12:28pm: The union has received MLB’s new counterproposal, tweets ESPN’s Marly Rivera.
10:43am: The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal tweets that with the international draft and qualifying offer disagreements now resolved, the league is preparing to make a “full proposal” to the union. As of this writing, MLB had not yet countered the final proposal received by the MLBPA yesterday.
10:29am: Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association have reached a provisional agreement regarding the international draft, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan (Twitter thread). The two parties have set a July 25 deadline to determine the specifics of an international draft that would go into effect beginning in 2024. If a deal on the draft is reached by July 25, the qualifying offer system and the associated draft-pick compensation will be eliminated. If the two sides do not reach a deal on the draft, the qualifying offer system will remain in place — as will the current international amateur free agency structure.
While this is a step shy of an agreement to actually implement the draft itself, it’s nevertheless a major hurdle that has been cleared on the path to the ratification of a new collective bargaining agreement. Discord regarding the league’s desire to trade the elimination of the qualifying offer system for an international draft yesterday derailed talks and led to commissioner Rob Manfred further postponing Opening Day until April 14. The MLBPA’s final proposal to the league included a similar provision to the one agreed upon today, with a Nov. 15 deadline to agree to the draft instead of the newly proposed July 25 deadline.
With the theatrics surrounding the theoretical international draft’s implementation and the qualifying offer system now set to the side, it would appear, ostensibly, that the focus can shift back to the core economic issues that have been the crux of recent negotiations. While the international draft was framed as a sticking point yesterday and garnered a huge portion of the attention, there are still some gaps to bridge on key economic issues such as the competitive balance (luxury) tax thresholds, the newly proposed bonus pool for pre-arbitration players and, to a lesser extent on the league-minimum salary.
As of yesterday afternoon, the MLBPA had dropped its asks on the new CBT thresholds to $232MM in 2022, $235MM in 2023, $240MM in 2024, $245MM in 2025 and $250MM in 2026. The league’s prior proposal included proposed thresholds of $230MM, $232MM, $236MM, $240MM and $242MM over those respective years. In essence, the two parties face respective gaps of $2MM, $3MM, $4MM, $5MM and $8MM in that five-year span.
There’s a wider rift on the pre-arbitration bonus pool, with the union yesterday dropping its proposal to $65MM (presumably with the same $5MM annual increase previously sought). Ownership, meanwhile, has countered with a flat $40MM pool that will not increase at all over the CBA’s five-year term. That $25MM gap is sizable on the surface, though it does boil down to a matter of $833K per team — scarcely more than the new league-minimum salaries that will be going into place.
On that note, MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes reported yesterday that the MLBPA had dropped its proposed league-minimum salary to $710K — narrowing what was a $25K gap to just a $10K gap between MLB’s proposed minimum of $700K. Both parties have agreed that the minimum salary would rise by $70K over the five-year life of the CBA, so the difference at this point rests solely on that small difference in starting point. Of all the issues, this would seem to be far and away the simplest to bridge.
It’s hard not to be encouraged by progress surrounding what had emerged as a major roadblock, but optimism should still be tempered. The gaps on the CBT threshold and, particularly, the bonus pool for pre-arbitration players are still relatively prominent, and there’s no indication yet as to the extent to which MLB will move in its forthcoming proposal. It’s also eminently possible that additional hurdles will arise. Few foresaw the international draft playing such a prominent role prior to this week.
A pair of issues that shouldn’t serve as an obstacle, Dierkes further reports (via Twitter), are on-uniform advertising patches and the Athletics’ revenue-sharing status. Yesterday’s MLBPA proposal agreed to allowing advertising on player uniforms, and the union also agreed to reinstate the Athletics as a revenue-sharing recipient. Oakland did not receive revenue-sharing funds in 2021 or in 2020. They’d seen a reduced share in 2017-19, under the terms of the previous CBA — a penalty levied due to questions about whether the team had sufficiently invested those funds back into the on-field product and whether they’d made their best efforts to secure a new stadium.
