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Collective Bargaining Agreement

Latest CBA Talks Lead To “Hostile” Meeting Between Players, Owners

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7:19PM: The MLBPA and the league have agreed to resume talks at noon CT on Sunday, according to multiple reports.

4:39PM: Today’s negotiating sessions between the league and the MLB Players Association have concluded for the day, after a pair of separate meetings between the two sides.  After each group conferred privately for an extended period of time, MLBPA reps presented a new proposal to the owners during a 15-minute session.  The ownership group then took time to mull over the offer before another meeting with the players that lasted roughly 45 minutes.

The union’s proposal was a “comprehensive” offer that addressed several core economic issues, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan and Jesse Rogers (Twitter links).  Perhaps most importantly in terms of finding common ground on a new collective bargaining agreement, the MLBPA is now “backing significantly off” some of its most noteworthy asks in previous offers.  This includes changes to the players’ previous demands about the luxury tax, an expansion in Super Two eligibility, and cuts to the amount of revenue-sharing funds allocated to smaller-market teams.

Despite these concessions, the owners still “reacted badly” to the latest union offer, The Athletic’s Evan Drellich reports.  This led to an “outraged” reaction from the players and a “hostile” tone in the second meeting between the two sides.  As per Chelsea Janes of The Washington Post, the “players are currently considering walking away from the table” altogether, rather than take part in meetings that were slated for tomorrow and Monday. 

As reported by ESPN’s Enrique Rojas (Spanish-language link) and The Associated Press, the MLBPA is now seeking to expand Super Two eligibility to 35% of all players who have between two and three years of service time.  This represents a major decrease from the players’ previous ask of 75% of all players within that service-time window, and yet apparently it isn’t enough to change the owners’ stance.  The league has been steadfast in refusing any expansion to the Super Two structure — in the last CBA, the top 22% of players with between two and three years of service time received an extra year of arbitration eligibility.

Likewise, the league has refused any discussion of changes to the revenue-sharing structure.  The union initially sought a $100MM cut in revenue-sharing funds, and later dropped that demand to $30MM.  Today’s proposal altered that number further, as teams receiving revenue-sharing wouldn’t lose any money, but would still be incentivized to increase local revenue with the offer of extra money made available from MLB’s central fund.  However, the owners are still not willing to budge whatsoever on the topic.

Discussions about the competitive balance tax have at least led to some back-and-forth negotiations, albeit without much progress.  The players made a $2MM reduction for each of the second, third, and fourth years of luxury tax thresholds, breaking down the numbers as follows: a $245MM tax number in 2022, $250MM in 2023, $257MM in 2024, $264MM in 2025, and $273MM in 2026.

The league made only one change to its base tax thresholds, with a $1MM increase to the second year of the CBA.  The owners’ proposed luxury tax thresholds are $214MM in 2022, $215MM in 2023, $216MM in 2024, $218MM in 2025, and $222MM in 2026.

In regards to the penalties for exceeding those thresholds, Major League Baseball again made only slight adjustments from its previous offer.  In today’s proposal from the league, teams exceeding each of the three levels for the first time would pay a 45% tax on the overage of any dollar spent between $214MM-$234MM, a 62% tax on overages from $234MM-$254MM, and a 95% tax rate on the overage for anything spent beyond the $254MM mark.  Previously, the league wanted respective tax rates of 50%, 75%, and 100% for each of the three thresholds.

These are obviously still sizeable jumps over the overage tax rates in the last CBA (20%, 32%, and 62.5%), and the league has compounded the penalty by asking that teams that surpass the second and third tiers lose draft picks.  The MLBPA has been adamantly against the owners’ luxury tax asks, viewing the demands as essentially the creation of an unofficial salary cap.

As reported yesterday by Drellich and Ken Rosenthal, the league has been looking shorten the amount of time required before unilateral on-field rule changes can be imposed.  The previous CBA had a one-year grace period between a league’s proposal and (whether the union agreed to the rule changes or not) the implementation of said new rules, though the owners are now looking for a grace period of only 45 days.  The MLBPA has been resistant to this shorter window of time, and the league needs the players’ approval in the next CBA to agree to the owners’ ability to implement unilateral rule changes of any kind.

Returning to the issue of service time, the league has agreed that players who finish first or second in Rookie Of The Year voting will receive a full year of service time.  (Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was among those to report the news.)  This counts as a minor win for the players, even if the MLBPA has been looking at a WAR-based formula for multiple players who excel in their rookie seasons to receive service time.  The league had been looking instead address the service-time manipulation issue by offering extra draft picks to teams who have players with top-three finishes in the ROY/MVP/Cy Young voting during their first three arbitration-eligible seasons.

If there is any other minor glimpse of good news from today’s meetings, one CBA issue has apparently been settled.  The owners and players agreed to a new rule on minor league options, as USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reports that players can now be sent to the minor leagues a maximum of five times per season.

Unfortunately, progress has apparently been lost on the topic of a draft lottery.  Reports from yesterday’s negotiating sessions indicated that the two sides were at least coming close to settling the exact number of teams involved in such a lottery, though the owners attempted to make a larger lottery (as per the MLBPA’s demands) contingent on the acceptance of a 14-team postseason.  That same offer was floated by the league today and turned down by the players, who had previously expressed a willingness to expand the playoffs to 12 teams.  Given the amount of extra revenue involved in extra postseason games, it isn’t surprising that the union isn’t willing to make such a major concession to the owners without tying it to an issue of greater import than the draft lottery.

