Major League Baseball and the Player’s Association have scheduled a negotiation session for 1:00pm ET on Thursday in New York, per USA Today’s Bob Nightengale. For those keeping score at home, Nightengale adds that tomorrow’s meeting will be the sixth session between both parties to discuss the sport’s next CBA since MLB instituted baseball’s lockout 78 days ago.
As disheartening as the frequency of these negotiating sessions has been, it could be an encouraging sign that tomorrow’s session will take place just five days after the two sides last convened. Last Saturday’s meeting revealed some minor concessions but didn’t yield much cause for optimism, as it lasted less than an hour and left both sides some mix of “unimpressed” and “underwhelmed”.
One reason for last weekend’s uneventful session was a continued disparity between how each party would like to alter the Competitive Tax Threshold. MLB proposed the luxury tax threshold increase to $222MM by 2026, with disincentives that would likely stop teams from crossing that threshold. The Player’s Association meanwhile would like to see team spending incentivized, not punished, and have been seeking a new tax threshold ending at $273MM in 2026.
As large as that $51MM gap between each side’s tax threshold proposal may appear, it pales in comparison to the $85MM gap between exchanged bonus pool figures. A bonus pool funded by central revenues to reward high-performing, pre-arbitration players has been one concept already agreed to by both parties, though how much these players should be rewarded is clearly a divisive subject. The Player’s Association lowered their bonus pool number by $5MM to $100MM to be divided amongst pre-arb performers, while MLB raised their proposal from $10MM to $15MM.
Further discussed topics included a raise to the league minimum, limiting the amount of times players can be optioned in a single season, and changes in the signing process of drafted and international amateurs. Fortunately, there seems to be mutual amenability to adjusting all three of these topics in the next collective bargaining agreement. However, as we’ve seen with previously suggested CBA changes like implementing a universal DH, even when both sides generally agree on a subject it’s no slam dunk they’ll see eye to eye to the point of implementation.
As is often the case with negotiations it may only take one new concession to start a chain reaction of agreements that, in this case, will ultimately lead to a new CBA. For either side to concede much of anything, they’ll need to meet at the bargaining table. Tomorrow’s sit-down then is certainly a welcome sight for the droves of fans who are skeptical a new CBA can be reached in time for the season to begin when originally scheduled on March 31.
In other words: Nothing is going to happen Thursday. Just bring in the replacement players already. Tell the other players they are welcome to come back and play for their paychecks as soon as they leave the union. Otherwise, they can go play in Japan for less money.
Replacement players is a net negative for owners. They have to pay to operate the stadiums, which is a massive expense, but few fans come, and their TV contract partners sue them for not producing the promised content. Bad, bad deal.
The courts already blocked using replacement players because MLB operates as a government sanctioned monopoly. People always forget this when they carry water and fans for ownership.
Completely false. The court’s ruling in 1995 was simply a temporary injunction that required the owners to reinstate the terms of the expired collective agreement – and made no mention at all of ‘government-sanctioned monopoly’. In fact, Justice Sotomayor was at the time pondering whether salary arbitration should be left out of the order. Her order had nothing to do with what you claim. She was enforcing an NLRB judgment that had been made and that also had nothing to do with your claims.
archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/spo…
One thing about those of us who ‘shill for the clubs’ and “fans (sic) for ownership”. We know and rely upon facts rather than making up or repeating internet BS.
I have said it before and will say it again. The players are going to get crushed in the PR battle. They are making millions while millions at average folks and a all businesses are struggling to make ends meet. The owners aren’t perfect, but they are the ones risking money. If p,Ayer’s keep rejecting offers of mediation, they will look even worse.
Not sure if you just crawled out from under a rock
The players are generally not viewed as the villain in this situation. Owners have sewn distrust among players and fans dating back to at least the previous CBA and are currently making bad faith offers to the MLBPA
@Best Screenameever: I was just reading that article the other day. You’re right. It wasn’t some kind of law she passed preventing scabs from ever being hired. That was a ruling for a single particular dispute and has virtually no bearing at all for what’s taking place now. I love the idea if replacement players. Some of them end up being very good and would never have had a shot otherwise. The other thing is that bringing in replacements makes a lot of current players want to come and finish out their contract. Most of them would. If the owners stopped negotiating with the union and only dealt with players by negotiating their contracts individually a lot fewer work stoppages would occur. The players would decide if it is in their sole best interest to play out the contract. The players who don’t feel it is wouldn’t have to show up and the players who do feel it is could decide their own future. The vast majority of players would decide that it is in their best interest and would come to work. If the “collective” bargaining were replaced with individual bargaining, work stoppages would be a thing if the past. Permanently ending work stoppages is how the fans win. I will choose the fans winning over the players winning or the owners winning every single time.