Time will tell just what the owners’ latest offer brings, but even tempered optimism is a welcome change from last night’s tenor. Whenever the two parties finally reach an agreement, the floodgates could well open in a hurry. Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci said in an appearance on MLB Network this morning that free agency could potentially reopen the same day that an agreement is reached, for instance (Twitter link via MLB Network’s Jon Morosi). And it’s worth noting, too, that The Athletic’s Jayson Stark tweeted this morning that the league still viewed a 162-game season as a possibility.
It’d be premature to say an agreement is nigh, but the breakthrough from yesterday’s most prominent roadblock is a breath of fresh air as an increasingly stagnant lockout reaches its 99th day.
HURRY UP AND START THE SEASON!
This is good progress
Surprising and welcome.
Can someone explain why there are two systems, one for U.S. players and one for International?
Sometimes you have accept the fact certain things don’t make sense.
Pretty simple. The domestic draft was implemented by MLB / owners before the union existed, in 1965. I don’t know how much that had to do with the push for unionizing rather than other economic issues, but that players until then could at least initially pick which org they signed with likely had something to do with the push for free agency and then other rules governing their employment.
But international players weren’t such a priority at that point.
Once the union was able to assert itself in a negotiating position in 1968 all these issues became subject to collective bargaining. Wasn’t a significant push for an international draft by the owners until later. And the union wouldn’t agree to it. I guess they place a value on at least some freedom of choice where they still have it. Hence the owners throwing money at the issue as a tradeoff.
deweybelongsinthehall
Can someone explain why there are two systems, one for U.S. players and one for International?
==========================================
Basically, two different countries with two different systems, and a huge disparity in wealth.
The US is a development machine for sports. B-ball players get followed in grammar school. Baseball players will get noticed in early HS. Every HS has a team, with a field, and equipment. Summer leagues abound. Depending on the level of talent, some kids will get personal trainers.
The DR doesn’t have that type of infrastructure. A talented 15 year old in the DR has to go to a buscone for development. They won’t do anything unless there is a promise of payment at the end of the process. And like everything else, I’m sure some are bad, good and indifferent.
It’s going to be bad going through an underground system with little visibility and accountability, and it will be if it is nothing more than a draft, without a support system.
Wouldn’t that be interesting… folding them all into one draft…. I like the idea.
LALA land. That’s fine. But you can’t say out of one side of your mouth you care about competitive balance and then say out the other that you have an issue with the draft.
As I said earlier, i would have respected the players more if they wanted to do away with the American draft.
From the beginning I’ve said that both sides are full of crap, and without a doubt, that’s true.
JB:. either way, there should be a unified system that pays based on draft order. One system based on age with two separate drafts. if I was playing and in American I’d have been pissed when Boston spent big-time on international players. Just seems unfair.
I agree, hopefully 3 or 4 days away from an agreement. Finally feeling like it’s time to do some fantasy prep.
Was that so tough?
Now we just need the reps to let the players vote on it.
Bill DeWitt was so hoping to not have to issue refunds on the Christmas season ticket purchases, he was so hoping that. That was all the Cardinals cared about in their letter about hopefully starting the home opener on time. Everyone else who was doling out refunds already ah oh well at least our home opener hadn’t been effected yet. RIP baseball, you are already missed
Hippyripper
RIP baseball, you are already missed
=====================================
In that case, take care and have a good life. I don’t understand why folks would quit because BB starts 1-2 weeks late, but I also don’t spend much time trying to figure out what drives other people.
If this thing starts on 4/15, I’ll be off that day, beer in hand. If they only play 154 instead of 162, I couldn’t care less.
Good, that wasn’t so hard. Get ready for trade deadline-like flurry of acquisitions.
This doesn’t mean a deal is imminent.
Yes, it does.
It does not but it does give the impression they are heading in the correct direction. If the league gives the players 162 games then it could get done very soon.
Deal will be done today after that 8% inflation report. Someone said start spring training Sunday. Starts tomorrow. Must report by 6 am Saturday.