Saturday’s sessions mark the sixth consecutive day of talks between the two sides, yet this increase in negotiations has yet to produce much in the way of concrete progress.  MLB has stated that without a CBA in place by Monday, some regular-season games will have to be canceled, though the union has remained skeptical that the league truly sees February 28th as a firm deadline.

However, some Spring Training games have already been canceled, and it becomes increasingly unlikely that Opening Day will proceed as scheduled on March 31.  If the hard feelings reportedly generated in today’s meetings actually do result in a breakdown in talks, it will only lead to more dismay and frustration among baseball fans who are more than ready for the lockout to be over.

MLB Looking To Move Athletics Back To Revenue-Sharing Recipient Status

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The Athletics were singled out in something of a unique fashion in the last collective bargaining agreement, as their status as a revenue-sharing recipient was gradually phased out over the course of the five-year deal.  Under the terms of the now-expired 2016-21 CBA, the Athletics’ normal take of revenue-sharing funds dropped to 75% in 2017, 50% in 2018, 25% in 2019, and then nothing for the CBA’s final two years.

As negotiations about the new CBA (slowly) continue between the owners and players, the league is now looking to once again reinstall the A’s as a recipient of revenue-sharing, MLB Trade Rumors’ Tim Dierkes reports (via Twitter).  This appears to be one of the relatively few areas of common ground between the two sides, as the MLBPA is “willing to” restore the Athletics’ former status.

It remains to be seen exactly how baseball’s revenue-sharing system could be altered in the next CBA, though given the owners’ unwillingness to discuss any revenue-sharing changes whatsoever with the union, whatever changes are made could be pretty minor.  It could be that Oakland’s shift back into the recipient category might stand as the biggest move in this area, as the A’s will now stand to make tens of millions of extra dollars each year.

Under the terms of the last CBA, 48% of each team’s local revenues were placed into a pool, then divided equally among all 30 teams.  Since some teams’ local revenues are naturally much larger than others, this provided quite a windfall for smaller-market clubs.  While the exact figures weren’t known, MLB.com’s Jane Lee wrote in December 2016 that the A’s received over $30MM in revenue-sharing funds in 2016.

This will have a wider impact on the other 29 teams, as the revenue-sharing teams will now be paying a slightly larger share of that revenue pot with the Athletics now removed from the sharers list.  Likewise, the teams receiving funds will now also get a slightly lesser share of the pie, with the A’s joining the party.  There was also the concept of the revenue-sharing rebate for larger-market teams in the last CBA (as explained by The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier) though it isn’t known if a similar mechanism might be in place for the next agreement.

The seemingly neverending saga of the Athletics’ quest for a new ballpark was the reason for their initial inclusion on the revenue-sharing list, and now the reason for their return.  Despite the lack of revenue generated from the Coliseum, the A’s don’t exactly play in a “small market,” given the size of Oakland and the Bay Area market in general.  As such, the decision was made to gradually remove the team from the group of revenue-sharers, though with over five years now gone, the Athletics are still not much closer to landing that long-desired new stadium.

Amidst much speculation about a potential move to Las Vegas, there has recently been more positive momentum towards a new ballpark in Oakland.  The franchise’s longstanding concept of a new stadium in the Howard Terminal area was recently given a vote of confidence by Oakland’s City Council, which certified an environmental impact review on the project.

There are still more logistical hurdles to be jumped, however, and between those potential obstacles and the time necessary to actually build the ballpark and adjoining infrastructure, it is quite possible the A’s might not have their new stadium in place before the end of a hypothetical 2022-26 term of the next CBA.  More will be known about the Athletics’ fate (whether in Oakland, Las Vegas, or elsewhere) in the next few years, so by the time the next CBA talks roll around, it would seem like the A’s would again be removed from the revenue-sharing recipient category if a new stadium project is indeed up and running.

In the interim, the A’s will reap the benefits of additional revenue.  For Oakland fans wondering if this means the team will spend these new funds on player payroll, it’s worth remembering that Athletics weren’t big spenders in their previous era of receiving revenue-sharing money, so a sudden spending splurge probably isn’t likely.  Since the A’s wouldn’t get any new funds until the end of the 2022 season anyway, it won’t do much to forestall the speculation that the A’s will be looking to cut payroll and move at least some of their higher-salaried players once the lockout is over.

From the MLBPA’s perspective, it was almost exactly four years ago today that the union filed a grievance against the Athletics, Rays, Pirates, and Marlins about how the teams were allocating the money collected via revenue-sharing, as receiving those funds wasn’t reflected in any boosts in player payroll.  To that end, it might seem curious that the union would be okay with the A’s again joining the revenue-sharing list, though speculatively, there could be a bigger-picture tactic at play.  As much as the league has claimed that any negotiations about revenue-sharing practices are a non-starter in CBA talks, the Athletics’ situation itself counts as a notable change in the revenue-sharing plan, which the MLBPA might perceive as a crack in the owners’ stonewall on the subject.

Beyond just the extra cash, the A’s may also benefit in another fashion from being a revenue-sharing recipient, depending on how the new CBA addresses free agent compensation.  Under the last agreement, revenue-sharing recipients stood to land a compensatory draft pick directly after the first round if they had a free agent who rejected a qualifying offer and signed with another club for more than $50MM.  While teams that lost certain free agents would still be eligible for a compensatory pick in the league’s new proposal, it remains to be seen exactly what the criteria would be for that compensation, or if revenue-sharing teams would be in line for a greater draft reward.

