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MARCH 27, 8:30pm: Union chief Tony Clark says that competitive balance taxes would not be assessed in the event that the season is cancelled, as Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times reports (Twitter links). Generally, Clark indicated that the players are amenable to all manner of creative solutions to get in as much of the season as possible. It sounds as if both sides see merit in expanding rosters to facilitate that effort.

12:35pm: Bob Nightengale of USA Today (via Twitter) and Jeff Passan of ESPN.com (Twitter links) provides further details. This year’s draft class will only be eligible to receive up to $100K of bonus money up front, with the remainder paid in two equal installments in 2021 and 2022. Draft selections and international slots may not be traded in the typical, limited manner. Suspensions will apply as usual for the upcoming season but will not carry further into the future if the 2020 season is cancelled.

11:29am: MLB owners have unanimously ratified the agreement, tweets Joel Sherman of the New York Post.

6:05am: In addition to the dramatically shortened draft, the players acquiesced on signing bonuses for draftees, Rosenthal further reports within a much more expansive piece on the deal between the two sides (subscription required).

Slot values in the draft will be frozen at 2019 levels for the next two years as opposed to the roughly three percent year-over-year increase that has been standard. That decision will surely draw its share of criticism, though it’s clear that the players’ focus is on those currently within their union. Player representatives, in particular, figure to take umbrage with ownership’s push to reduce bonuses; Scott Boras calls it “unconscionable” that ownership would “use a pandemic situation in our country as a means to [reduce draftees’ bonuses].”

MARCH 26: With the coronavirus at least delaying the Major League Baseball season, MLB and the MLBPA reached an agreement on several key issues Thursday night, as Jeff Passan of ESPN first reported. Service time, players’ salaries, roster moves, the draft and the upcoming international signing period are all addressed in the deal, which owners will vote on Friday. If it’s ratified, a roster freeze will go into effect for an indeterminate period of time, according to Evan Drellich of The Athletic.

A typical season would have featured 186 days overall, giving players up to 172 days of service time. We don’t know how many there will be this season, though, and that could have had lasting effects on players and teams had the two sides not hammered something out. Now, thanks to this agreement, all players who are active or on the injured list for the entirety of a shortened 2020 season will receive a full year of service time, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Players’ service time will be pro-rated in the event of a truncated campaign, Joel Sherman of the New York Post adds. So, if there’s a 100-day season and a player’s active for 50 of those days, he’ll get half a year of service. If no season happens at all, service time accrued will be based on the amount of days the player earned in 2019, per Rosenthal.

The service time portion of this pact is especially welcome news for many who are due to become free agents next winter. The likes of Mookie Betts, J.T. Realmuto and George Springer will all remain in position to reach free agency then even if a season does not take place. Meanwhile, pre-arbitration players (including names like Matt Chapman and Gleyber Torres) will stay on track to go through the arb process for the first time.

For now, those major leaguers and the rest around MLB will receive a $170MM advance (3 to 4 percent of their full salaries) spread over two months, Rosenthal reports. The union will distribute the money to four classes of players, but those with guaranteed contracts stand to rake in the largest total. The players’ salaries will be pro-rated based on how long the season lasts, and they won’t be able to sue for their full amounts, Rosenthal adds.

Looking ahead to the summer, this year’s amateur draft could go down to five rounds, per Passan, but MLB will have the ability to increase that total, Rosenthal relays, adding that the event won’t occur later than July. Players’ signing bonuses will be deferred, not given out up-front, and they’ll receive 10 percent now and 45 percent over the next two years. Meanwhile, undrafted free agents will be able to sign for up to $20K, per Jon Heyman of MLB Network.

In another decision that will have some effect on young talent from around the game, the upcoming international signing period could be delayed until as late as January 2021, Passan writes. It’s currently scheduled to run from July 2 of this year through June 15, 2021.

These are certainly noteworthy steps for baseball during a time of such uncertainty, though there are still more details to work out. For example, as Rosenthal notes, agreements on spring training and roster size have not come together to this point. Under normal circumstances, we’d have seen 26-man rosters this year, but it’s possible that number will increase for 2020 if a season does occur. According to Passan, there’s a possibility that if the regular season does happen, it will last from June through October and include more doubleheaders. The playoffs would bleed into November and perhaps include games at neutral sites.

As anticipated, an agreement regarding the coronavirus-driven suspension of the 2020 season has resulted in a freezing of MLB rosters, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports on Twitter. A date for the resumption of transactions will be set in the future.

As part of their negotiations, Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have also reached a set of understandings regarding the resumption of play. Jeff Passan of ESPN.com (Twitter links) reported the details. Roster movement will be permitted once a new Opening Day can be scheduled.