I think they’ll have a tentative agreement by tomorrow. Spring training by Monday.
I believe they will be reporting tomorrow, most players are already in Arizona & Florida, sure there will be guys who won’t get there until next , let’s get this wild Free Agent 2nd season started
The CBA really ties the room together
@brew, Is this your homework?
If settled I suspect in 48 hours we’ll see a record number of free agent deals and trades done. I’d be 100% shocked if teams and players weren’t discussing this stuff behind the scenes throughout the lockout – not hard to have, say, a friend of the GM call a friend of the player to make an offer thus dancing around the rules. Then the minute they are allowed to talk they sit down and go ‘do you like this’ and the player already knows what other offers they have and goes ‘yep’ or ‘nope’ quickly.. Same with trades.. In a week once a deal is done teams should be set for 2022 covering the equivalent of 3 months of deals in 7 days I figure.
Players woke up and smelled the coffee.
Owners also woke up with the threat of having their anti-trust exemption threatened.
LoL no they didn’t. One politian doesn’t have that authority
The only arrangement more dysfunctional than the MLB-MLBPA relationship is that of the Senate and House.
One politician does not but I do believe this would have a domino effect, regardless things are heading towards a resolution.
LET’S GOOOOO
Amazing what you can achieve when you stop trying to win every negotiation and actually do what’s best for everyone!
So… What’s the next holdup?
Now is when everyone realizes it was never really about the draft. They’re still haggling over the numbers.
It was never about the draft.
Or ‘competition.’
Or ‘tanking.’
Or ‘fairness.’
$$$$$$$$$$
The union sees both competition and taking as $$$$$ as they relate directly to how much teams are willing to pay free agents. So, it was always about competition and tanking along with the minimum salary.
Nothing that the players are striving for will increase competition. I’m open to discussion about cutting revenue sharing will motivate teams to spend more. I don’t see it.
Bad teams will always operate the same way. Accumulate draft picks until you get better. Then start spending. Giving them worse picks simply delays the process. Reducing the amount they have available to spend, will reduce their spending.
Unless someone can explain otherwise (and I’ve never seen anyone even try), everything the players want is anti-competitive.
this feels big, even if I’m not happy about this being a thing.
DarkSide830 — ESPECIALLY with advertising on the uniforms and the playoffs expanding. GREED.
Pete’sView
DarkSide830 — ESPECIALLY with advertising on the uniforms and the playoffs expanding. GREED.
==============================
ooooooooooooo, evil corporations are advertising.
I absolutely don’t understand the thought process for people thinking putting a patch on someone’s helmet, advertising Apple, for example, is greedy.
I don’t know if you remember, but years ago there was almost no advertising in stadiums. The Angels had a Chevron sign under the Big A, then they added to Marlborough Cigarettes signs next to the auxiliary scoreboards.
Right now most uniforms contain the Nike brand sign. I don’t like that.
you get use to it. It’s not enough to go to war. If players want raises, the owners are going to counter with more revenue streams. It’s just the way it is.
I don’t even notice the Nike thing. I use the name Citifield & Shea Stadium interchangeably. Does it make even a microscopic different to me if the LV Raiders play in Raider Stadium or Allegient Stadium?
I just find it absurd that people will complain about businesses advertising. Without advertising, baseball would never have been on TV. People don’t do things for free.
There was an era with little advertising in parks, when the parks were municipally-funded multi-use parks. Back in the early 20th century the parks were full of ads though.
It’s annoying, but I’d rather have the uniforms covered in patches than some of the awkward ways they insert ads into broadcasts like sponsored on deck circles and broadcast booth names, or the computer generated ads placed on the pitcher’s mound. We’ll get both of course.
“I feel big right now not like fat like gaining weight like colossal”
Owners: Please just cancel the season. Thanks.
Bite hard on this downvote. It’s real.
Voice… Why?
He’s an idiot troll who posts the exact same thing on every article. Best to just ignore him.