Wait, in what sense aren’t the players risking money?
Arnold: Your point is valid and anyone predisposed to the owners’ worldview will certainly see it that way. Many that are begging to scrape by may as well. But I think we underestimate the public’s ability to navigate through the “soft” smokescreens and look to the overall issues on both sides.
MLB isn’t struggling to make ends meet though, and corporate America has grown wildly unpopular because of perceived power grabs and trust issues, especially in today’s epoch. I think the money-grab by the owners is what’s going to bite them just as hard, but they can’t perceive it.
Hammer, that might be the worst idea I’ve heard during the lockout. Just to be clear, your plan is union busting and scabs, cool.
How are the fans winning by watching replacement level players instead of Fernando Tatis, Vlad Guerrero, Bryce Harper, you want me to go on? You already can have your wish and go watch A ball (which isn’t unionized, just like you want) wile the rest of us go to MLB baseball after a 2 week delay.
Also Hammer, where are you going to find these replacement players? Anyone who signs will be forfeiting any future MLB career they may have hoped for, this leaving you rosters of former players and worse than low A ball players as seen during ‘95 spring training, and you call this a win for the fans?
You really think a player like Fernando Tatis Jr (who hasn’t made much money yet at all but has over $330 million in guaranteed money waiting for him I he just shows up to work) is just going to piss his contract away? He would definitely come back for that money. The vast majority of players would come back for there money. Unions have been destroying American production for years. Why do you think the American Auto Industry has been getting destroyed by Japan for all these decades? They wouldn’t really even need replacement players because pretty much all the players would stay.
Hammer, in your scenario, owners win.
I have no clue what you’re trying to say, Hammer. You painted the hypothetical scenario and keep talking about how bad you want to watch replacement players that aren’t part of a union, I’m just saying you can already do that by watching amateur ball. If you think that’s the dream scenario and that unions are ruining the country then please quit supporting this league and go watch amateur ball and comment your wild theories on their sites.
Replacement players are only an option during a strike. The MLB instituted a lockout.
Here is a great article from Tim explaining the difference: mlbtraderumors.com/2022/02/mlb-strikes-2022-lockou…
@Superstar: That is true as well. If the owners just refused to ever negotiate with the union they would have to lift the lockout and the replacement players would only be brought in if there were some players who refused to show up. What the league would have to do is enforce a rule that states any time and individual player refuses to show up it could result in that players future guaranteed money potentially being terminated due to violation of contract. They are instituting a lockout now because they are afraid the players will come in and play but when the playoffs start they would decide to strike to cut off the owners largest source of income at the ex act worse moment. The best way to avoid that and treat the players individually. Any player who ever does that can have his guaranteed money terminated while the individual team he bailed out on still owns the rights to that player because he wouldn’t accrue any service time for games he didn’t show up. That way players wouldn’t be able to breech their contract and just jump right back in the free agent market unless they choose to go to a different league. If the players decide they want to go to a different league that should obviously always be allowed. Work stoppages would end though if MLB owners stopped letting players tell them how to run their own league. If players don’t want to play in a league with MLB rules there are plenty of other professional leagues they can join. Most will stay though because MLB already treats baseball players a whole heck of a lot better than any other league will.
Temporary replacement workers can be used during a strike or a lockout. It makes no difference at all.
I don’t see the part of Tim’s article that says anything different to what I just said, but perhaps I’ve missed it. In any event, to be fair to Tim, he’s not holding himself out to be an expert in labor law and is instead trying along with others to learn as he goes. He seems like a good guy trying to do a good job keeping the site as informative as he can.
Both sides have a duty to bargain in good faith, which they have done. If the union and the clubs cannot agree on a new cba, the clubs are free to lockout and to use ‘temporary replacement workers’ which really means players in the minors not on the 40-man (many of whom will eventually come up anyway) and from elsewhere.
