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Collective Bargaining Agreement

MLBPA Drops Push For Universal Two-Year Arbitration, Expands Pre-Arb Bonus Pool In Latest CBA Offer

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4:47 pm: MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes observes (on Twitter) that the union’s proposed Super Two expansion — had it been in effect this winter — would have gotten around 79 more players to their first year of arbitration. However, Dierkes notes that MLB seemingly remains unwilling to alter the existing Super Two setup in any form.

1:18 pm: Today’s collective bargaining meeting between representatives from the league and the MLB Players Association lasted only 15 minutes, though deputy commissioner Dan Halem and MLBPA chief negotiator Bruce Meyer continued speaking in a side meeting for about 20 minutes afterward (according to The Athletic’s Evan Drellich).

The session appeared to center around two new proposals put forward by the union, as per several reporters (including ESPN’s Jeff Passan and The Washington Post’s Chelsea Janes).  The MLBPA had been looking to move the qualifying threshold for arbitration eligibility to two-plus years of service time rather than the current threshold of three-plus years plus all Super Two-eligible players.  Now, the union has now dropped that demand and replaced it with a large increase in the number of players who would be eligible for Super Two status.  In the previous CBA, the top 22 percent of players who had between two and three years of service time became Super Two-eligible, and thus eligible for a fourth year of salary arbitration — today’s proposal saw the MLBPA ask that 80 percent of players now qualify as Super Twos.

In addition, the union also actually increased the amount of the bonus pool it wants devoted to pre-arbitration players.  Whereas the MLBPA began with a $105MM figure and lowered it to $100MM in subsequent talks with the owners, the union has now bumped that asking price up to $115MM.  This number reflects the larger number of players that the MLBPA wants to be eligible for extra money in this bonus pool, with the union wanting the top 150 players as averaged by fWAR and bWAR.  In the owners’ previous offer, the top 30 pre-arb players would be eligible for a $15MM bonus pool.

Whether these changes by the MLBPA constitute a significant move in MLB’s direction will, of course, lie in the eye of the beholder.  Simply moving from all two+ players being arbitration eligible to 80% of them could move a large amount of money toward MLB, and likely is viewed by the players as a significant concession.

Given how the league has been adamantly against any changes to arbitration eligibility, the MLBPA’s request for such a big increase in Super Two eligibility is likely to be flatly denied.  Where this might lead, however, is some increase in the Super Two threshold whatsoever.  Even if the 80% number is viewed by MLB as an extreme ask, if the owners counter with a smaller increase, the two sides might eventually find some level of acceptable common ground between 22% and 80%.

Getting the league to budge even slightly off their position of not altering the arbitration eligibility would count as some level of a win for the union, as it would help achieve their goal of getting more money to players at an earlier point in their careers.  It would also set impacted players up for more money through the arbitration process as a whole, given the larger number of players getting a fourth arb year and then subsequent raises in their other three arb years.

The increase in the bonus pool figure is tied to both the Super Two ask and that broader “get more money to more younger players” goal.  Because that $115MM would now be spread over 150 players instead of $100MM over 30 players, more pre-arbitration players would get some extra cash.  However, as observed by Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat, this overall proposal from the union actually counts as a concession to the owners, since it would somewhat lower the bar for future arbitration cases in general.

The MLBPA did not alter their previous demands for increases to the luxury tax (to $245MM for the initial threshold) and to the minimum salary (to $775K), according to The Score’s Travis Sawchik.  Beyond the 80% Super Two demand and the $115MM bonus pool, it doesn’t appear as if the union made any other changes from its previous offers — and as for today’s new proposal, the league “was not excited,” Janes tweets.  It isn’t known when the two sides will next meet in regards to the bigger-picture economic issues or when MLB might counter the players’ current offer, though Janes reports that the league and MLBPA are slated to meet tomorrow to talk about non-economic issues.

CBA Negotiations Set To Resume Thursday

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Major League Baseball and the Player’s Association have scheduled a negotiation session for 1:00pm ET on Thursday in New York, per USA Today’s Bob Nightengale. For those keeping score at home, Nightengale adds that tomorrow’s meeting will be the sixth session between both parties to discuss the sport’s next CBA since MLB instituted baseball’s lockout 78 days ago.

As disheartening as the frequency of these negotiating sessions has been, it could be an encouraging sign that tomorrow’s session will take place just five days after the two sides last convened. Last Saturday’s meeting revealed some minor concessions but didn’t yield much cause for optimism, as it lasted less than an hour and left both sides some mix of “unimpressed” and “underwhelmed”.

One reason for last weekend’s uneventful session was a continued disparity between how each party would like to alter the Competitive Tax Threshold. MLB proposed the luxury tax threshold increase to $222MM by 2026, with disincentives that would likely stop teams from crossing that threshold. The Player’s Association meanwhile would like to see team spending incentivized, not punished, and have been seeking a new tax threshold ending at $273MM in 2026.

As large as that $51MM gap between each side’s tax threshold proposal may appear, it pales in comparison to the $85MM gap between exchanged bonus pool figures. A bonus pool funded by central revenues to reward high-performing, pre-arbitration players has been one concept already agreed to by both parties, though how much these players should be rewarded is clearly a divisive subject. The Player’s Association lowered their bonus pool number by $5MM to $100MM to be divided amongst pre-arb performers, while MLB raised their proposal from $10MM to $15MM.