You just described about 1/3 of the commenters here.
Don’t encourage him
It’s Manfred’s burner account.
For someone who clearly hates baseball, you spend an awful lot of time on it.
@voice, Today is gonna be tough for you. Your sad little world you’ve made for yourself during this negotiation is going away today. I’m sure you’ll find something else to troll about…but it won’t be this. Try to enjoy your life…if you can find a way to make it enjoyable.
The_Voice_of_STUPIDITY is in shambles now that his union-breaking fanfiction isn’t coming to fruition. Hate to see it. Now he’s gonna have to focus on real things like getting a job.
Voice, your Amazon delivery of Pokémon cards arrived.
Mets dominance on the way!
We still have work to do but the DH, as much as I hate it, will give some wiggle room. Still need pitching. I pray they figure out a way to get rid of Cano
Cano can DH.
RochesterMetsFan
Dude I like your style; if we ever meet up I will buy you a beer and a brat.
rct Cano can’t hit and please don’t quote me numbers when he was on the juice! In his last action down south this winter oh boy he had a base hit ground ball between 1st and second WOW! And batted under .260 against stick ball pitching
Kick those cans down the road. Just shows neither side was that committed to ending qualifying offer penalty or instituting the int’l draft.
The light at the end of the tunnel has turned on.
Much more intelligent than MLBPA’s clown proposal yesterday. Yesterday, they proposed having until Nov 15 to agree on a draft, and if they didn’t, MLBPA gets a free year in the 2022/23 offseason with no QO/draft pick comp. MLB told the Clowns to take a hike and canceled two more series. LOL!
This really is like a Clown Show. Every time MLBPA pulls a Clown Act now, MLB kicks them in the butt, and cancels two more series with no pay and no service time.
This one feels particularly good though, as MLBPA was trying to continue the luring and exploitation of children in Latin America, which MLB wants stopped. MLBPA had it’s ‘stars’ like Scherzer and LIndor, take to the internet with incomprehensible idiocy that made no sense.
No, the clown show is on the owners side. They were the ones who brought this up at the 11tth hour as a trade for eliminating the QO. It was the owners who put down three unpalatable options yesterday as a precondition to proceeding, one of which was to reopen the CBA after 2 years if a draft was not agreed upon.
They’ve proposed this no less than a dozen times this Winter… It’s not new. Let’s move on from the pity party. Both sides are playing games and have been the entire time to get the best deal for themselves. They just play fans for PR to soften the blowback they get from it.
They didn’t bring it up at the 11th hour. Did they also bring up the QO at the 11th hour? Give me a break.
And MLB didn’t CANCEL games, they removed games from the schedule. If this is resolved, those game will be moved.
Players 1700 games lost due to strikes.
Owners 0 games lost due to lockout.
And some people are still against the lockout.. Go figure.
The owners don’t own anything but an empty park without players on the field, and many don’t own their park. Eventually the TV revenue will dry up and they can go back to complaining how they’re losing money in some other industry.
Whereas “empty” is true from a baseball standpoint, it isn’t true from an events standpoint. Ball park owners fill the calendar with events ranging from concerts to weddings.
Players have tried to form their own leagues… it didn’t work out.
It’s a symbiotic relationship. I’m not really sure how fans miss that.
There are people that just make up their mind, and don’t bother with reasoning. Scherzer can try selling tickets to watch him pitch on the local field, and ten people will pay $10 each. Scherzer has no sellable skill without someone provided him with a ballpark and players to play against.
Exactly. People with no understanding of ‘market’ or ‘value’ think that Scherzer’s ‘market value’ is more than a few bucks. Let him put an ad up Craigslist.
Let’s see if they come up with a new issue… keep in mind , the bonus pool that the owners came up with, was at 40 million, the players who were “given” this idea, want 70 million… bottom line we all know the saying don’t count your chickens….
Hopefully they just meet at $55 million for the bonus pool.
Players last offer was $65 million, with increases of $5M per year.
Owners are at $40M with no increases.