MLB Pursuing Authority To Faster Implement On-Field Rules Changes In CBA Talks

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Under the terms of the 2016-21 collective bargaining agreement, Major League Baseball had the authority to unilaterally implement on-field rules changes one year after formally proposing them to the Players Association. Even in the event the MLBPA rejected the specific idea under consideration, the league could put that provision into place one season later.

As part of this week’s negotiations on a new CBA, MLB has pursued a shorter ramp-up period for its ability to implement rules changes, report Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic. The exact grace period the league was targeting remains unclear, but MLB evidently doesn’t want to have to wait an entire year to implement rules adjustments without the union’s approval. The league would need the MLBPA’s approval to include the broad authority to expedite rules alterations in the next CBA, though, and Drellich and Rosenthal hear the union responded negatively to the league’s initiative.

While the league could leverage a shorter grace period to more quickly pass any number of rules changes, it seems the current motivation for trying to speed up the process is to more quickly implement one provision in particular: the pitch clock. The Athletic writes that the league specifically cited a pitch clock as a possible alteration it’d be interested in making.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred voiced support for a pitch clock in November, saying it was a feature “owners remain very interested in” implementing. The league has been testing pitch clocks in the minor leagues as part of its initiatives to quicken pace of play and shorten game lengths, and it’s clear MLB has a desire to carry that over to the big league level.

The precise impact a pitch clock would have is a matter of some debate. Jayson Stark of the Athletic examined the possible impact of the Low-A West’s implementation of a 15-second pitch clock midseason last year, finding that average game length dropped 21 minutes after the clock was put in effect. However, J.J. Cooper of Baseball America pointed out that the implementation of 20-second pitch clocks in Double-A and Triple-A in 2015 had mixed results. Those levels saw an immediate significant drop in average game time, but game length gradually rose over time and eventually exceeded pre-pitch clock levels. There are myriad explanations for why games continue to take longer — more time between pitches, fewer balls in play leading to deeper counts — but the trend in the high minors indicates that merely instituting a pitch clock may not be a panacea in the league’s efforts to shorten games over the long haul.

Fans’ opinions on the pitch clock figure to vary. Some will embrace any opportunity to cut dead time out of the game, while others will recoil at the notion of timing a sport that has traditionally proceeded without clocks. Regardless, it seems MLB is intent on implementing a clock at some point. The players’ opposition to shortening the period for rules changes may be rooted in a broader unwillingness to centralize more power in the league office than in opposition to the pitch clock specifically. Either way, it seems they’re none too keen on the idea of allowing the commissioner to more rapidly change the game’s rules.

The league has used its authority to implement rules changes without union approval in the past. Most notably, MLB implemented the three-batter minimum rule for pitchers (another pace of play initiative) over the 2019-20 offseason. The MLBPA never formally agreed to that change, although they did assent not to challenge MLB’s installation of it as part of a broader package of alterations mutually implemented heading into the 2019 season.

Whether the league and union will discuss any other rules adjustments in the coming days and weeks remains to be seen. Upon announcing MLB’s implementation of the lockout in early December, Manfred indicated on-field rules changes might be tabled while the league and union dealt with core economics problems. Many of those economics issues remain, and time is dwindling for the sides to agree to a new CBA if the league is to start the regular season on time. Limits on defensive shifting and the automated strike zone are among other topics of possible discussion whenever MLB and the union circle back to considering changes to the on-field product.

MLB Announces Cancelation Of Spring Training Games Through March 7

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7:39 pm: Drellich adds that MLB attempted to tie changes to the draft order to the league’s desired 14-team playoff. Unsurprisingly, the union didn’t view that as a favorable tradeoff. The MLBPA has been amenable to a 12-team postseason, but has thus far been against a 14-team playoff, fearing that a broader field could reduce the incentive for teams to upgrade their rosters via free agency.

7:22 pm: Major League Baseball announced they’ve canceled all Spring Training games through March 7, as Jesse Rogers of ESPN was among those to relay (Twitter link). MLB had previously announced the cancelation of all exhibition contests through March 4.

Today’s news is little more than a formality. It became increasingly apparent as talks between MLB and the Players Association dragged on with little progress throughout the week that a new collective bargaining agreement wouldn’t be in place for games to begin next Saturday. The earliest games will get underway is now Tuesday, March 8 — and that’s contingent on having a new CBA finalized by next Monday, February 28.

Discussions between the league and MLBPA continued for the fifth consecutive day. The meetings lasted until the early evening, and the parties reportedly made progress on one issue — albeit one of comparatively lesser import than some others. Evan Drellich of the Athletic reports (on Twitter) MLB and the union exchanged proposals regarding the lottery to determine the amateur draft order. While the format wasn’t definitively agreed upon, Drellich hears they “made gains” in talks and there’s optimism they’ll find a mutually agreeable solution on that question soon.

The sides have exchanged proposals regarding the draft lottery throughout the week. MLB has offered to determine the top four picks by lottery, while the union has sought to randomize the first seven selections. A lottery would encompass all non-playoff teams from the previous season, with their odds of landing each pick likely weighted by inverse order of the previous year’s standings. Whatever picks are not determined by lottery would then be set by the reverse order of the prior season’s winning percentage, as had been the case for all selections under the last CBA.

Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports (Twitter link) that the league’s latest proposal remains a four-pick lottery but includes various limits on how many consecutive seasons a team may be eligible for entry. That’s a key goal of the union, which has sought to discourage clubs from embarking on long-term rebuilds by capping how often a team can remain near the top of the draft. The MLBPA has proposed limiting teams’ eligibility for high choices based on both a) in how many consecutive seasons they finish near the bottom of the standings and on b) club market size.

Given the utter dearth of progress towards a midpoint on any issues throughout CBA discussions, that the sides are seemingly closing the gap on the lottery is welcome. That said, it’s worth keeping in mind that the lottery always looked to be one of the easier points for the league and union to find a solution. Issues like playoff expansion (a key goal of the league’s), the competitive balance tax, the bonus pool for pre-arbitration players and the union’s push for broader arbitration eligibility all remain unresolved and seem to be quite a bit more contentious.

Neither side made a formal proposal today on any issue other than the lottery, according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post. That said, Drellich tweets that the parties have had conversations about all other issues — even the CBT, on which neither side has made a formal offer in recent days. This afternoon, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred appeared at the negotiations for the first time of the week, meeting one-on-one with MLBPA executive director Tony Clark. Goold adds that Manfred’s appearance was unscheduled and came as a surprise to the union, though the commissioner did not speak with any current players. It marked the first known, in-person individual conversation between Manfred and Clark since 2020, as Drellich points out.

There’s obviously still plenty to hammer out, and we’re now only three days from MLB’s imposed February 28 deadline for a deal before the league begins to cancel regular season games. That continues to look like a tall task, although today’s reports come with a hint more optimism about the tenor of conversations than those from earlier in the week. They’ll meet again tomorrow and are expected to sit down every day through the end of the month in hopes of reaching an agreement.

Liberty Media Reports Substantial Revenue Increase For Braves

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As one of just two MLB clubs owned by a publicly traded company, the Braves are the rare team whose books are regularly opened to the public. That leads to some yearly insight into the team’s revenues and operating budget. This morning, Liberty Media announced its 2021 earnings, reporting $568MM in total Braves revenue, $104MM in OIBDA (operating income before debt and amortization) and a $20MM operating income (Twitter links via Eric Fisher of SportBusiness Group and Jeff Passan of ESPN, the latter of whom has screenshots of the report).

Those numbers are specific to the Braves, not Liberty Media as a whole, and they represent (as one would expect) marked increases over the previous year’s revenues, when the MLB season was played without fans and shortened to 60 games in length. In 2020, Liberty reported a total of $178MM in revenue and operating losses both in OIBDA (-$53MM) and operating income (-$128MM).

It’s worth pointing out, too, that the Braves and other MLB teams opened the season without home stadiums at full capacity — although the Braves were the first team to shift to full capacity near the end of April. Still, their season began with Truist Park at 33% capacity for their initial seven-game homestand and moved to 50% capacity for their second homestand — another seven-game set later in the month. Atlanta averaged 13,006 fans per game during that first homestand (per the attendance figures available at Baseball-Reference) and 19,224 fans per day in that second homestand (which included a seven-inning doubleheader). Over the remainder of the season, the Braves averaged 32,181 fans per game, according to those same attendance figures.

Of course, while the Braves, like every other team, surely lost some early-season gate revenue due to capacity restrictions of varying levels, the Braves also reeled in more postseason revenue than any other organization in the sport. Truist Park hosted eight playoff contests as the Braves eventually took home a World Series championship. Liberty Media lists 79 regular-season home games (accounting for a pair of doubleheaders) and eight postseason home games, with a reported $6MM in “baseball revenue” (not “profit”) per home game.

Future regular-season earnings for the Braves seem quite likely to rise — not only because they’ll very likely be able to open the 2022 season at full capacity but also because  the team’s 2021 success has paved the way for a considerable hike in ticket sales. Liberty Media president Greg Maffei said today that the Braves’ 2022 season ticket sales  are already the highest they’ve been since 2000 (Twitter link via Jeff Schultz of The Athletic). David O’Brien of The Athletic adds that premium seating at Truist Park has already been sold out.

The earnings report from Liberty Media comes at a time when eyes are more fixated on the financial component of the game than ever before. Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association are deadlocked in labor strife that, at its core, boils down to how the two parties ought to divide the billions of dollars generated by the league on a yearly basis. Commissioner Rob Manfred has already taken a great deal of flak for his claims that the “return on those investments (into owning a baseball team) is below what you’d expect to get in the stock market,” and his critics have already meted out a fresh set of barbs on social media today in the wake of Liberty’s books being opened.

Braves fans, in particular, are taking note of the team’s financials, as an understandably vocal majority has grown frustrated with the lack of a new contract for franchise cornerstone Freddie Freeman. Today’s report will do little to deter fans’ belief that the team can “afford” to re-sign Freeman, but that does not mean that ownership and/or general manager Alex Anthopoulos will make it happen at all costs. It’s never really been a question of whether the Braves have the pure funds to outbid the field, after all, but rather one of whether ownership is comfortable making a commitment of that magnitude and perhaps whether the front office deems it to be prudent.

With regard to the labor discord, both the league and the union will interpret the figures differently for the purposes of negotiations. Ownership will presumably point to the $20MM operating income. The union will likely more heavily weight the OIBDA and note that these figures do not include (as pointed out by Ben Nicholson-Smith, on Twitter) tax benefits/write-offs, baseball-adjacent revenues from The Battery (the mixed-use development surrounding Truist Park) or the general appreciation in franchise value. The Battery, according to Liberty’s figures, generated an additional $42MM in revenue and added another $7MM onto the Braves’ OIBDA (for a total of $111MM). At the end of the day, while it’s new information for fans and the MLBPA, the league has surely been aware of these figures and their timeline for release and already has a sense of the role the specifics will play in negotiations.