T’he union could always complain to the NLRB that the clubs are trying to bust the union, but in this case such a claim would look ridiculous. It was the MBPA that came to the table with its laundry list of ‘game-changer’ proposals – changing free agency, arbitration, the draft, service time, etc etc etc. Then you have the internet Clown Show of players like Max Scherzer, who just signed for the highest AAV ever, saying that salaries have to be artificially inflated further by having rebuilding clubs forced to sign players they don’t want. The union would look foolish trying to argue that the bargaining impasse arose for bad faith reasons on the clubs part.
Practically, it’s doubtful the clubs would use replacement players in 2022, but they may well in 2023 if the MLBPA Clown Show continues. In that event, the players will decertify MLBPA, just like the umpires did twenty years ago.
Let’s not forget that Rob Manfred has had three decades of getting to a deal. He’s not out to bust the union, show anybody up or miss games. Three decades. If there is anyone in the sports world able to get to the part where both sides sign on the line it’s him. When he became Commissioner, some of the clubs were afraid that he was too much of a deal-maker and would be to0 pro-player. It’s truly bizarre that he’s vilified by the ignorant.
Bringing in replacement players at this point would be the swan song of baseball. Viewership and interest in the sport is declining, putting anyone other than the top talent might allow games to happen, but the viewership, attendance, and sponsorships would nose dive, Then that Billion dollar industry would shrivel up and the owners will find a lot of their value gone. The owners are accustomed to falling back on the popularity of the sport to hold their bargaining position. But that fall back is weaker now than it has ever been. The cold hard truth is, both sides need this deal to work. The arrogance on both sides is going to doom a sport loved by millions.
It will go 3hr.
Over or under an hour and five minute meeting? I’m going under.
With no baseball going on and no real news, I’m itching. I’ll take that action!
I’m taking the over: 1hr and 15min meeting
Under
1 hour 4 mins and 55 seconds
I’ll take the over, owner’s will listen for 58 minutes and then peruse the lunch menu for 8 minutes before calling it a day.
I’m going under as well. The important question is if the league rents the hotel conference room for an hour but leave after 56 minutes are they still on the hook for the whole 60 minutes?
Lock the clowns in a room and don’t let them out till they have it figured out.
Nah. Not gonna happen. Owners can taste the money that will come from an essentially hard cap, and have no intention of reversing what’s really worked out for them over the last few years–use cheap younger players while playing service time games with the ones who have promise, and don’t bother worrying about putting a competitive team out there if it’s more profitable to lose. They aren’t giving those things up.
Except the losses to franchise values if there is a year long lock out is in the multi-billions. At least hundreds of millions per owner. Takes many years of hard caps (far more years than the CBA will run) to make that up.
Thats all imaginary money and the reality is you dont own sports teams with the intent to profit on a future franchise sale
unless you are being sarcastic the might be the worst, most ill informed take on this website today and that’s saying something…
Yawn!
Lock em up until a deal is reached
Juan Soto turned down 350 million for 13 years.
Good for him. He should get more
I expect some real movement on the starting salary, bonus pool, tax theshold tomorrow!
About two hours ago I heard Danny Jansen on a local radio show say , regarding negotiations, “things are really rolling fast “ or such , let’s hope so. Actually took the hosts off guard.
Just for some perspective. Hosts asked Danny about the 4 week minimum preparation for spring training alluded to by Manbun. Asked will that be feasible given the state of negotiations. That’s when Danny said he thinks plenty of time for spring training as “ negotiations moving really fast “. I’m paraphrasing but that was the drift.
I tend to be believe it to be honest. I think the situation reads as showing a big gap, but it’s more like medium sized gaps in small areas. to a certain extent the players have budged and the owners seem to be more willing to avoid missing gaps. i dont see this myself as a Thursday and done thing, but the wording on how the players felt from the last proposal didnt suggest they figured no ground had been made up.
Oh cool they’re going to reject a new proposal tomorrow.
Great article Sean- thanks. And I SUPPORT THE OWNERS- ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
you’ve made your support and no one cares.
I do. He’s right. The players have become a bunch of pampered, spoiled brats.
so I guess the two of you can hangout and reminisce about the good old days when players “stayed in their lane” and gas was 12cents a gallon. The owners have continue to be duplicitous and lack transparency in all their dealings with the players.