Make it $50M, then 55, 60, 65, 70 and call it a deal.
Players want 85MM as of this morning in final year. They need to come down big time, and they seem to lack the ability to make intelligent decisions.
Let’s just hope this leads to a signed CBA and not just another issue to squabble over.
Can someone remind me what the bonus pool actually is? It’s been so long I forgot.
Money that will go to pre-arbitration players who win awards, or otherwise excel.
Bonuses for Players who are not yet eligible for arbitration. The number of players and the amounts varies by the amount of the pool, which is taken from the central fund, rather than paid by individual teams.
It currently doesn’t exist, but will allow the union leaders to award fantasy baseball stats money to prearb players.
A more reasonable approach to this topic than saying if no agreement we’ll reopen the whole CBA. I’ll take this as a positive sign, for now. The fact that the owners brought up an international draft, something the players have been opposed to at the 11th hour was not negotiating in good faith, especially since they have closed the gaps on some other issues. But given that, who knows if the owners will try to throw another monkey wrench into this or not.
I disagree. I think the owners pushed harder on the international draft once it became clear they would be spending more on player salaries than they expected. The international draft helps balance out total spending, so it makes sense that it was added late in the cycle as part of the compromise in negotiations.
This will cost the owners more money. This was/is about competitive balance.
It will definitely not cost the owners more money. Slightly higher salaries doesn’t mean higher total cost. There is a reason the owners want this.
They no longer have to spend many millions in recruiting and networking, only to have them sign elsewhere anyway. And the reported salary amounts are only the maximums, Players can still be paid underslot if they agree (ie: are pressured to do so). Just like the slot shenanigans that happen in the US draft
Players can still be paid underslot if they agree
=============================
Are you sure? Everything I read is that they are hard-coded.
reflect, regardless of how you feel about it, if they don’t agree, the compensation statue stays.
And I think all fans should be able to live with that.
Hard to imagine that is the case. Doesn’t give clubs the flexibility
they currently have in the domestic draft, where they can go over or under slot.
I don’t think so. That’s a huge part of the deal.
It’s all tactics over substance.
It will take a few years for owners to recoup the initial investment in the international draft- if they have one, but they will control costs in the long run.
The cost of scouting kids who are stashed away by Buscones can be enormous, and dangerous. MLB wants to pare down and simplify the process of gathering international talent.
Players should now be able to make an informed decision on the international draft on it’s own merits. As much as they find the mere concept of teams being penalized for signing free agents to be repugnant, it’s an issue that affects only a handful of the wealthiest players each season, and shouldn’t be worth a whole lot in terms of bargaining chips. I think they’ll come around on the draft, find any loopholes and get them fixed.
I(‘d love to see the players ask in summer that every player drafted- international or Rule 4, be paid minimum salaries of $1000 per week for 26 weeks, plus housing. Since MLB opened up the topic, I think it’s fair game.
If you felt the owners were going to reopen the entire CBA or just this one portion.
And the players have been talking about this international draft for 20 years. They have been in discussions about the international draft since July.
So no, they didn’t bring it up at the last minute.
I definitely don’t want that. If one side or the other decides the agreement doesn’t work for them for whatever reason, it could cost us the playoffs. Just no.
Great but I already foresee another day of back and forth and both parties being displeased with the others offer.
Sometimes this feels like a debate between Sheldon Cooper and Cliff Clavin.
Pop culture reference about two characters with knowledge but no common sense.
You scored a win on both.
I’d watch that show all day…
Implemented if there’s agreement on specifics by July 25. In other words, they’ll start talking about this again in five years.
Not necessarily. I know many Latin players are really opposed to this, but the rest of the MLBPA membership may very well be more than happy to be rid of the QO system and trade an international draft for that. After all, players born stateside have no choice but to go where they are drafted. Why should foreign players get to pick their team at 16 years of age?
No.
If they can’t work out the international draft, the QO will still be in effect.
They punted for a few months. They tabled it. The players wanted the QO gone, and we’ll negotiate from there.