Further discussed topics included a raise to the league minimum, limiting the amount of times players can be optioned in a single season, and changes in the signing process of drafted and international amateurs. Fortunately, there seems to be mutual amenability to adjusting all three of these topics in the next collective bargaining agreement. However, as we’ve seen with previously suggested CBA changes like implementing a universal DH, even when both sides generally agree on a subject it’s no slam dunk they’ll see eye to eye to the point of implementation.

As is often the case with negotiations it may only take one new concession to start a chain reaction of agreements that, in this case, will ultimately lead to a new CBA. For either side to concede much of anything, they’ll need to meet at the bargaining table. Tomorrow’s sit-down then is certainly a welcome sight for the droves of fans who are skeptical a new CBA can be reached in time for the season to begin when originally scheduled on March 31.

MLB Is Trying To Trade Draft Pick Compensation For A Much Tougher Competitive Balance Tax

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In a recent article, I tried to make the point that MLB, in general, wants something resembling the status quo in these CBA negotiations.  But there’s one area where I was wrong and MLB’s proposals have been clearly worse than the status quo, and that’s the competitive balance tax.

Let’s look at how MLB’s proposed tax rates compare to the status quo from 2017-21.

MLB’s goal here is clear: make teams much less likely to exceed the base tax threshold at all.  However “soft” of a salary cap this was in the 2017-21, MLB is attempting to harden it.  These tax rates say, “If you go over the tax thresholds, we’re really going to make you pay.”

MLB doubled down on the goal of hardening the CBT as a cap by adding new draft pick penalties.  The status quo: any club that exceeds the second surcharge threshold ($250MM in 2021) would have its highest available selection in the next draft moved back ten spots.  If a team is set to pick in the top six, that is left alone and the second-rounder is moved back ten spots.

MLB’s latest offer is far more extreme than this: a team in the second tier (MLB proposes $234-254MM for 2022) entirely surrenders its second round pick, and a team in the third tier ($254MM+) forfeits its first round pick.

I don’t think anyone would argue with this: MLB’s current proposal is for a much more restrictive competitive balance tax, without even getting into the matter of the thresholds.  So, how would they defend it?  The answer is that MLB likely feels it’s proposing an even trade by eliminating draft pick compensation for signing free agents.

Every winter, somewhere between six and 20 players at the top of the free agency class receive a qualifying offer.  Under this system, the worst possible penalty for signing a qualified free agent is forfeiture of a second and fifth round pick and having your international bonus pool reduced by $1MM.    The Yankees, for example, made this sacrifice to sign Gerrit Cole.  MLB’s pitch may be that under their new CBT plan, teams would have forfeited fewer draft picks than they gave up to sign free agents during the most recent CBA (something I intend to explore).  I think that in MLB’s eyes, they are offering to transfer the burden that a certain number of players at the top of each free agent market bear under the qualifying offer system to the team level as a CBT penalty.

Elimination of the qualifying offer system would remove the Craig Kimbrel/Dallas Keuchel type situations, where those players waited until after the June draft to sign because of the drag caused by draft pick compensation.  It would also remove the dynamic where a player accepts a qualifying offer and ultimately earns less in his career as a result, like perhaps Neil Walker.

I would guess that the MLBPA doesn’t consider this an even trade whatsoever, and has likely told MLB as much.  The MLBPA likely takes major issue with drastically increased CBT penalties.  Consider Giants pitcher Alex Wood, who tweeted,”If penalties increase under the CBT/Luxury tax IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT THE THRESHOLD IS MY GOD. Make the threshold a billion dollars it doesn’t matter. Teams already don’t spend bc they use the current penalties as an excuse not to. Imagine if the penalties got worse. SMH.”

In a theoretical sense, I disagree with Alex.  One could argue that the thresholds matter more than the penalties, because more teams stop right before the base tax threshold than actually pay the tax.  In recent years, only two or three teams have typically paid the tax.  To take Alex’s example to the extreme, if the base tax threshold actually was a billion dollars, and the penalty for exceeding it was that the team needed to play defense with only eight players on the field at all times, the MLBPA should take that deal because the penalty is irrelevant if teams don’t exceed the base tax threshold.

However, there’s a slippery slope concern here on the side of the MLBPA.  History has shown us that once the players surrender something to MLB, it is very hard to claw any of it back.  Case in point, the players moved arbitration eligibility from three years to two in 1980 and gave that back in 1985.  Since then they’ve only managed to win back 22% of the 2+ class, and MLB is currently drawing a hard line on a return to the pre-1985 arbitration structure.

That’s why the MLBPA will likely draw their own hard line and refuse to further increase the tax rates or the draft pick penalty for exceeding tax thresholds.  That might be one of the MLBPA’s non-starter stances.  And if the MLBPA thinks elimination of the qualifying offer system is of modest value, keeping it in place would not be a major problem.

MLB should stop proposing this supposedly even trade.  It’s like in a fantasy baseball league where a guy keeps making you the same offer over and offer, telling you it’s fair.  It’s just not conducive to making a larger deal.

MLB should take increased CBT penalties off the table entirely, and should also propose leaving the qualifying offer system completely intact from the previous CBA.  That would be, literally, the status quo.  Then, with the clock ticking, the two sides can get down to solving the $51MM gulf between where they think the CBT thresholds should land by 2026.

Why MLB Players Went On Strike In The Past And What It Tells Us About The Current Lockout

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A lockout is not a strike.  You probably already knew that, but in all of my in-person conversations with casual to moderate baseball fans since the lockout began, none of them knew the difference.

