JUPITER, Fla. (AP) — Major League Baseball negotiations to end the lockout are extending to the limit.
Management says a deal must be reached by the end of Monday’s negotiations to salvage a March 31 start to the regular season and a 162-game schedule.
With that in mind, the sides are scheduled to meet starting at 10 a.m., three hours earlier than usual. This will be the eighth straight day of talks at Roger Dean Stadium, the vacant spring training home of the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals.
The lockout is in its 89th day. MLB has not fixed an exact time to the deadline, which leads to the possibility of bargaining sessions stretching into the wee hours if both sides see a deal within reach.
Sides were still far apart, but pressure is increasing. Players would lose $20.5 million in salary for each day of the season that is canceled, according to a study by The Associated Press, and the 30 teams would lose large sums that are harder to pin down.
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Monday was picked as a deadline because MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred says at least 28 days of training are needed before the season starts. The union has not said whether it agrees, and baseball has shortened spring training to as few as three weeks in the past.
Baseball’s ninth work stoppage started Dec. 2. Spring training games were to have begun Saturday and already have been canceled through March 7.
Just three players attended the talks Sunday: Max Scherzer, Andrew Miller and Marcus Semien. Scherzer left the ballpark before bargaining broke for the night.
Players and owners did not meet directly.
Deputy Commissioner Dan Halem telephoned union chief negotiator Bruce Meyer on Sunday morning and asked for a 1-on-1 session in place of the scheduled larger group gathering.
That started a series of four short meetings characterized as an exchange of ideas that gave the union and MLB a better idea of the tradeoffs it would take to reach the endpoint of bargaining that began last spring and resulted in the sport’s first work stoppage since 1995.
Players and teams enter deadline day far apart on many key issues and unresolved on others. The most contentious proposals involve luxury tax thresholds and rates, the size of a new bonus pool for pre-arbitration players, minimum salaries, salary arbitration eligibility and the union’s desire to change the club revenue sharing formula.
In addition, MLB has tied the elimination of direct free-agent compensation to players agreeing to higher luxury tax rates and still wants to expand the playoffs to 14 teams rather than the union’s preference for 12. MLB also has kept its proposal for an international amateur draft on the table.
Not since Aug 30, 2002, has MLB come this close to losing regular-season games to labor strife. The union was set to strike at 3:20 p.m., but roughly 25 consecutive hours of meetings and caucuses culminated in an agreement at 11:45 a.m.
Bargaining has not had that type of frequency this year, but has gained momentum since talks shifted from New York to Florida last week.
MLB is offering to raise the luxury tax threshold from $210 million last season to $214 million this year, increasing it to $220 million by 2026. Teams also want higher tax rates, which the union says would tend to act like a salary cap.
Players have asked for a $245 million threshold this year, rising to $273 million by the final season.
The union wants to expand arbitration to include the top 35% by service time of players with at least two seasons of major league service and less than three, up from the 22% cutoff in place since 2013.
The union proposed the pre-arbitration pool have $115 million distributed to 150 players, and management wants $20 million to be split among 30.
10 questions to explain baseball’s ongoing labor talks
What’s happening?
MLB and the MLB Players Association met in-person Monday in Manhattan for more than two hours, their second bargaining session since the lockout started in December and the most substantive talks yet. The league made a proposal to the players’ union via Zoom on Jan. 13. Monday was viewed as the MLBPA’s counter. They’re also meeting again Tuesday, which represents progress.
Who attended?
The MLB side included Rockies owner Dick Monfort, who’s the chairman of baseball’s labor policy committee, as well as deputy commissioner Dan Halem, executive vice president Morgan Sword and senior vice president Patrick Houlihan. Lead negotiator Bruce Meyer and free agent reliever Andrew Miller represented the MLBPA.
What was said?
MLBPA changed its tune on two things it hopes will spur momentum in talks: time before free agency is reached and the amount of money funneled to small-market teams (like the Pirates) via revenue sharing.
MLB players can currently become free agents after six years. The union had been arguing for a system that got some there in five depending on age — 30 1/2 to start, then eventually reaching 29 1/2 .
The union had previously asked that the revenue-sharing process was decreased by $100 million, but on Monday it dropped that ask to $30 million.
Will that matter?
Tough to say, although a return to the bargaining table 24 hours later obviously isn’t a bad thing. It’s also important to consider context or the rotten relationship that exists between these two parties; common ground or positive vibes are hard to find.
Furthermore, the owners have certain things that they’ve described as non-starters in negotiations: any tweaks to the revenue-sharing model, plus how soon players can reach free agency and the timeline to arbitration.
Accepting the current system for free agency is a concession. The union’s adjusted revenue-sharing figure was, too, although the owners might not care if they’re truly unwilling to discuss a change here.
