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Latest On MLB-MLBPA Negotiations On 2020 Season

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Major League Baseball and the players’ union met yesterday to engage on a possible restart to the pandemic-paused 2020 season. While the talk in the run-up to the sit-down surrounded economic disputes, the sides seem to have started the conversation in less contentious realms.

Yesterday’s chatter involved matters that might seem mundane, but which matter quite a bit to the hot stove. Roster and transaction rules were on the table, as was with the plan for a second Spring Training, per ESPN.com’s Jesse Rogers.

Also under discussion was the complicated matter of health and safety, though it sounds as if there’s much more to come on that score. The league is preparing a lengthy presentation on all sorts of measures and protocols for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (subscription link).

It sounds as if the approach is to lay some groundwork before moving on to the owners’ desire to further pare back payroll. Yesterday’s meeting did not include any discussion of player earnings, per Rogers.

Players have already agreed to a game-for-game reduction in salaries. With something like a half-season on the table, they stand to sacrifice about half of their anticipated annual earnings even without taking further cuts. But MLB is reportedly angling to limit salaries to 50% of certain league revenues — it’s not clear what would be included — in order to boost team balance sheets.

If that’s the final and most difficult question to be answered, it’s not the most important. Finding a path to play that’s responsible to participants as well as the general public remains the primary challenge. The league has obviously done a lot of groundwork; Rosenthal adds that several agents have arranged briefings for players from disease experts.

MLB To Hold 5-Round Draft

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MLB has decided upon a five-round draft this summer, according to Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel of ESPN.com (links to Twitter). The union had previously agreed to the possibility of a draft as short as five rounds, though more recently had pushed for a lengthier process.

Commissioner Rob Manfred laid down the decision when MLB and the MLBPA could not come to an agreement on the particulars. Interestingly, Passan notes, a ten-round draft was also preferred by baseball operations departments. The version on offer from the league would’ve effectively separated the draft into two five-round sections with greater spending limitations on the latter half, along with a cap on undrafted signings.

Ultimately, it seems, owners were more concerned with avoiding the cost of additional bonuses than they were intrigued by the potential to acquire more high-end talent in the later stages of the draft. Draft-eligible players that are not selected in the five rounds will be eligible to sign for a maximize bonus of $20K.

Teams may struggle to woo players they don’t select. Typically, later-round choices can be paid quite a bit more than $20K. With collegiate play a viable alternative, many will elect to await a (hopefully) more lucrative professional starting point.

Then again, perhaps teams will find some success competing with geography, promises of advancement and opportunity, and other creative inducements. Manfred will no doubt need to be proactive in policing this arena. There’s huge potential upside to be had, which creates some potentially worrying incentives.

Finding value in the draft has long been a chief aim of baseball ops departments. Now they’ll have never-before-seen chances to sign an unlimited number of players for bargain prices. That’ll involve recruitment, of course, but there’s a rare possibility for major imbalance in the talent haul.

Even putting aside worries of rule-breaking behavior, there’ll be potential for havoc. Joel Sherman of the New York Post notes (Twitter link) the possibility of pressure on “late”-round picks to take what they can get or face a $20K cap. There’s also a sense that innumerable soft factors could sway large numbers of players in varying directions, as Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com notes on Twitter. There’ll certainly be downstream effects for players that choose to enter or remain in the collegiate and JuCo ranks.

Union, League Spar Over Interpretation Of Agreement On Resumption Of Play

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It had seemed that Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association were largely seeing eye to eye on alterations to their preexisting agreements to account for the coronavirus pandemic. The sides struck a bargain in late March to account for numerous significant matters of concern, including part-season salaries.

[RELATED: MLB Player Contracts In A Shortened Or Canceled Season]

The unity may not be long-lived. With little prospect for hosting games with fans in attendance in the near term, league and union are now embroiled in a battle over the meaning of the deal they worked out less than one month ago.

Recent reporting indicated that MLB does not believe the recent agreement resolves the matter of player salaries in the event of TV-only games. Today, union chief Tony Clark announced that he holds precisely the opposite position, as Ronald Blum of the Associated Press reports.

The league claims the question of salary in a no-attendance season simply hasn’t been decided, pointing to a clause providing that the sides agree to “discuss in good faith the economic feasibility of playing games in the absence of spectators or at appropriate substitute neutral sites.” By this reading, the entire original agreement related only to the resumption of a typical season.

The player side says the agreement provides for a pro rata reduction of salary to match the number of games played, regardless of whether fans are in the stands. Clark tells Blum: “Players recently reached an agreement with Major League Baseball that outlines economic terms for resumption of play, which included significant salary adjustments and a number of other compromises. That negotiation is over.”

It’s not surprising that the sides would’ve found it hard to line up on this particular point. Playing without paying fans was obviously foreseeable, since it made it into the deal. Surely this didn’t sneak up on anyone.

But it’s frankly bizarre to see such a misalignment of expectations regarding an agreement that was only just negotiated. The actual dispute boils down to the question whether new negotiations over “economic feasibility” would involve a full reconsideration of player salaries or, rather, that such feasibility would take place regarding only other matters, with the salary issue already decided. It seems there are oddities in the positions of both sides, based upon what has been aired publicly.

In the framing of deputy commissioner Dan Halem, the original agreement was one in which the sides “agreed that the season would not commence until normal operations — including fans in our home stadiums — were possible.” If not, there’d be a need to negotiate a whole new “framework to resume play without fans.”

It may well be possible — even preferable — to read the agreement as the league suggests. But in that case, why not make it all the more explicit? We haven’t yet seen the full agreement in its finished form, but the elements that have been reported suggest it’s less than crystal clear in its structure. It also seems strange that the sides would’ve focused so much energy solely on the function of a “normal” season when that seemed so unlikely to occur.