A lockout is a work stoppage initiated by ownership.  MLB teams locked out the players back in December, and that’s why we aren’t seeing pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training today.  If players were to show up at the stadiums, they’d literally find themselves locked out.

A strike is when employees cease going to work as a group.  Since Marvin Miller created the Major League Baseball Players Association 56 years ago, the players have gone on strike five times.  Let’s take a look at why they elected to do so.

1972 strike – 86 games lost

The union itself was only six years old.  The issue at stake is what Miller called a “modest request” of increases in the players’ pensions and health care contribution to keep up with inflation, part of which meant using an existing surplus in the pension fund.  In spring of 1972, Miller felt that an agreement was within reach.  Then, ownership surprised the players by taking a position of no increase on the pension, and a reduction on health care.  Miller saw this as an “unmistakable signal” that “management was baiting us into a strike.”

Two days prior to the expiration of the pension agreement, Miller proposed solving the dispute by using an independent arbitrator, in an attempt to avoid a strike.  The owners declined.  Miller was concerned the “still young Association” wouldn’t be able to sustain a strike, and advised the players to postpone it and negotiate during the season.  Miller found his players to be “positively militant” about going out on strike, however, so that’s what they did.  After 13 days of lost revenue, the owners folded and the first strike in professional sports was over.

1980 strike – 92 exhibition games lost

At this point, free agent compensation was the issue at stake.  Free agency had only been around for four years, and the owners felt they needed to add restrictions to it.  Specifically, owners felt that signing a free agent should require giving up a Major League player as compensation.  Faced with this issue, the players voted to cancel the final week of spring training, return to play Opening Day, and possibly strike on Memorial Day weekend in 1980.

Instead, Miller and MLB negotiator Ray Grebey settled all the other issues, including dropping the salary arbitration requirement from three years to two (something MLB considers a non-starter in these 2022 negotiations).  The two sides were able to avoid a regular season strike by kicking the can down the road on free agent compensation, forming a study committee.  As part of announcing the 1980 agreement, Grebey “poisoned the bargaining well” (in the words of John Helyar in Lords of the Realm) by telling the press the owners’ compensation plan would go into effect in 1981, which was untrue.

While the cancellation of a week of spring training makes this technically count as a strike, no regular season games were missed, and it was more of a prelude to the 1981 strike.  Helyar called it “a lull until the next battle.”

1981 strike – 712 games lost

This was the first major strike in baseball history.  The aforementioned free agent compensation study committee produced nothing of value.  Miller described ownership’s proposal thusly: “A club signing a free agent could very well lose an established player more valuable than the free agent, or lose a prospect with All-Star potential.  The scheme was designed to end free agency and would certainly had succeeded if it had gone into effect.”  After the committee issued a report with “two diametrically opposed opinions,” the two sides had 30 days to hammer out an agreement in early 1981.  That didn’t happen, allowing owners to unilaterally adopt their free agent compensation proposal.  The players were only offering a draft pick as compensation, and over this gap, they went on strike.

Miller called the 1981 strike “the most principled I’ve ever been associated with” and “the Association’s finest hour.”  He notes that the union was not making demands; it was ownership seeking what he considered excessive free agent compensation.  As the strike dragged on, federal mediator Ken Moffett “never got past first base” with his proposals, as Miller put it.  Instead, the MLBPA proposed a system where each team could protect 25 players, and all other players would become part of a pool from which teams losing certain free agents could choose.  With the owners’ strike insurance running out, this “pool” free agent compensation plan led to a settlement after 50 days.  Four years later in 1985 the owners were already asking for the pool compensation plan’s removal.

1985 strike – no games lost

This two-day strike is similar to 1980 in that it technically counts, but no regular season games were lost.  By 1985, Marvin Miller was retired “but remained a power in the union,” according to Helyar.  Still, Don Fehr was in charge of negotiations for the MLBPA.  With the union under new leadership and solidarity of the players waning, the players’ union agreed to “give-backs” for the first time, as arbitration was rolled back to three years instead of two and the pension formula was changed to the players’ detriment.  As Miller put it, “For the first time in its almost twenty years of existence, the Players Association took backward steps.”  He added, “Either you push forward or you’re going to get pushed back.”  Miller felt that Fehr’s error was “in not instilling in the players the determination to fight the good fight.”

1994 strike – 938 regular season games lost, plus cancellation of the playoffs

In 1994, as Helyar put it, “The players rejected a salary cap as repugnant at any price.”  Nonetheless, owner of the small market Brewers and acting commissioner Bud Selig was convinced a salary cap was necessary and convinced the other owners to fight for it.  Helyar explains, “The players had to go on the offensive, if only for defensive purposes. If no contract was reached by collective bargaining, the Lords could eventually shove the salary cap down their throats. Federal labor law allowed employers to declare a bargaining impasse, after a decent interval for negotiations, and impose employment terms.  The players had to try forcing a deal when they still had some leverage – during the season, when lost games meant lost money for the Lords.”

So, the players went on strike on August 12, 1994.  Ultimately the rest of the season, including the playoffs, were canceled.  Fehr and Selig wound up in court, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor granted an injunction blocking Selig’s intended use of replacement players to start the ’95 season.  The status quo was returned and the strike ended.