The owners wanted the QO intact, and we’ll negotiate from there. It’s a lot closer to the later than the former.
Less punting than acknowledging this is a super loaded issue that shouldn’t be rushed.
Pro:
Draft helps end human rights abuses and general shadiness of the buscones and the current system.
Con:
Players have less leverage than US counterparts bc usually “I’ll just go to college and try again in a few years” isn’t an option — so teams can float low ball below slot offers and dare them to reject it
Need to make sure the system doesn’t make things worse and that will take more than a week and shouldn’t hold up the start of the season
This has all been an insanely embarrassing, pitiful, and disgusting look for both MLB and the union for those of us following closely… but if they can pull an agreement out today I think they’ll have succeeded in keeping the vitriol away from the casual fan/general public and avoid any real collateral damage.
The players need to accept the forthcoming offer now that this has been resolved. Stop haggling over trivial differences.
Now the pre arb pool will be the issue
Reds… I can deal with that.
I think you’re right. MLBPA isn’t really a ‘union’ in any sense of the word. It’s more a guild for athletes who don’t seem to have much understanding of things but want to ‘win’. So they need something that looks like they’ve run up the score.
On the other side are business people with businesses to run.
I predict the most the clubs will do on pre-arb is 40-45-50 over the CBA. The players will want to look like they ‘won’ so they’ll reject it. Me? I could care less at this point. Having read clowns like Scherzer on the internet I wouldn’t pay to watch him in Fenway or elsewhere. Same with Lindor. Fact I’d pay to NOT see them.
If you could care less, go ahead and care less, no one is stopping you.
I expect a deal within 24-48 hrs. It’s going to be a pretty dramatically different MLB though with 14 team playoffs and a league-wide DH for more than a 60 game season. I hope they find a deal on the International Draft. It would be good for the sport.
There isn’t much doubt that the average MLB player (union member) doesn’t give a poop about some 14 year old Dominican kid trying to “baseball” himself off the island. It was always just a negotiating tactic.
All that’s really left now is the salary/service time parameters from the lockout.
Yes, it’s going to cost the owners a few sheckles, MAYBE about 3M a year per team, per Tom Verducci. In other words, chump change; a utility IF or 12th guy in the bullpen .Cost more than covered by expanded playoffs. Considering the revenue growths, another victory for the owners.
Oh ya, the universal DH and pitch clock….rah, rah, rah. As if either side ever cared.
Jeff Passan is a hack.
They agreed to kick the issue down the road. They haven’t solved the issue.
They’re not that far apart on many of the other issues but it’s a five year contract so they need to get it right.
The ball is squarely in the Players court — so, Play Ball or hold out for more money.
It was really all about money anyway.
Scherzer probably wants to buy a team like Jeter, so he’s holding out for $100,000,000 per year.
Owners will give on either service time or no play/no pay but not both.
They’ll play 162 games.
No pay, no expanded playoffs.
Glory to god
Couldn’t she have stepped in sooner, though?
Ive been watching way to many hours in a row of Ken Burns’ “Civil War”. Lol.
At 63, I find now for at least a decade basketball and hockey regular seasons boring.
Nothing like baseball.
Covid , now Ukraine , we need the escape of baseball.
Let’s go
Both Basketball & Hockey are so boring. Even the first few rounds of the playoffs are boring too.
True
Old York — Which is going to be true for the baseball playoffs too. 12-14 teams in the playoffs??? Garbage after a 162-game season.
@Pete’sView
I agree. However, since MLB is a business, they see more revenues can be obtained from expanding the playoffs. I’m opposed to the universal DH & expanding playoffs but I’m not in charge so I have no say in any of it.
I would prefer the two top teams from teach league play in the World Series but we’re far from those days.
Most of baseball is boring, but in a good way.
There will probably be something slit in on the offer that the players won’t like and we’ll get another comment from Ross Stripling telling us how the owners were trying to hide something in the details.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We have been here before. Media should stay out of it until we hear from the parties involved.
