young players were the same. He believed that MLB wanted to shift both the pressure and the blame on the players in case the matches were missed.
And when MLB’s so-called best and final offer came around 3:30 p.m., a few more increases were not enough for the union. The bonus pool for top players who do not yet qualify for salary arbitrage has increased by $ 5 million to the proposed $ 30 million, without annual increases. (The union reduced its claim from $ 115 million to $ 85 million, an annual increase of $ 5 million.)
The countries also remained close to $ 20 million to $ 30 million each in terms of luxury tax thresholds and $ 25,000 separately for minimum starting wages ($ 700,000 vs. $ 725,000). The league estimates its offer as providing several hundred million dollars to players, while players do not think it sufficiently meets their concerns.
In the last iteration of the package, the countries focused on expanding the playoffs to 12 of the current 10. MLB was looking for a post-season team with 14 teams, a leap that players thought would reduce competition in the 30-man squad and the value of the regular season.
So after talking to players’ representatives before the 5 pm deadline, they decided to reject the offer. Leading negotiator Bruce Meyer called his MLB colleague Dan Hallem with the news. The union’s negotiating team planned to return home the next day, with talks expected to resume elsewhere at a time to be determined.
The attempt to save the scheduled start of the 2022 season with nine days of negotiations here failed. After making little progress with the union during talks in Florida last week, the league has doubled its position with the threat of canceling matches. If that happens, the league’s players’ union has warned, players will not be paid for missed matches and will not be rescheduled.
The union rejected the deadline – there was no demand to cancel the games and thought the games could be rescheduled – but the initial 11 a.m. threat seemed to prompt action. The parties negotiated for 16 hours on Monday – although most of the time was spent in personal meetings and preparing proposals. But two top players, drinking veterans Andrew Miller and Max Scherzer, and one of the best property representatives, Dick Montfort of Colorado Rockies, remained at the stadium until early Tuesday morning.
The players have been without a contract for three months. When the parties failed to achieve a new five-year CBA before the expiration of the old one on December 1, Manfred blocked the players the next day, bringing the sport to a standstill and halting all transactions and interactions with players. He then said he was doing so to stimulate negotiations and defend the 2022 season.
When the countries remained strong in early February, Manfred said the loss of regular season matches would be “catastrophic” for the industry. Weeks later, however, baseball issued a threat to cancel the games.
The current labor negotiations were not expected to be easy. The last two collective agreements were seen as further tilting the balance of power and the economy in favor of the owners. Realizing that significant changes in the system would be tense and full of margins, the union spent years building a black day fund just to fight MLB owners who ran $ 11 billion a year before the coronavirus pandemic.
Initially, MLB chose Monday as the deadline because it believed that the minimum duration of spring training of four weeks – two weeks shorter than normal – makes sense to avoid a jump in injuries like the one before the pandemic regular season of 60 games in 2020 As it became clear – despite some progress and an exchange of proposals – that the deal was not nearing completion, MLB told the union it was extending its term.
But on Tuesday, any semblance of progress – depending on the point of view – was replaced by the reality that the games would be lost.