MLB players can currently become free agents after six years. The union had been arguing for a system that got some there in five depending on age — 30 1/2 to start, then eventually reaching 29 1/2 .
The union had previously asked that the revenue-sharing process was decreased by $100 million, but on Monday it dropped that ask to $30 million.
What’s left?
A lot, frankly.
Crossing free agency off the list, there’s currently a sizable gap when it comes to how the two sides view the Competitive Balance Tax (or CBT) threshold.
It’s currently $210 million. Owners have proposed a system starting at $214 million and reaching $220 million over a five-year period. The players are asking for $245 million. This alone tells you how far off these two groups can be.
Another key issue is minimum salary. The union wants to take the current number ($570,500) to $775,000 and $875,000 by 2026. Owners want to start at $600,000 and have it split into thirds: under a year of service, between one and two years and more than two, the latter two earning $50,000 and $100,000 more.
Those numbers, in theory, would jump $10,000 annually to reach $640,000/$690,000/$740,000 in 2026. None of this has been seriously discussed, which matters because minimum salary has a bigger impact than you might think.
Say a different minimum salary applies to 10 players per team. A jump from the current figure to, say, $650,000, would mean $79,500 per player, $795,000 per team and $23,850,000 across all 30 clubs.
Any other sticking points?
This might be the wackiest topic discussed, in that it seems MLB wants to give some, but how the owners have done that is funky.
Service time in MLB, loosely, works like this: The first two years are team-controlled, where clubs set salaries a hair over the league minimum. The final three are decided by arbitration. The issue is the third one, where the top 22% of players in that class achieve what’s called “Super 2” status and earn a fourth whack at arbitration.
Clubs manipulating service time to prevent this has long been a thorny topic, especially in Pittsburgh, and it’s something the MLBPA would like to improve in the next CBA. The issue becomes how to do that.
Owners have proposed a formula-based system netting increased compensation for players with between two and three years of service time. They’ve also discussed a system that could net draft picks if teams place a top prospect on the opening day roster and that player thrives.
Teams would could earn a first-round pick if said player won Rookie of the Year or finished in the top three in MVP or Cy Young voting, a second-rounder for thresholds below that. One issue: Whose top 100 list are we using? Another: award voters might determine whether a team gets a first-round pick? Odd.
The formula-based system has also gained little traction. MLB previously offered to have salaries determined by WAR, and that was quickly scrapped. A concern over this latest ploy is that better compensation for players with between two and three years of service time would ultimately eliminate arbitration — something the union would like to avoid.
Some good ideas, sure, but plenty of work ahead.
Do they agree on anything?
Amazingly, yes. MLB has agreed to remove draft-pick compensation from free agents, which the union thinks could spur more offseason activity. The sides also seem aligned on having the designated hitter in both leagues and creating a draft lottery, though they differ on how to structure the latter.
To this point, the owners want to limit the lottery to three teams, with participants ineligible to draft that high in three consecutive seasons. Players want the draft lottery to expand to eight, a move they believe will at least partially address tanking.
Seems both sides are OK expanding the postseason, with owners lobbying for 14 teams and the players saying they will go to 12 — but play more games to try and match the revenue generated from a 14-game system. Advertising patches on uniforms are another thing where a solution seemingly exists.
What about … baseball?
Here’s the crazy part of this whole thing. The DH has been the only on-field issue they’ve discussed. Nothing about pace of play, robot umps or shifts. No talk about tackier baseballs, roster limits, the use of replay or legitimately trying to grow the sport, either.
They’ll hopefully get there, but neither side seems appropriately concerned with things that really do matter to fans. Would be nice to see them figure out the economic issues quicker and then concentrate on this stuff.
What’s the context?
Baseball has endured eight work stoppages between 1972-1995 but none since.
The backdrop here is unique, too. Teams have been spending less and less on players, dragging the total number of salary dollars down to a level not seen since 2015 (a little over $4 billion). And while that won’t net sympathy from regular folks, it has only made things more contentious between players and owners, who have received an increasingly larger piece of the financial pie.
That said, everyone was affected by COVID-19, which shortened the 2020 season to 60 games and delivered to owners virtually no gate revenue.
Owners contend they incurred around $3 billion in operating losses due to the pandemic-shortened season, and while it would be impossible to independently verify that figure, this much is true: Missing more games would not be good for business.
What’s the deadline?
This part has been sometimes overblown. Spring training is scheduled to start on Feb. 16, so an agreement would have to come in the next two weeks to hit that deadline.
It’s also entirely possible for spring training to be shortened. As long as they figure something out by late February, it should provide enough time for everyone to get to Florida and Arizona, clear COVID protocols and for pitchers to build up enough arm strength for a March 31 opening day.