Manbun will make a deal. I’ll tell you why Other day he made this long winding speech as to how he’s done four labour deals and he’s the man. I’ll get it done.
Lol what an ego but nonetheless after that diatribe he has to cut a deal. Knows shrewdly already where the deal is. The man wants to be a hero , say I told u I’d get it done.
Deal soon.
I support the players. Ask for it all and take what you can get! Keep the old CBT penalties and raise it to 228m followed by 2m yearly increases to 240m! That oughta prompt Chiam to finally ink a mega deal! Go SOX!!!
Philosophically, I don’t understand the owners resistance to moving the cap up, even substantially. It’s not as though the owners/teams HAVE to spend that kind of money; teams are still free to spend much less if they so choose. So, give in to the players on that, and take the win on another issue. And if teams want to go nuts and spend up to or over even an elevated cap, so be it. Spending a lot of money doesn’t mean a championship. What am I missing here?
beyou02215, you are correct. Just because a team spends like the Yankees doesn’t mean they’ll win like the Rays. No one is telling an owner who feels he isn’t making enough profit to hold on to the team. He’s free to sell. MLB won’t force an owner to keep a team.
The low revenue teams are driving this bus right now. They feel helpless and unable to compete except in brief windows and they don’t want the high revenue teams to increase the gap between them even more. That would force them to spend beyond their means. The really low revenue teams only make 10-20m profit or something, if that. They really don’t have room to compete. At least that’s what they say. What I suspect will happen is the high revenue teams will take the reins at some point, make a deal, and compensate the low revenue teams via revenue sharing. Basically bribe the low revenue guys by putting a bunch of green directly into their pockets. That’s the way it’s always been done.
@seamaholic 2, as far as the Rays go, I would disagree. Over the last five seasons, 2017-2021, the Yankees have won the most games in the AL East, 419-289 (.592) while Rays were second, were 406-302 (.573). The Yankees spent a ton more money on their team and came away with 13 more wins in 5 years than Tampa Bay. Take a step back and look at the situation, if the Rays had spent more money on their roster and brought it up to ML average rather than dumping salary, isn’t it possible they would have won more games during the regular season? Remembery, they let Charlie Morton walk at the end of the 2020 season when they held a team friendly option. Isn’t it possible they would have had a better shot in the post season filling in a void here and there? FWIW, during that time the Red Sox were 401-307 (.566) winning 5 games less over that time frame than the Rays.
The low revenue teams want a cap so the high revenue teams don’t just blow them out of the water.
And honestly some high revenue teams want it so they have a built in excuse to spend less. They can convince some fans who don’t really know the rules that the penalties are draconian if they go over the magic 210 number. Suggest you’re losing draft picks and fans will buy in.
I feel the same about just raising the tax threshold. The past 3 years only 3 teams each year went over the tax and about 3-5 teams were within 10 million of it. After that it’s a pretty steep drop off. To me that says 75% of the teams aren’t even getting close right now and at least half the league never will. So why not just raise it and let the teams decide after if they want to spend upto or over it?
It would be interesting to know which part of ownership is fighting to keep the tax low. Is it the large market teams because they want a reason to not spend more or the smaller markets not wanting larger markets to be able to sign more players without a penalty? Honestly that has been my only major issue with the players during this mess. They keep saying they want to ensure competitive balance but raising the threshold and lowering the penalties would just open it up for the high payroll teams to continue to spend and potentially spend more. That would allow them to sign more of the better free agents and even though you don’t have to spend alot to win it sure can make it easier. That sounds like the opposite of competitive balance to me.
Owners to players:
“Okay, we’ve revamped our offer and we think it’s a major win for both sides. We’ve decided to increase the CBT tax on all three tiers and forego the comp picks for any FA! You’re welcome!”
……..crickets……..
As we get closer to lost revenue (Game tickets, hot dogs…, paychecks). The need to get serious intensifies.
I support the players (for the first time), the owner have shown the true face.
GREED.
Im interested in why you feel that way… the players are looking to massively change the balance that has existed up to this point. The only defense they give for that is they were poor negotiators last time around. That isnt compelling to me.
Supplaner, the owners have in previous offers done away with service time parameters to move to an age based system, eliminated the arbitration system and replaced it with being based on a formula, instituted an international draft where there was none before, and they aren’t looking to massively change the balance of things? Those seem like pretty one sided offers to me. If they didn’t think it would benefit their side it wouldn’t have been offered. Which I know how things go in negotiations and the players are pushing hard for their side as well, but for you to make the comment that only one side is doing drastic things is off base.