If the MLBPA counter offers again the owners should just say see you next spring.
Nothing wrong with the players making a reasonable counter. Even if they were happy with a $40 pre-arb pool, I would ask for it to go up $2M per year. ‘Don’t ask, don’t get” is my philosophy. I’ve had jobs where the starting salary was perfectly fine, and still asked for another $5K. A lot people would do the same.
It’s nothing to strike over, but the owners might not blink an eye.
Even if this leads to an agreement, owners still put us through three months of this nonsense by doing absolutely nothing for three months after THEY imposed the lockout.
They were removing a potential leverage piece that players would have with a strike partly through the season. Would you rather miss a few spring games or miss half the season because of a strike by the players?
I would have liked the owners to actually demonstrate the urgency to an agreement, that they so openly discussed.
Nope, you have to understand the a strike and a lockout are two sides of the same coin.
Either the owners were locking them out of April games, or the players were going to cancel the playoffs. I’d rather miss April than October.
Why should North American players be subject to a draft but the rest of the world isn’t?
Shouldn’t be a draft. These clubs are private entities. They should be going around and finding the players they want on their team. If someone is worth the dollars, hand out the money. As it stands, we’re subsidizing small market teams and that’s not a long-term success. Subsidies do not encourage competition in the market. I’d rather not have the OAK, SEA, MIA, BAL, PIT teams of the world if they aren’t going to be competitive. MLB needs a tiered system where the top teams play in the top level and other weaker teams get regulated to a lower level. If you don’t want to play at this high level, don’t invest in the team.
@oldyork
The teams are franchises of MLB, and are not private entities. Due to the difference in size of the top 30 markets, revenue sharing somewhat balances what is an equal partnership.
they need to raise the first round compensation. $5mil++ is too little for top talents.
Shouldn’t be a limit.
A lot more uncertainty in a market where you’re drafting a 16 YO. And this years signing period only had 2 guys getting more than $3 mil, so the currently discussed slots seem to have plenty of room to work. If such happens of course.
@aragon
By what measure is it too little?
Cuncel da Season???
Being Nostradamus here, I don’t think the players association realize the impact of the increase in the minimum wage and the pre-arbitration pool money is going to have on some of those first, second and third year players that don’t get bonus money. There’s going to be some animosity between them and those that do get more money.
In addition, focusing on the economics of getting those younger players all this money, some of the older journeyman players are going to lose out on money and contract deals! Because of the focus on the younger players!
And then the next CBA they’ll be complaining about older players being forced out of the game!
We need young, athletic players in the game. We don’t need old players hitting .244 and hitting 20 HR a season. If you’re an elite player, you’ll last 20-years in the league but if you’re taking a roster spot from a young player, time to move on and go play in Japan, Korea or Indy ball.
I doubt that. The tide has already lifted all boats. And all players have a shot at getting the bonuses. All they can really ask for.
The devil will be in the details of how the bonus money,. whatever it turns out to be, gets parceled out.
Actually the older FAs will benefit from this. There won’t be such a significant market discrepancy between what a prospect will make and the low end free agents as there is now, since many of the latter are signing deals – or minors deals offering such if they make the club – in the $750 K to $1 million + area. They are already complaining about older players being forced out – that is actually a big reason the PA is pushing up the bottom of the pay scale so hard. Another reason why they are pushing for larger bonus pools too – it makes the cost of a prospect more unpredictable, though the cost of it is spread across all clubs, so the cost trade off could actually flip in favor of many low end FAs. And there’s always the hope the cheap but more established vet can bring something in trade at the deadline.
Kids aren’t always better than vets – many never settle in as valuable – but they do cost significantly less now. So they’re a lower cost gamble for the clubs. I can see some real consequences here for the promotion of prospects being slowed. Might be even harder for the older, not yet made it prospects to get a promotion. At least the cups of coffee are just a bit sweeter now.