It isn’t fully clear whether the sides have specifically agreed to restrictions as part of their collectively bargained special exceptions to the Basic Agreement. But it seems at minimum the mutual intention is to wait until baseball can conduct business in much the usual fashion before starting the season.

Per Passan, the league and union do not wish to begin play if fans cannot be present. Thus, a lifting of bans on mass gatherings will be a precondition to the start of the season — though he adds there’s a “caveat” by which neutral sits and empty stadiums can be considered as needed.

It’s good there’s some flexibility baked into this set of understandings, as there are no guarantees as to whether and when typical staging of ballgames will be possible. Even if some number of fans are ultimately permitted in to watch a contest, that would always be subject to change.

Much the same holds true of one of the other requirements for resuming play identified by Passan: a lack of travel restrictions. We don’t yet know what kinds of domestic transportation modifications we’ll end up facing in this crisis, but it seems likely the approach will evolve over time as needs change in various areas.

The final main consideration for holding contests is the review of medical experts to ensure it is safe to those on hand. MLB’s precise plans aren’t clear; perhaps the league will engage a consultant to guide the process.

It’s certainly good to hear that the league and union intend to ensure their actions won’t pose a health risk to those involved in the game and/or the broader public. But the set of requirements also seems rather steep given where things stand now in the effort to contain the deadly pathogen. In particular, much as we’d all love to see the game played in front of live audiences, it seems as if that’ll be awfully difficult to pull off in the near term given the vast ongoing uncertainty.

Major League Baseball has announced a plan that will see minor league players receive some form of financial help while the baseball world is in limbo due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  As per the media release…

Each player who is under a Minor League Uniform Player Contract will receive a lump sum equal to the allowances that would have been paid through April 8^th.  The exceptions to this plan are non-40-man-roster players who are already receiving Major League allowances; players who are currently receiving housing, food or other services from Clubs; and players who were not participating in, or expected to participate in, Minor League Spring Training.   MLB remains in communication with Clubs on the development of an industry-wide plan for Minor League player compensation from April 9^th through the beginning of the coming season.

The announcement also called this plan an “initial step,” as “MLB intends to continue working with all 30 Clubs to identify additional ways to support those players as a result of the delayed 2020 season.”  In essence, the league now has a couple more weeks to figure out a longer-term answer to the problem of paying minor league players, amidst the countless other issues that must be addressed during this prolonged shutdown.

While some teams (including the Rays, Mets, and Dodgers) have already made arrangements to provide their minor leaguers with a stipend, this news from the league formalizes such payments across all 30 farm systems, covering hundreds of minor league players.  It will undoubtedly bring comfort to these athletes, the vast majority of whom didn’t receive any sort of notable signing bonus and have been earning less-than-minimum wage salaries during their playing careers.

The financial difficulties faced by minor league players was a subject of controversy well before the coronavirus outbreak, of course, though the timing of the league-wide shutdown right in the midst of Spring Training (when minor leaguers enjoyed the bonus of lodgings and meal money provided by their organizations) made the situation particularly troublesome.  Some clubs like the Diamondbacks have continued to provide these amenities to minor leaguers during the shutdown — as the Arizona Republic’s Nick Piecoro notes, D’Backs prospects thus won’t be subject to the league-wide policy.

All 30 Major League clubs have established $1MM funds to cover the lost wages of their gameday and event staffs during the league-wide shutdown, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports (via Twitter). MLB commissioner Rob Manfred offered the following statement on the teams’ actions (Twitter thread via Joel Sherman of the New York Post):

Over the past 48 hours, I have been approached by representatives of all 30 clubs to help assist the thousands of ballpark employees affected by the delay in the start of the Major League Baseball season. Motivated by desire to help some of the most valuable members of the baseball community, each Club has committed $1 million. The individual clubs will be announcing more details surrounding this support effort in their local communities. The timing of these announcements will vary because of the need to coordinate with state and local laws as well as collective bargaining obligations in an effort to maximize the benefits realized by each group of employees. I am proud that our clubs came together so quickly and uniformly to support these individuals who provide so much to the game we love.

It’s a nice gesture of goodwill and solidarity by all 30 teams, as thousands of ballpark employees throughout the league saw their livelihoods impacted and threatened by the absence of games being played. There are still, of course, other issues to address — namely the manner in which minor league players will be compensated during the hiatus.

As covered here earlier today, non-40-man players aren’t protected by the MLBPA and are currently set to go without their already meager salaries during the unexpected work stoppage. Some clubs — the Rays, Mets and Dodgers among them — are allotting a $400 weekly stipend through the end of the month, although that’s a temporary solution to a much larger-scale problem.