Why The Players Went On Strike

I worked through this little history lesson to explain the circumstances under which the players went on the three significant strikes in the 56-year history of their union.  In 1972, it was because the owners tried to test a young MLBPA by moving backwards on an issue that was key to players at the time, their pension and health care benefits.  In 1981, players went on strike because owners demanded a compensation system that would significantly devalue their newly-won right to free agency.  In 1994, players went on strike because Bud Selig attempted to force a salary cap.  The common thread: in each instance, ownership was attempting to move the players significantly backward.

How The Owners Have Justified The 2022 Lockout

Now let’s tie this into the present dispute.  MLB’s lockout is already affecting spring training and could well lead to canceled games in April, so it’s important to understand why they did it.  In his December 2 “letter to baseball fans,” Commissioner Rob Manfred provided two reasons why MLB was “forced to commence” a lockout of the players:

  1.  “We hope that the lockout will jumpstart the negotiations and get us to an agreement that will allow the season to start on time.”
  2.   “We cannot allow an expired agreement to again cause an in-season strike and a missed World Series, like we experienced in 1994.”

It’s pretty easy to dismiss the “jumpstart the negotiations” angle, given that MLB waited 42 days between its lockout and its next proposal.  In my opinion, some credibility is lost when you say that and then wait that long to make your next offer.

But let’s examine the second point, about how we can’t allow another strike like ’94.  I have already established that historically, MLB players going on strike has been rare, and pretty clearly provoked by ownership each time.  However, ownership has not done anything to provoke a strike in 2022.

As Manfred put it, “Baseball’s players have no salary cap and are not subjected to a maximum length or dollar amount on contracts. In fact, only MLB has guaranteed contracts that run 10 or more years, and in excess of $300 million. We have not proposed anything that would change these fundamentals.”  Emphasis mine.  This is completely true.  The MLBPA has plenty of concerns right now with various causes, but they’re not the result of something radical MLB is trying to impose.  MLB wants something resembling the status quo.  The difference of opinion is on whether the status quo is acceptable.

The Current Issues Are Not Strike-worthy

It’s my opinion that the current differences of opinion, which are mostly in in degrees and not concepts, are not compelling enough to cause the players to strike.  Sometimes the degrees of difference are large, like in the case of the competitive balance tax, but it’s still mostly haggling over numbers.  To be clear, the idea that the players wouldn’t strike is guesswork based on the historical precedent I’ve laid out in this post.  Publicly or even privately, if the players are disinclined to strike over the current differences, they cannot admit it.  To do so would be to lose their leverage.

MLB could lift the lockout today and everything would start on time, with negotiations continuing during the season.  So for them to keep the lockout in place and risk canceling games, under the justification Manfred provided, MLB really has to feel a midseason strike would have been likely.  Let’s game that out and envision a hypothetical strike announcement by MLBPA executive director Tony Clark.  For this exercise I’m using the current gaps, even though six months from now those gaps would presumably be smaller.

August 12, 2022: Hypothetical Press Release From Tony Clark On Behalf Of MLB Players

“On this the 28th anniversary of the 1994 strike, I’m devastated to say that MLB players have no choice but to go on strike due to the unreasonable positions of the owners.  Our differences are large enough to risk losing the rest of the 2022 season and the World Series if the owners don’t move significantly within the few weeks.  Here are the reasons we’re going on strike.

We believe all 30 teams should try to win every year.  While we have agreed with MLB on the implementation of a draft lottery, we differ on how many picks should be subject to it (three vs. eight)  and whether teams should be penalized for being bad in consecutive years.

We want the best players to be promoted as soon as they’re ready for the Majors.  Service time manipulation meant MLB stars like Kris Bryant and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had their debuts delayed past the point of readiness.  Perhaps more importantly to the union, this practice allows teams to control players for nearly seven years instead of the agreed-upon six.  MLB has proposed extra draft picks to incentivize teams to put MLB-ready stars on Opening Day rosters, but we don’t think it’s enough to move the needle.  We feel that rookies should have the opportunity to earn a full year of service time based on factors like awards voting and WAR.  We’re also seeking a $30MM cut in revenue sharing, as we feel these transfers of wealth allow small market teams to be profitable without investing in players and trying to win.

We also believe large market teams should have fewer payroll restrictions.  When we agreed in the previous two CBAs to the competitive balance tax increasing by $32MM over a ten-year period, we didn’t anticipate large market teams would treat the base tax threshold as a de facto salary cap.  MLB has proposed moving the tax threshold by only $12MM by 2026, but we feel a $63MM increase to $273MM over the next five years is necessary.  MLB has proposed increasing the tax rates on overages as well.

As teams have de-emphasized free agency, we need to get players paid earlier in their careers.  One key is the minimum salary, which we feel should increase from $570,500 in 2021 to $775,000 in ’22.  MLB has proposed $630,000, leaving us $145,000 apart.  On a related note, we’re also looking to change salary arbitration so that all players with at least two years are eligible.  This would add dozens of players into the arbitration system each year who previously would have been making a salary close to the league minimum.

The third way we’re looking to increase pay for players earlier in their careers is by the implementation of a pre-arbitration bonus pool.  MLB has agreed to this concept.  We’re proposing each team contribute $3.33MM per year to this pool (a total of $100MM), but MLB is offering only $500K per team (a total of $15MM).

Though the MLBPA is not seeking playoff expansion, we are nonetheless willing to grant MLB an increase to a 12-team field.  They’re seeking a 14-team field.  We feel that expanded playoffs, plus MLB’s proposed addition of advertising to uniforms, would bring significant additional revenue to the teams.

We find the universal designated hitter to be mutually beneficial, and MLB has agreed to implement it.  MLB has also agreed to eliminate the qualifying offer system, which we concede would benefit several players each offseason.