Ok, I’ll mediate for you and help hammer this BS out…
What Players want:
1. Increase player minimum salary to approx $750k
2. Increase minimum tax threshold
3. Allow arbitration after 2 years instead of 3 years
4. Put an end to tanking by changing the way the draft picks are assigned
5. Changes to the way service time is calculated
6. Bonus Pool of $100M per year (3.3M per team)
My answers:
1. Increase minimum to $650k year 1.
825k year 2.
1M year 3.
with inflation increase of 2.5% per year.
2. Minimum Floor of 100M
3. No 2 year decrease, but year 3rd year additional bonus based on top 3 awards, and WAR (from “Bonus Pool”)
4. Bottom 3 teams move to 10, 12, 15th pick
– if in bottom 3, 3 years in a row, loss of 1st draft pick
5. 4 should fix 5
6. Bonus pool of $30M ($1M per team) increasing 5% per year.
What owner’s rebuttal’d
1. Salary floor of $100M
2. Increase luxury tax $12M over next 5 years (players want $63M increase)
3. Expand the post season
4. Introduce an international draft
5. Bonus Pool of $15M (500k per team)
My answers:
1. Done.
2. Owners want 12M increase, players want 63M, meet halfway at 35M (like last CBA)
3. Done
4. Done
5. See answers above
That was easy. While we’re at it, let’s clean these up:
Other Problems with baseball
1. Long contracts handicap teams
– Surgeries/IL over 60 days no longer count towards Lux cap
2. No more “Opt outs”.
-Go back to Player/team/mutual options only and incentives..
3. Universal DH (almost there already)
4. Pitch clocks (in all levels minors and majors)
5. Extra innings man on 2nd.
-I liked it, made extra innings more interesting. Saves bullpens. Not applicable for playoffs.
6. 3 batter minimum/or finish inning
-not applicable in post season.
7. Infield shift
– allow shift, but no players out of dirt
8. Robotic strike zone in all levels of minors. Implementation in MLB in 2 years.
Other small things
Season: April-September. Playoffs in October (No November)
Offseason transaction deadline.
1. Free agents from 5 days after World Series through 11/30 (multi-year deals only)
2. Trades (winter meetings) available through 12/31.
3. 1 year deals deadline 1/31
4. That leaves February for minor League deals, setting the rosters and Spring training arrivals.
5. All Star weekend is the draft AND “new””International Draft.
You’re welcome.
My answer: Just trash the entire thing and see how little the country cares. And the OWNERS know it and also know that they could be making more doing other things.
you apparently care enough to beat your chest and type in all caps on a baseball site…
The players would never ever (1000 more evers) agree to your offseason transaction calendar. Owners would squeeze the players for all they could if there was a deadline to sign multi-year deals and then another for major league deals entirely.
“Sign this lowball offer today or you’ll only be able to sign a 1 year deal tomorrow”.
That’s just awful. Even the offseason trade deadline. Aaron Boone hurts himself playing basketball and the Yankees have to just sign some minor league. No ARod trade allowed? Why fix something that isn’t broken?
No one said “Thank you.”
The owners offer stinks. The more I learn about the less I think the owners are being genuine.
The owners want an additional $100M from expanded postseason, revenue from patches on uniforms, and an international draft that will reduce costs and further accelerate tanking.
They’ve offered the players a minimum salary that is a pay cut factoring in inflation, and a tiny pool of money for certain younger players, and.a Universal DH that benefits owners as much as players.
Let me know when the owners get serious.
It’s nice we’re still treating this as an honest, serious, good faith negotiation. Rather than what it is.
This appears to be the end for MLB. It’s time to take up jet skiing.
Say, what are your thoughts on rugby? If the US were to develop a top-flight rugby league I’d want to watch it.
If it’s truly the end of MLB then there no excuse for the owners not to give the MiLB guys a raise.
“I make peanuts and drive a 2006 Chevy Cavalier, if it’s good enough for me, it’s good enough for Major League baseball players!!!”
“The players are all greedy!!! Not like those noble saint like owners!!!”
Hopefully we don’t hear an update for a long time today.
And the meeting is over. 15 minutes. Good work guys.