“No Substantive Progress” Between League, MLBPA In Today’s Labor Talks

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The owners and players held their fourth consecutive day of meetings as the two sides continue to try and work out a new collective bargaining agreement, yet once again, “no substantial progress” came from the session, according to The Athletic’s Evan Drellich (Twitter links).  Representatives from the league and the MLB Players Association are scheduled to meet again tomorrow.

As outlined by Drellich and The Washington Post’s Chelsea Janes, the union made two minor concessions based on past proposals.  Whereas the MLBPA had sought to give an extra year of service time to 29 players considered to be victims of service time manipulation over the last five years, the union dropped that number to 20 players today.

The other new wrinkle related to the concept of a draft lottery to decide the first several picks of the amateur draft.  The league offered a lottery covering the first four picks while the union wanted the lottery to cover the first seven picks, and today’s MLBPA proposal retained that seven-pick concept.  However, the union altered its proposal to remove punishment for teams who had consecutive losing seasons.  It “had been a league concern that [the] system would punish teams that were just bad and not tanking,” Janes writes.

MLBTR has learned more specifics regarding the union’s proposal for the draft lottery, which would take effect in 2023. All non-playoff teams would be included in the lottery. The odds of landing the first pick would be weighted by inverse order of the previous season’s standings as follows (assuming a 12-team playoff, as the MLBPA has proposed thus far):

  • Team 1: 15% (the team with the worst record in baseball)
  • Team 2: 15% (the team with the second-worst record in baseball)
  • Team 3: 15%
  • Team 4: 12.5%
  • Team 5: 10%
  • Team 6: 8%
  • Team 7: 6.5%
  • Team 8: 5%
  • Team 9: 3.25%
  • Team 10: 2.25%
  • Team 11: 1.5%
  • Team 12: 1.25%
  • Team 13: 1.12%
  • Team 14: 1%
  • Team 15: 0.88%
  • Team 16: 0.75%
  • Team 17: 0.625%
  • Team 18: 0.375%

The MLBPA is also proposing competitiveness adjustments.  Revenue sharing payors that finish in the bottom eight in winning percentage in each of the two previous seasons or in the bottom 12 in each of the three previous seasons would pick no earlier than 10th.  Additionally, any team that does not receive revenue sharing that finishes in the bottom 12 in each of the four or more previous seasons would have their pick moved to #18.

Also, beginning with the 2024 draft, any revenue sharing recipient finishing in the bottom eight in each of the three previous seasons would pick no earlier than 10th.  Any such club in the bottom eight in each of the four or more previous seasons would have their pick moved to #18.

The union also made a slight modification in its efforts to grant rookies bonus service time based on performance, as Drellich first reported (via Twitter). Under the MLBPA’s proposal, infielders/catchers/DH’s who finish in the top five at their position in their respective leagues in WAR would receive a full year of service, while outfielders, starting pitchers and relievers who finish among their league’s top fifteen in WAR would as well. That’s a slight reduction from the union’s previous ask, which would’ve granted a full year of service for infielders/catchers/DH’s who finished among the top seven and outfielders/pitchers who finished among the top twenty.

The union is still pursuing a full year of service for top five finishers in Rookie of the Year balloting, all-MLB placement and a top three placement in Reliever of the Year voting. MLB has thus far been opposed to the idea of players “earning” service time, instead offering teams additional draft choices for promoting high-performing players at the start of the season.

Bigger-picture CBA topics (such as the luxury tax thresholds, minimum salary increases, salary arbitration eligibility, etc.) still remain up in the air, with today’s talks apparently yielding no movement on any of these issues.  As has become a regular feature of these talks, both sides left a negotiating session feeling frustrated.  According to Michael Silverman of The Boston Globe, the “players [are] upset with how far apart sides remain,” and “MLB negotiators told union they have run out of ideas and that owners are upset with players.”

February 28 remains Major League Baseball’s stated deadline for reaching a new CBA, or else the league has said it will start canceling games from the regular-season schedule.  As Janes notes, “the union doesn’t exactly agree to [February 28] as a deadline,” so it remains to be seen whether any urgency will finally be shown by either side in tomorrow’s session, or in any talks that might be scheduled for the weekend or Monday.  Considering the huge differences of opinion that remain between the league and the MLBPA, it is hard to believe that an entire new collective bargaining agreement could even be close to settled by Monday, let alone a fully agreement reached.

MLB Again States That Regular Season Games Would Be Canceled If No CBA Is In Place By February 28

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The daily collective bargaining sessions between Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association continued this afternoon. MLB made a core economics proposal Monday, which the union countered yesterday. Neither side was pleased with the other’s latest offer, and the league has doubled down on previous assertions that regular season games will be canceled if no new CBA is agreed upon by the end of the month.

Last week, MLB informed the union it viewed February 28 as the deadline for an agreement that wouldn’t impact the regular season. MLB unilaterally instituted the lockout and could lift it at any time, but there’s no chance it’ll do so and cede negotiating leverage to the union. After today’s negotiations, a league spokesperson told reporters (including Hannah Keyser of Yahoo! Sports) that regular season games would be canceled if no CBA is in place by Monday. The league said it has no plans to make possible missed games up at a later date and noted that players would not have the opportunity to recoup lost game checks in that event.