Collective bargaining has been ongoing for nearly 16 months, and we’ve played out the 2022 season without an agreement in place.  While we were cautiously optimistic when MLB lifted the lockout six months ago in February, we now feel that our differences are too significant to be resolved through further bargaining.  Regretfully, a strike is our only recourse, and we hope it will prompt the required movement from MLB to lead to an agreement and save the ’22 playoffs.”

A Possible Third Motive For MLB’s Lockout

Maybe you’re like me and you can’t see Tony Clark issuing a strike announcement statement similar to the hypothetical I wrote above.  Though they wouldn’t admit it, maybe MLB also finds a strike on these grounds to be unlikely.  That leads to a third, unstated possible motive for MLB initiating a lockout in December 2021: they did so mainly to gain financial leverage over the players and get a better deal for themselves.

That’s what I think is happening, and it’s MLB’s right to do so.  In that case, the current situation boils down to MLB being willing to cancel games in April to get a better agreement.

I know it’s easy to “both sides” the current labor dispute.  Feel free to choose from among these commonly-used phrases:

  • A pox on both your houses
  • Millionaires vs. billionaires
  • Where is the fan in all of this

However, only one side can implement a lockout, and only one side can go on strike.  Currently, we’re in a lockout, and I don’t think it’s reasonable to blame the players for going on strike unless they actually do, you know, go on strike.  If the lockout is lifted and the players go on strike over these issues, then yes, the players would shoulder the lion’s share of responsibility for missed games and/or canceled playoffs.  Until then, missed games fall on ownership.

Required baseball labor reading:

MLB’s CBA Proposal Included Ability To Reduce Number Of Available Minor League Roster Spots; MLBPA Planning To Reject

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10:11 pm: Passan tweets that the union is planning to reject MLB’s proposal to possibly shrink the number of minor league roster spots. He adds that the MLBPA has declined similar offers by the league in the past.

8:29 pm: Major League Baseball put forth its latest collective bargaining proposal last weekend. Among the provisions included in that broad offer: a clause that would allow the commissioner’s office to reduce the amount of minor league roster spots available to teams in future seasons, according to a report from Jeff Passan of ESPN.

Currently, teams are permitted to carry up to 180 minor league players in their organizations during the season; that number expands to 190 over the offseason (not including the Dominican Summer League). According to Passan, MLB’s proposal would leave that 180-player limit in place for the upcoming season but would provide the league the flexibility to set the limit of minor leaguers per club at under 150 players at some point during the term of the next CBA. Passan hears from a league source that they’re not currently envisioning cuts to minor league membership at any point in 2023 but value the opportunity to implement stricter roster limits down the line.

MLB has made efforts to contract the minor leagues over the past few years. Over the 2019-20 offseason (prior to the start of the pandemic), the league eliminated 42 teams from affiliated ball, turning them into independent clubs or amateur summer ball teams. As part of the COVID-19 protocols, the league shrank the 2020 first-year player draft from 40 to five rounds. It was set at 20 rounds last year, and Passan writes that the league and union agreed last July to keep a 20-round draft in place going forward.

MLB’s proposal could affect different organizations to varying extents. Passan reports that five franchises currently roster more than 180 MiLB players, while two already have fewer than 150. Given that wide discrepancy in roster count between teams, there’s certainly some logic in tighter regulations to balance the field. Yet MLB no doubt also values the potential to reduce the number of minor league roster spots for cost-cutting reasons. Stricter limits on the number of spots available, if implemented, could involve many or all organizations having to release players.

Whether the Major League Baseball Players Association will sign off on changes to the minor league roster setup remains to be seen. Minor league players are not members of the MLBPA, nor are they members of a union of their own. Yet the MLBPA does play a role in some decisions involving amateur or minor league players. In addition to the aforementioned league-union agreement on cutting draft rounds, the parties have also discussed the possible implementation of a draft lottery, for example.

The treatment of minor league players is an issue that has garnered a fair bit of attention in recent years. The league suggested that improving conditions for remaining minor leaguers provided a compelling justification for cutting teams in the first place. Whether they’ve indeed made significant enough strides to justify those cuts has been a matter of debate. The league is requiring teams to provide housing for their farmhands, starting next season. Yet there remain concerns about the sufficiency of player pay during the season, and MLB continues to battle to keep minor league Spring Training unpaid.

MLBPA “Unimpressed” By MLB’s Latest Offer In CBA Negotiations

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In a meeting this afternoon, Major League Baseball presented its latest offer to the Players’ Association as part of the ongoing collective bargaining negotiations. The meeting lasted less than an hour, according to Joon Lee of ESPN, with the players coming away “unimpressed” — a word used by Lee, Tim Healey of Newsday and Bob Nightengale of USA Today. On the other hand, Michael Silverman of the Boston Globe reports that the league is “underwhelmed by underwhelmed MLBPA.”

Some of the details of MLB’s 130-page proposal are shared by The Athletic’s Evan Drellich and ESPN’s Jesse Rogers.  There was very slight movement on the bonus pool issue, something that had come up in previous bargaining sessions. The league had previously agreed to the MLBPA proposal for a bonus pool, funded by central revenues, to reward pre-arbitration players. Despite agreeing on the proposal, the league and the union have remained far apart on the size. The players initially proposed a total of $105MM, with the league countering by offering $10MM. The players later dropped their ask to $100MM, with the owners today increasing their offer to $15MM.