I think some of the big market owners have had enough and are starting to push for a deal. The owners won’t have to give on any “major” issues like free agency or arbitration eligibility. It sounds like both sides are just trying to save face at this point.
Too late for that. While I think the union has looked better in this particular case, both sides have once again come across as petty, backbiting, dishonest, disingenuous, and ridiculously greedy.
If the owners and the players union finally agree to a new CBA and put an end to the lockout after almost 100 days, the 2022 season will reduce to 150 games starting in mid-April, so the permanent rules under a new deal will be a universal DH for both leagues, a 6-team draft lottery, an international draft, a 14-team playoff format, a CBT threshold for the next 5 years, the elimination of qualifying offers and draft-pick compensation, a minimum salary tax increasing from $700,000 to $770,000, a pre-arbitration bonus pool of $40 million and a free agency period of 5 years
Meaning the Rockies have a shot to host a series in an October blizzard
My understanding is they are still at a 12 team playoff format.
And I don’t know where you’re getting to 5 year free agency. That’s long gone from talks.
At this point, I simply refuse to get hopeful.
I can’t help it. So far as I can tell, the last area that they’re appreciably far apart on is the pre-arb bonus pool. They’re within a hair’s breadth on minimum salary, pretty close on the CBT, and most everything else seems to be resolved. They’ll have to hash out how many games this year will actually have, when the service time cutoffs will be, etc., but those shouldn’t cause the cancellation of more games.
Finally! A rational decision!
My guess is there will be an int’l draft. I know the QO system doesn’t affect that many guys and is rarely a major deterrent to a new, big-money deal, but if the players aren’t trying to stick up for the rights of amateur players in the US or minor leaguers, I can’t imagine they’d truly take a hardline stance on the int’l draft. They’d take the abolishment of the QO system to get a few million more dollars for the 10 or so of them tagged with it every year, all in the name of selflessly helping to set the market for others, of course.
I disagree. I think union membership in total cares more about the draft than the QO.
Most everything they’ve stood hard for has been to the benefit of the lower end of the group. And a significant chunk of the union is opposed to the draft.
And don’t talk to me about fairness here – the domestic draft was imposed, not negotiated.
We are so close, I can almost taste it.
Hello darkness, my old friend.
Jay Markle has a pretty good analysis of the international draft here.
https://www.blessyouboys.com/2022/3/9/22968364/mlb-international-free-agency-draft-cba-negotiations
There won’t be a deal today we all know how this has been happening we all get hopes up then they fail and we all get mad
Based on Ken Rosenthal’s tweet of MLB’s offer the players need to sign today and get this done. Bonus pool up to $50 million. Additional increases in minimum salary and CBT. Stop the theatre and sign the damn thing players.
I’m sure Clark and scherzer will do something stupid. Why stop now?
Latest MLB proposal, per source:
Luxury-tax thresholds – $230M to $244M over course of five-year deal. (increase of $2M in final year from last offer)
Pre-arb pool: $50M (increase of $10M)
Minimum salaries, $700K to $780K. (increase of $10K in final year)
—————————————————————————-
Players want to get some increase in the bonus pool.
3 p.m. “deadline.”
Sign the dang thing or go home players. It is time to end this and it looks far better than you had before.
But they won’t because (just as these jocks are acting like High School kids) they are brain dead and follow Boras’s lackeys around!
Deadline #1273. This time we really mean it!
Let’s hope the whiny players/millionaires who are lucky enough to play a game for a 1% living stop their sense of entitlement and pull their heads out. Fans are starting to not care.
I want the deal consummated by the end of my shift (11 pm est)!!! Then, let the FA frenzy begin!!!
EDIT: Pretty please!!
Perhaps because it wasn’t the focus early on, but it feels to me like the owners threw the international draft issue onto the table at the last minute in a way that was a intended to disrupt negotiations and catch my he players off guard. The union made a serious compromise proposal on the “core issues” and then suddenly management is making new and major demands.
Or maybe the issue was always lurking and they just hadn’t turned to it yet.
I’m so sick of this, so done with baseball.