Jared Diamond of the Wall Street Journal tweets that MLB also doesn’t intend to rearrange the schedule in the event games are scrapped. If the regular season were delayed but an agreement was eventually reached, the league would simply pick up where the current schedule dictates whenever games begin.

It’s possible the league is simply trying to exert leverage in an area where it feels it has the upper hand, reasoning that missing early-season games would be more detrimental to players than it would be to owners. The MLBPA has maintained that if players lose any portion of their salaries due to game cancelations, they’d refuse to agree to expansion of the playoffs in 2022. Postseason expansion has been a key goal of the league’s throughout the process, as it’d stand to benefit substantially from the possible sale of additional rounds to television partners.

In the meantime, the parties continue to haggle over economics. MLB responded to the union’s latest offer with a marginal raise in the minimum salary today. Previously, MLB had been proposing a flat $630K minimum or a tiered minimum based on a player’s service time that ranged from $615K to $725K. The league has scrapped the idea of differing lowest salaries depending upon service time and today offered to bump the leaguewide minimum to $640K next season, as Evan Drellich of the Athletic first reported (on Twitter). That would jump by $10K per season for the rest of the CBA, as follows:

2022: $640K
2023: $650K
2024: $660K
2025: $670K
2026: $680K

It’s a very minor move in the players’ favor, but one that seems unlikely to thrill the union. The MLBPA actually increased their desired league minimum in yesterday’s proposal (to MLB’s chagrin), seeking a $775K figure next season that’d climb $30K annually to $895K by 2026. The union paired that with a slight dip in its efforts to expand arbitration, but the league has stringently refused to entertain the possibility of broader Super Two eligibility altogether.

Last season, the league minimum was set at $570.5K. As Travis Sawchik of the Score calculated last month, the minimum would need to be set at $650K in 2022 to keep pace with inflation, relative to the terms of the 2016-21 CBA. MLB’s offer today isn’t far off that mark (at least for this year), but getting players paid earlier in their careers has been an overarching goal for the union throughout this round of collective bargaining. Thus, it seems unlikely the MLBPA will respond favorably to the proposal.

There’s obviously plenty of ground that’ll need to be made in the coming days — on issues ranging from the minimum salary and competitive balance tax to the players’ push for broader arbitration and the league’s desired playoff expansion — if the regular season is to begin on time. It remains to be seen whether either side would budge off their stated positions if any sort of progress is made later this week, but given the glacial pace in talks thus far, the possibility of losing regular season games seems greater on a daily basis. They’ll meet again tomorrow and are expected to talk every day through the end of the month.

MLBPA Makes Slight Modifications To Super Two Eligibility, League Minimum Salaries In Latest CBA Proposal

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Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association met for the second consecutive day this afternoon. After MLB made its latest core economics proposal yesterday, the union made a counteroffer on a couple key issues today.

As was the case with the league’s last proposal, the union offered relatively minor tweaks relative to its past wishes (as first reported by Evan Drellich of the Athletic). The union proposal called for 75% of players with between two and three years of MLB service time to be eligible for arbitration. That’s down five percentage points from the union’s previous offer, which had called for 80% of players in the 2-3 year service bucket to qualify for Super Two. (MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes explored the possible ramifications of 80% of players in that class qualifying for arbitration yesterday).

That’s a move toward a midpoint on one of the biggest topics of contention, but there remains a huge gap on that matter. The league has steadfastly refused to entertain the possibility of expanding arbitration at all. Under the previous collective bargaining agreement, 22% of players in the 2-3 year service bucket qualified as Super Two. MLB has thus far been committed to keeping that number as is. Broader arbitration eligibility has been a key goal for the players throughout negotiations, as they started with a request for all players with two-plus years of service reaching that process before reducing that ask over their past couple offers.

The union paired their reduced ask on arbitration with a more player-friendly league minimum salary arrangement than they’ve sought in past offers. The MLBPA had previously been pursuing a flat league minimum salary of $775K throughout the term of the next CBA. Jeff Passan of ESPN reported (on Twitter) that the union continued to seek a $775K minimum next season but proposed increases in future years. Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets the proposal would call for jumps in the league minimum by $30K each season over the course of a five-year CBA, as follows:

2022: $775K
2023: $805K
2024: $835K
2025: $865K
2026: $895K

MLB, predictably, has offered a lower league minimum to date. The league’s proposals have called for a flat $630K minimum or a staggered minimum between $615K and $725K, depending on the amount of a player’s service time. As Travis Sawchik of the Score pointed out last month, the minimum would need to be set at $650K just to keep pace with that of the 2016-21 CBA after accounting for inflation. The union, as part of its broader efforts to get more money to players earlier in their careers, has sought an increase beyond that mark throughout negotiations.

Finally, the union made a minor tweak to its proposal for the draft lottery (as Drellich first reported). While the MLBPA had previously sought for the first eight picks of the draft to be determined by lottery (as a moderate disincentive to rebuilding), the union modified that down to seven selections. The league’s latest offer would’ve had the top four picks determined by lottery.

Perhaps of most note, Drellich reports that the union did not address the competitive balance tax in today’s proposal. The CBT (informally known as the luxury tax) is shaping up as arguably the most contentious issue in talks. The union has sought to raise the base tax threshold from $210MM to $245MM next season, with the threshold eventually reaching $273MM by the end of the CBA. The league has proposed a far more modest increase — to $214MM in 2022, $222MM by the end of the CBA — and has pushed for heightened penalties for teams that exceed the thresholds.