There was also slight modification to MLB’s proposal regarding the Competitive Balance Tax thresholds. Previously, the plan was to have a limit of $214MM for 2022 through 2024, increasing to $216MM in 2025 and $220MM in 2026. Today’s proposal retained that $214MM number for 2022 and 2023, bumped to $216MM in 2024, and then $218MM and $222MM in the final two years of the deal. The players, on the other hand, have been looking for the threshold to be in the $245MM-260MM range for the five years covered by the deal.

The proposed tax rates for surpassing these thresholds hasn’t changed since MLB’s last proposal, although the draft pick compensation was slightly modified. Under the previous proposal, teams surpassing the first threshold (spending less than $234MM on a proposed $214MM tax threshold) would have to surrender a third round draft pick, though that was dropped to no draft penalty for today’s offer. However, teams would still be paying the same 50 percent tax on every dollar spent within that $214-$234MM area.

As for the league minimum salary, the league made two proposals, one of them involving a flat amount of $630K for all pre-arbitration players. The second proposal involved a tiered system, with players making $615K until they reach one year of service time, $650K for between one and two years’ service time and $725K for those between two and three years’ service time. This is only a slight modification of the previous proposal, in which the tiers were $615K, $650K and $700K, meaning the last tier was the only one to change.

Another proposed change was in relation to MLB’s previous proposal for dealing with service time manipulation. Under the previous proposal, top-100 ranked prospects that were selected to a team’s Opening Day roster could net their team an extra draft pick by finishing in the top five in voting for a major award (the MVP, Cy Young, or Rookie Of The Year) during one of his arbitration-eligible seasons. Under the league’s latest proposal, a team can receive two picks if the player finishes in the top three of voting for multiple major awards. Rogers uses the example of Kris Bryant, as if the Cubs had kept Bryant on their roster for their entirety of the 2015 and 2016 seasons, Chicago would have earned two bonus picks for Bryant’s awards success (the 2015 ROY, the 2016 NL MVP).

In some smaller proposed changes, MLB also proposed a limit on how many times a player could be optioned each year at five. There is currently no limit on how many times a player with options could be shuttled between the majors and the minors, and teams have increasingly taken advantage of this non-rule by constantly moving pitchers back and forth from Triple-A to always ensure fresh relievers are available for in-game maneuvers.

While a five-option cap would still allow teams quite a bit of flexibility for promotions and demotions, it would at least cut down on extreme situations, like how the Rays recalled and demoted right-hander Louis Head 12 times last season. MLB’s proposal for a five-option cap comes with some as yet unknown strings attached, Drellich tweets, which concerns the MLBPA. The union is in favor of a limit to the number of options in general, but their proposal would cap the number of moves at four.

In regards to the amateur draft, the league’s new proposal would reintroduce the “draft and follow” concept, where teams could draft a player and send them to junior college for a year before signing them. In addition, prospects who submit to a pre-draft physical would be guaranteed 75% of their slot value and cannot be “failed” by the physical. This is seemingly in response to Kumar Rocker, who was drafted by the Mets with the 10th overall pick last year, but the two sides didn’t reach a deal since the Mets were concerned by an elbow issue that arose in a post-draft physical. Bob Nightengale adds that the proposal includes an extra $23MM for bonuses given to drafted players and international signings.

If one wants to be optimistic about all of this, it can be said that progress was made and that the league made clear which items it considers negotiable and which it won’t budge on, thus laying the groundwork for the players to come back with their next counter. On the pessimistic side of things, the two sides remain far apart, and the league’s proposed changes in this latest offer are very modest, especially considering the ticking clock that is the scheduled start of Spring Training. Prior to the lockout, pitchers and catchers were scheduled to report this week and games were set to begin on February 26, and the possibility of a deal coming together before then is difficult to fathom.

This inevitably leads to the question of whether or not the regular season will begin as scheduled. It’s often been speculated that a deal would need to be in place by around March 1, in order for teams to have one month to conduct their remaining offseason business and for the players to have a proper Spring Training in advance of Opening Day on March 31. In relation to all this, Drellich reports that the MLB today presented the MLBPA with a calendar outlining when a deal would need to be in place in order to avoid such delays or cancellations. The exact specifications of this calendar aren’t known, though as Drellich notes, it’s unclear if the players would agree with this outlay from the league. As for next steps, Nightengale said that the MLBPA “is expected to submit counter proposals within a week.”

Poll: Will The Season Start On Time?

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For the second time in three seasons, we’re faced with the possibility that Major League Baseball will fall shy of a full 162-game schedule. Unlike in 2020, when the truncated season was an inevitability due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the potential for missing games in 2022 is entirely of MLB and the MLBPA’s doing. The expiration of the 2016-21 collective bargaining agreement wasn’t some secret, and a second contentious set of negotiations between the league and union has been widely expected for quite some time — particularly since return-to-play talks went about as poorly as one could possibly imagine in 2020.

While there was some talk of proactive negotiations at times, discussions were infrequent, at best. The MLBPA made a core economics proposal back in May. The league countered in August, suggesting — among other major changes — that free agency be linked directly to a player’s age (29.5 years, in MLB’s proposal). The MLBPA, looking to young stars like Juan Soto, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Fernando Tatis Jr. and many others who’ll reach free agency well before 29, considered age-based a non-starter. (The league’s proposal also contained a $100MM salary floor — but that came with a major reduction in the luxury-tax threshold, from the prior $210MM down to $180MM.)

