20:50: MLB has proposed raising the base luxury tax threshold to $228 million next season, with that figure rising to $238 million during the CBA, Drellich. reports. It’s a pretty notable jump from previous MLB offerings to start at $220 million and climb to $230 million by 2026, and it’ll be an $18 million year-over-year jump from last season’s $210 million mark.
However, Drellich cautions that the league’s offer to switch to CBT came with “basic conditions.” Those terms are not clear, although MLB has in past proposals sought a 14-team playoff field and an international amateur draft and may be seeking MLBPA approval again on one or both topics. The union was aiming to increase CBT to $238 million next season and move to $263 million by the end of the CBA.
20:29: After yesterday’s MLB Players Association proposal to the league was met with hostility, the lead negotiators reconvened today, according to Athletic’s Evan Drellich.link to twitter). They are expected to meet again tomorrow, and MLB has suggested that these discussions may be of particular importance.
Drellich says the league is looking at tomorrow as the deadline for a new collective bargaining agreement for a 162-game season (and with it, annual wages and seniority for players). He and colleague Ken Rosenthal Add that the league had told the union that it expected the games to be canceled for another week if a deal was not struck. Commissioner Rob Manfred had already announced the cancellation of the first two series of the regular season last week, and the league had previously been adamant that those games would not be played. It now appears that MLB is ready to consider the possibility, but only if the new CBA is completed on Tuesday.
This is the second (possibly third) time the league has set a deadline for an agreement to avoid losing regular season games. MLB previously set Feb. 28 at 11:59 pm EST as the milestone to avoid delays to opening day. That evening, as the parties began closing the gap in negotiations, the league moved that deadline to March 1 at 5:00 pm EST. Ultimately, no agreement was reached—the league said the union raised its demands overnight, while the MLBPA accused the league of exaggerating the progress made the previous night—and Manfred announced the cancellation of the first two episodes that evening.
The union expressed dissatisfaction with this decision. MLB unilaterally imposed a lockout and set a deadline for an agreement at the end of February, while the MLBPA argued that further negotiations should continue without canceling games. It’s unclear if the union treats the league’s deadline tomorrow in the same way. The originally scheduled opening day, March 31, is just over three weeks away. It’s likely that with those first two series already cancelled, the path to 162 games will involve rescheduling and/or the introduction of double titles rather than just putting those games back on the roster.
Even if the lockout drags on to the point where everyone agrees that a 162-game season is impossible, it goes without saying that the union will make some effort to make up for lost wages and hours. Eventually, MLB imposed a lockout and their initial game cancellation was forced over union objections. MLBPA lead negotiator Bruce Meyer said immediately after Manfred’s statement that the union’s position is that players should be compensated for lost games. As MLBTR’s Steve Adams pointed out last week, the tenure battle could be even more important than any pay dispute.
Whether the parties can reach an agreement tomorrow remains to be seen, but recent tone has not been promising. There is still a significant gap on issues such as the competitive balance tax and bonus pool for pre-arbitrage players. Rosenthal wrote yesterday that the league is willing to go in favor of players in the CBT in exchange for union concessions in other areas, but MLB’s other demands are unclear.
The league has submitted an official counteroffer to the PA’s latest offer on today’s teleconference, according to USA Today’s Bob Nightingale (link to twitter). According to Nightingale, this “(included) flexibility on a number of issues”, but it does not appear to have been well received by the union. One player participates in discussions Rosenthal says the offer remained too leaning towards MLB’s interests, while another said he was “finished placing (his) hopes” on the agreement.