MLB didn’t modify its CBT ask in its proposal yesterday. Jesse Rogers of ESPN tweeted at the time that the league viewed it as the union’s turn to make a move on the luxury tax, since the MLBPA’s previous proposal didn’t contain any changes to their prior goals regarding the CBT. It’s not clear whether the union agrees it should make the next move on the luxury tax, but there’s been no progression towards an agreement on that issue this week.

According to various reporters (including Michael Silverman of the Boston Globe), the league was disappointed with the offer — particularly with the union’s push for greater minimum salaries down the line. The parties will reconvene tomorrow, Drellich tweets. Rogers reports (via Twitter) that the league made a renewed suggestion for federal mediation but was rebuffed by the union. That’s no surprise, as the MLBPA quickly declined the league’s first push for mediation three weeks ago. Various players and MLBPA leadership pointed to the failures of mediation efforts in past CBA negotiations and the time it’d take for a third party to get up to speed on the relevant issues as justifications for doing so.

Presumably, MLB will respond to the union’s latest proposal (at least on issues regarding Super Two and the league minimum) tomorrow. That the sides are meeting daily after much of the lockout has dragged on without meaningful movement is no doubt of relief to some fans, but neither side’s proposal over the past two days appears to set the stage for any sort of imminent resolution. There are six days until MLB’s reported imposed deadline for a deal to be in place if the regular season is to begin on time. Jon Heyman of the MLB Network reports (on Twitter) that the parties are expected to meet daily through the end of February.

MLB Offers $5MM Increase In Pre-Arbitration Bonus Pool In Latest CBA Proposal; League No Longer Pursuing Authority To Shrink Minor League Rosters

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7:24 pm: Drellich reports (on Twitter) that MLB is no longer pursuing the ability to reduce the sizes of minor league rosters, as it had previously been attempting. Jeff Passan of ESPN adds that while the league could try to shrink MiLB rosters unilaterally, they’re not planning to do so in either of the next two years.

Drellich also reports that the league’s latest proposal wouldn’t include a limit on the number of times teams could option a player to the minors in a given season. Previously, the league had offered a five-option-per-year cap, while the union had been seeking to set that mark at four seasons. The previous CBA did not contain any limit on the number of times a player could be optioned per year, although it generally limited players to being optioned in no more than three separate years.

6:01 pm: Only a week remains before Major League Baseball’s reported imposed deadline for a new collective bargaining agreement to be in place to avoid an interruption to the regular season. The league and Players Association are expected to meet more frequently on CBA issues over the coming days as the threat of losing games gets ever larger.

Today’s set of negotiations wrapped up this evening after the sides spent most of the afternoon reportedly discussing issues separately. After the league and union met for a little more than an hour, leadership on each side spent the bulk of the afternoon discussing things amongst themselves. The sides briefly reconvened at the end of the day before the meeting broke up (as chronicled in a tweet thread by Evan Drellich of the Athletic).

MLB had been “on the clock” after the MLBPA made the most recent core economics proposal last week. The league made its latest counteroffer today, which included small movement on issues like the bonus pool for pre-arbitration players and the draft lottery, Drellich reports (on Twitter). MLB offered to raise the bonus pool allotment to $20MM to be distributed a group of 30 players, a $5MM bump over its previous offers. That’s still well short of the amount sought by the Players Association, which increased its ask on the bonus pool to $115MM over a group of 150 players in its most recent offer. That still leaves a gap of $95MM between the two sides on the bonus pool, which hasn’t existed in previous agreements.

The league also offered to make the first four picks of the amateur draft determined by lottery, a one-pick increase from its previous offers. The union has sought to have the top eight picks be determined by a lottery, which would include all of the previous season’s non-playoff teams (with their odds of landing each selection presumably weighted by that season’s record). The purpose of a lottery system, which has been implemented by each of the NBA and NHL, is to reduce the advantage for teams that finish near the bottom of the standings by declining to automatically grant them a shot at the draft’s top prospects and highest signing bonus pool allotments.

Those movements perhaps represent small progress towards an agreeable midpoint, but there was no change regarding one of the biggest topics of discussion. Drellich tweets that the league made no movement on its previous proposals regarding the competitive balance tax. Where the tax thresholds will be set and what penalties will be in place for exceeding them remain contentious issues. The league has proposed modest increases to the base tax threshold (up from $210MM to $214MM in 2022, ending at $222MM by the end of the CBA) paired with higher penalties for surpassing the thresholds than had been in place previously. The union, on the other hand, has pushed for the CBT to spike to $245MM next season en route to a $273MM mark five years from now; the MLBPA also remains staunchly opposed to heightened penalties for exceeding the CBT.

Both Michael Silverman of the Boston Globe and Tim Healey of Newsday hear that the MLBPA was disappointed by the league’s proposal, with the lack of movement on the CBT particularly underwhelming in the union’s view. Jesse Rogers of ESPN tweets that MLB is actually waiting for a new offer from the union on the tax. The union’s proposal last week didn’t move off its previous offers regarding the CBT, and Rogers hears MLB thus considers it the Players Association’s turn to make a move in that regard.

In addition to the luxury tax, things like the union’s push for earlier arbitration eligibility for some players and the league minimum salary need to be sorted out. That’s in addition to closing the gap on the amount of money to be made available in the pre-arbitration bonus pools and the draft lottery, on which the league budged a bit today. Much remains to be done, although it does seem the parties are more encouraged than they’d previously been by the tenor of today’s talks. James Wagner of the New York Times hears that both sides found extended in-person discussions “helpful,” while Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet called the conversation “wide-ranging.” Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post tweets that the sides are expected to resume negotiations tomorrow.