A second iteration of the union’s economic plan was put forth on Nov. 5, with key points including a raised minimum salary, earlier arbitration, changes to the draft order (with an eye on eliminating tanking), changes the league’s revenue-sharing structure and earlier free agency for certain players. The league was nonplused.

The MLBPA’s second proposal was met with a counter the following week, wherein the league reportedly kept the age-based free agency requirement and also sought to replace the arbitration system entirely — instead awarding pre-free agent salaries according to a WAR-based algorithm. That came with its own fairly obvious set of issues, as explored here at the time of the offer.

As the CBA’s Dec. 1 expiration ticked nearer, it became clear a deal would not be reached. MLB and the MLBPA agreed to move the deadline to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players (which had been set for Dec. 2) up to Nov. 30. A flurry of free-agent and (to a lesser extent) trade activity ensued in the week leading up to the CBA’s expiration, as a handful of motivated teams sought to get some of their offseason business done before the lockout.

Commissioner Rob Manfred announced in a letter to fans on Dec. 2 that the league had locked out the players. Manfred claimed to have been “forced” into a lockout, which he described as a “mechanism to protect the 2022 season” — one that would “jumpstart” negotiations with the MLBPA. The two sides did not return to the table until mid-January, just over six weeks later.

Major League Baseball has made one formal proposal since implementing the lockout. The MLBPA has made two and has now been awaiting a counter to that second offer for ten days. In the interim, MLB made a request for federal mediation; the MLBPA swiftly rejected, with players banding together to voice a desire for daily negotiations with MLB rather than turning things over to a third party. Daily negotiations (obviously) have not occurred.

Players are still seeking increased minimum salaries, a bonus pool to reward pre-arbitration players based on performance, an increased luxury-tax threshold and measures to eliminate tanking, among other items. An expanded playoff format and the associated spike in television/streaming/gate revenues is among the league’s top priorities, but owners are also pushing back heavily on the extent to which minimum salary should increase and to which pre-arbitration players should be compensated.

Manfred confirmed yesterday that the league will submit a new proposal Saturday. He also declined to announce a delay to the start of Spring Training (although that feels like an inevitability), called missing regular season games “a disastrous outcome for the industry,” and maintained optimism that the season will begin on March 31, as scheduled.

All of that sounds nice, but it’s increasingly difficult to believe the two parties will make swift progress, given the acrimonious nature of talks to date. It’s also worth noting that back in October, Manfred made similar comments about agreeing to a new CBA before Dec. 1, calling an agreement the league’s “number one priority” and expressing optimism a deal would be reached in time.

That rundown of where things stand out of the way, let’s open this up for (further) debate among readers with a poll…

(link to poll for Trade Rumors iOS/Android app users)

Manfred Expresses Optimism For Full Season, Says MLB Has Proposed Universal DH And Elimination Of Draft-Pick Compensation

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Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred met with the media for about 30 minutes Thursday morning as the quarterly owners’ meetings drew to a close, discussing the status of the ongoing labor dispute with the MLB Players Association. Among the more concrete takeaways, Manfred said that the league has “agreed” both to the implementation of a universal designated hitter and the elimination of draft-pick compensation for free agents who reject qualifying offers.

However, as MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes reports (Twitter links), the use of “agreed” is a bit misleading. The two parties have not reached a formal agreement on either issue. Rather, Manfred’s use of “agreed” merely indicates that both the universal DH and elimination of draft-pick compensation were included as components of a broader proposal put forth by MLB some time ago.

Still, with regard to the universal designated hitter, this is one of the most concrete indicators of its likely implementation. Both parties, after all, have in the past shown a desire to add a DH to the National League. For the players, this creates another spot in 15 lineups and could create a handful of jobs for free agents. For teams, this all but eliminates the risk of pitchers being injured at the plate and on the bases. Because of that mutual interest, though, the league’s desire to frame the universal DH as something of a concession is somewhat questionable. It’s not clear the union will perceive it as a concession.

With regard to the elimination of pick compensation, Dierkes reports that the league’s proposal instead would award draft picks to teams for losing free agents, based on the quality of player, with no offer of any sort required. That raises issues on how to specifically determine that player’s value, however, and the MLBPA likely harbors concern that by giving teams a pick for losing a free agent, the league is actually disincentivizing clubs from re-signing some of their own players.

Beyond those two more concrete elements of his side’s recent proposal, Manfred offered little in the way of definitive statements. Asked about the status of Spring Training (i.e. whether it will be delayed), the commissioner replied that the “status of Spring Training is no change right now.”

We’re only a week out from the original report date for players and have, to this point, seen no meaningful progress in negotiations between the league and union. A delayed Spring Training feels like a foregone conclusion, but Manfred at least kicked the can down the road a couple days on any such formal declaration, suggesting that the decision was contingent on how Saturday’s meeting with the MLBPA plays out. That said, while Manfred didn’t explicitly state that Spring Training will be delayed, he addressed the possibility, acknowledging that the three-week ramp up period to the pandemic-shortened 2020 season was insufficient.

“The injury data shows that,” Manfred said of 2020’s training period. “We’d like to be [at] 28 [days] — we think four weeks makes sense.” A four-week Spring Training would still fall a good ways shy of the typical six-week period, but the extra week of build-up time in that theoretical scenario would prove beneficial to players, particularly to starting pitchers.