The Value Of The MLBPA’s Super Two Proposal

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In its most recent proposal, the Major League Baseball Players Association asked that 80% of players with at least two years of MLB service be considered arbitration eligible.  This is up from 22%, which has been the cutoff since 2013 when it was increased from 17%.  In the ongoing CBA negotiations, MLB has shown no interest in any change to the 22% figure.  The MLBPA started these CBA talks at a position of making all 2+ players eligible for arbitration, which had been the case from the inception of salary arbitration in 1973 up until 1985.

I thought it might be interesting to attempt to quantify the MLBPA’s request.  First, we should get an idea of how many additional players would be thrown into the arbitration system each year.  As I mentioned on Twitter last week, the 80% request, if in effect this offseason, would mean changing the current Super Two cutoff from 2.116 (two years and 116 days of MLB service) to 2.028.  Keep in mind that the Super Two cutoff is always a moving target.

By my count, under the 2.116 cutoff, 26 players currently qualify as Super Two this offseason, led by Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Austin Riley, and Bryan Reynolds.

Under a cutoff reduced to 2.028, 79 additional players would qualify as arbitration eligible.  I’ve listed them below along with projected arbitration salaries from Matt Swartz.  Note that our arbitration projection model sometimes spits out a number below the league minimum, in which case we set the projection equal to the minimum.  For this exercise, we’ll use a minimum salary of $700K.

To calculate how much additional money MLB teams would be paying under this system in 2022, I found the difference between the projected arbitration salary, and a hypothetical $700K minimum.  So, for example, Yordan Alvarez and Bo Bichette would gain the most, an additional $3.9MM each in ’22.  Note that it’s possible a few star players might make more than the league minimum even as a pre-arbitration player, like when Mookie Betts was renewed for $950K in 2017, but we aren’t modeling that in.

So, for these 79 additional Super Two players under the MLBPA’s proposal, we estimate that teams would pay an additional $72.4MM in 2022.

By itself, MLB might be willing to stomach something of that nature.  They’ve shown a willingness to put $15MM into a pre-arbitration bonus pool, and I assume they could be pushed up higher if the players drop their request to change Super Two eligibility.

But there’s the rub: MLB doesn’t want any additional players thrown into the arbitration system.  Doing so, particularly for star players, would increase that player’s total arbitration earnings by a significant amount, and also help push up the pay scale.

To illustrate this, we asked Matt Swartz to model out a couple of players who have been through the arbitration system already.

The first is Francisco Lindor.  Lindor went through arbitration three times, earning salaries of $10.55MM in 2019, $17.5MM in 2020, and $22.3MM in 2021, for a total of $50.35MM.  Under the MLBPA’s proposal, Lindor would have been arbitration eligible four times.  This means he would have earned a lot more than the $623,200 he did in 2018 – 10.7 times as much, in our estimation.  Here’s how our model saw a Lindor who went to arbitration four times, keeping his actual statistics the same:

  • 2018: $623,200 -> $6.7MM
  • 2019: $10.55MM -> $14.9MM
  • 2020: $17.5MM -> $20.7MM
  • 2021: $22.3MM -> $23.4MM
  • Total: $50,973,200 -> $65.7MM
  • Difference: $14,726,800

Our other example is Josh Bell.  He’s also set to go through arbitration three times, earning $4.8MM in 2020, $6.35MM in 2021, and a projected $10MM in 2022 for a total of $21.15MM.  Here’s how that might have played out had he gone through arbitration four times:

  • 2019: $587K -> $2.8MM
  • 2020: $4.8MM -> $8.1MM
  • 2021: $6.35MM -> $9.6MM
  • 2022: 10MM (projected) -> $13.2MM
  • Total: $21,737,000 -> $33.7MM
  • Difference: $11,963,000

The Pirates traded Bell in December 2020, knowing he was set to get a bump from $4.8MM to $6.35MM.  MLB might argue that the Pirates would have traded Bell a year earlier if he was slated to jump from $2.8MM to $8.1MM.  They might say that not only would expanding Super Two be bad for their pocketbooks, it’d be bad for “competitive balance.”  I imagine the MLBPA would argue that the Pirates could have afforded Bell in either scenario.

There’s also the chance that shifting the arbitration pay scale a year earlier for a good number of players would simply result in them getting non-tendered a year earlier and hitting the free agent market.  If you look at the list of 79 players above, you can be assured that many of them will not make it all the way through arbitration even if they earn the league minimum in 2022.

Looking at a player like Bell, if he was coming off a poor 2020 season and was set to earn $9.6MM instead of $6.35MM, he might have simply been non-tendered.  As we’ve seen with an example like Kyle Schwarber, this is not necessarily a bad scenario for the player, since Schwarber earned more in free agency than he was projected to get in arbitration, and he’s set to parlay a strong bounceback year into a good multiyear contract.

If you wanted to model out the MLBPA’s 80% request further, you’d have to retroactively apply it to all the players who would’ve been affected and see how much money moves toward the players in that scenario.  But it’d be impossible to guess who would’ve been non-tendered when, so it’s not an exact science.  At any rate, we may learn this week whether MLB truly has any willingness to move off the 22% Super Two cutoff, even if it’s not to 80%.

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