Manfred declared himself an optimist, stating more broadly that he believes the two sides will reach an agreement in time for the regular season to begin, as planned, on March 31. Missing regular-season games would be a “disastrous outcome to this industry,” Manfred said, adding that MLB is “committed to reaching an agreement to avoid that.”

Upon being asked about the league making just one proposal in the ten weeks since implementing the lockout, Manfred demurred and stated that “phones work two ways,” painting the lack of meaningful talks as a two-way street. Whichever side you take in the increasingly ugly battle — and it’s plenty fair if your answer is, “neither!” — it was ownership that locked out the players in, as Manfred stated at the time, an effort to “jumpstart” progress toward a deal. A silent period of more than six weeks followed. It’s plenty defensible to say the union should have been more proactive in instigating talks, but at the very least, the players have spent the past two weeks publicly declaring a desire for daily negotiations.

In one of the more eyebrow-raising moments of the press conference, Manfred was asked whether purchasing an MLB franchise was a “good investment.” He bizarrely implied the contrary, stating that between the purchase price of the team and the money invested into the club on a year-over-year basis, the “return on those investments is below what you’d expect to get in the stock market,” adding that there was greater risk in owning a team. Comments of that nature are sure to further galvanize a union that has repeatedly suggested the league isn’t being genuine or negotiating in good faith.

That term, “good-faith,” is a recurring theme when both sides discuss negotiations, as each indicates that the other is effectively neglecting to operate in such a fashion. For his part, Manfred vowed to make a “good-faith, positive proposal” to the players when the two sides meet Saturday, implying that perhaps this weekend could serve as a turning point.

“One correct move sometimes opens the way to an agreement,” said Manfred. “My view of the world is you always keep looking for that one move that creates that opportunity.”

MLB To Make Next Core Economics Proposal Saturday

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Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have scheduled their next meeting for Saturday, reports Evan Drellich of the Athletic (Twitter links). Jon Heyman of the MLB Network tweets that the league is expected to make its next proposal involving core economics.

The parties have been in a holding pattern for over a week. The union put forth its latest proposal on February 1, offering small changes to the bonus pool framework for pre-arbitration players and draft pick incentives for teams to break camp with their top prospects. It was expected at the time that the league would make a counterproposal. Instead, MLB put forth a request for federal mediation, which the union predictably declined the next day.

Since the MLBPA refused mediation last Friday, there’s been no negotiations between the two sides. Various players expressed their desire to return to the table — indeed, a common reason cited by the union for refusing mediation is the amount of time it’d take for a third party to get up to speed on the issues at hand — but it has been MLB’s turn to make the next offer. The league’s owners and top brass have been in contact for quarterly owners’ meetings running this week, but no sit-down with the MLBPA was scheduled until tonight.

The owners’ meetings conclude tomorrow, and it’s widely expected Commissioner Rob Manfred will formally announce a delay to the start of Spring Training. That’d be little more than a formality at this point, since there’s no chance of a deal being agreed upon in time for pitchers and catchers to report next week, as had been originally scheduled.

The date of greater import is March 31, the scheduled start of the regular season. Both Heyman and Jared Diamond of the Wall Street Journal (on Twitter) hear that the parties continue to hold out hope for Opening Day to remain on schedule or to incur only a minor delay. That’d require rapid progress in talks over the coming weeks. It is generally believed a new collective bargaining agreement would need to be in place within the first few days of March for the regular season to remain on schedule.

MLB Suspends Drug Testing As Part Of Lockout

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As the lockout continues, Major League Baseball has ceased drug testing for players who are part of the MLB Players Association, reports Ronald Blum of the Associated Press. It’s an expected development, as Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic wrote last November that the union did not believe the league could continue drug testing throughout a work stoppage.

The MLB – MLBPA Joint Drug Agreement covers players on 40-man rosters, major league free agents, and certain professional international free agents. The JDA contained an expiration provision for December 1, 2021 at 11:59 pm EST, overlapping with the expiration of the most recent collective bargaining agreement. However, as labor lawyer Eugene Freedman points out (on Twitter), the implementation of the lockout is the direct force behind the current testing stoppage. In the absence of a work stoppage, the previous CBA remains the governing document until a new agreement is reached. Had MLB not instituted a lockout, the offseason would have proceeded under the terms of the previous CBA and its ancillary agreements — the JDA among them — despite the expiration provisions contained therein.

The JDA encompasses testing both for drugs of abuse (including cocaine and opiates) and performance-enhancing substances. As the lockout continues, testing will not be in place for substances of either form. While the JDA was in effect, it was customary for drug testing to continue over the offseason. Blum relays statistics from program administrator Thomas Martin, noting that nearly 48,000 cumulative tests were conducted between 2017-21. Of those, more than 7,300 were administered during the offseason. (It is not clear what percentage of those were for drugs of abuse versus for performance-enhancing substances).

What effect, if any, the cessation of offseason drug testing will have remains to be seen. Given that MLB instituted the lockout in the early morning of December 2, it stands to reason testing has already been suspended for over two months. Whenever a new CBA is agreed upon, a drug testing provision — whether a new system or simply a reimplementation of the previous JDA — will no doubt be included. Potential modifications to the JDA are reportedly among the non-core economics issues the parties have discussed.

Whatever form the drug testing program eventually takes, it doesn’t seem a resolution is in the near future. There’s been little progress in negotiations thus far, and it remains to be seen when MLB will make its next move. A delayed start to Spring Training seems an inevitability, and there’ll need to be rapid progress over the next three weeks if the regular season is to start on March 31, as currently scheduled.

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