At the same time, on the union side, it’s hard to imagine the potential ambiguity wasn’t spotted. If the MLBPA really believed the agreement ensured full salaries (on a game-by-game basis) regardless whether fans were in attendance, why would it have allowed such an “economic feasibility” proviso to inject doubt?

Could it be that both sides agreed to disagree? Perhaps, but if that was actually the mutual understanding, then why overlay contractual uncertainty onto the preexisting, underlying state of affairs? If instead one side or the other has been caught by surprise by the other’s interpretation, that’s equally hard to understand.

Perhaps we’re still just seeing posturing. But there’s no question the league and union still have significant issues to sort through in advance of a potential resumption of play, especially if (as seems exceedingly likely) it’ll occur without spectators.

This was always going to be complicated. Holding contests without fans will require tricky logistics, added costs and risks, and atypical economic calculations. And there’s already an important background consideration here. Remember that talk of the uniform player contract, which provides the commissioner power to “suspend” contracts “during any national emergency during which Major League Baseball is not played”? That’s clear enough in some instances. But it’s less obvious precisely how the contracts would be re-started. And what happens if the emergency declaration is formally lifted, but baseball doesn’t resume play … or does so on a modified basis? It’s hard to read this clause as providing that major economic interferences would mandate adjustments of already guaranteed salaries, particularly if there’s no formal nationwide emergency declaration.

There was already ample potential for interpretive disputes revolving around that language, the entirety of the Basic Agreement, and the broader bargaining relationship in these unusual circumstances. A mutually satisfactory resolution never seemed straightforward. And now, the presence of an intervening, already-disputed agreement may only add to the potential for friction.

Quick Hits: Shapiro, Blue Jays, Ryu, Draft, Payrolls

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It was on this day in 1916 that one of the biggest trades in early baseball history was finalized, as the Indians acquired superstar center fielder Tris Speaker from the Red Sox for right-hander “Sad” Sam Jones, minor leaguer Fred Thomas, and $55K in cash considerations.  A salary dispute prompted the move, as the Sox wanted Speaker to take a pay cut following something of a down year (.322/.416/411 over 653 PA) by his huge standards in 1915.  While the two teams agreed to the swap a few days prior to April 12, it wasn’t officially completed until Speaker received a reported $10K bonus to agree to play for Cleveland, a bonus Speaker demanded be personally paid by Red Sox owner Joseph Lannin.

While the Sox were criticized for the trade, they weren’t exactly hurt in the short term, as Boston went on to win the World Series in both 1916 and 1918 — Jones posting a 2.25 ERA in the latter season to play a big role in the championship run.  Speaker, meanwhile, had plenty of great baseball left in him, as he hit .354/.444/.520 over 6634 plate appearances with the Tribe from 1916-26, and also served as Cleveland’s manager for the last eight of those seasons.  Speaker’s time with the Indians was highlighted by a World Series victory in 1920, the first title in franchise history.

Some notes from around the modern baseball world…

  • Though the Blue Jays loaded up on arms this offseason, team president/CEO Mark Shapiro still feels “pitching, pitching and more pitching” is his club’s biggest need.  In a Q&A conversation with The Athletic’s Jim Bowden (subscription required), Shapiro noted that Toronto’s splashy $80MM signing of Hyun-Jin Ryu was partially based on that need, since “we have more position players than pitchers that are major-league ready to impact and we needed more balance.”  Another factor, however, was the internal confidence amongst the Jays’ current core roster “that they are closer to winning than people think.”  This is one of many topics addressed during the interview, as Shapiro also discussed issues as rule changes, how baseball could adapt to a shortened season, and how he is coping with trying to run an organization with everyone staying at home.
  • Also of note was Shapiro’s mention that “more of a traditional center fielder” was the Blue Jays’ second-biggest need, though “we have lots of outfielders and we would like to give them an opportunity before adding to that mix.”  Randal Grichuk is slated for the bulk of center field duty, though Teoscar Hernandez, Derek Fisher, Anthony Alford, and perhaps even Cavan Biggio could all get some time up the middle.  While Grichuk is mostly thought of as a right fielder, he has actually amassed almost as many innings in center (1988 1/3) as he has in right (2196 2/3) over his MLB career, though defensive metrics are somewhat split on which is his better position.  UZR/150 and Statcast’s Outs Above Average favor Grichuk’s work in right field, while the Defensive Runs Saved metric prefers his glovework in center field.
  • With this year’s amateur draft slated for only between 5-10 rounds, many top high school prospects could opt to attend college or junior college, while some college seniors could take their renewed year of NCAA eligibility and instead enter the 2021 draft.  Other youngsters, however, will opt to begin their pro careers, which MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo notes will likely lead to a huge free agent market of available amateur talent.  Teams can’t spend more than $20K to sign any undrafted amateur, so a host of other factors could impact whether or not a player chooses one particular team over others offering the same dollar figure, as executives, agents, and players tell Cotillo.  These factors range from the relationship between a team’s scout and the player, a player choosing a team close to his hometown and family, or perhaps even a club strategically drafting one prospect in order to draft another.  As one scouting director put it, “If we draft a kid in the fourth round, do we have a better shot at signing his buddy?“
  • “Team officials and player agents are bracing for what they expect to be a dramatic shift in the financial landscape if the sport is shut down for the season,” ESPN.com’s Buster Olney writes (subscription required), which could mean particular concern for teams with major long-term salary commitments on their books.  Clubs like the Angels, Padres, and Rockies are in this camp, while teams with less money committed beyond the next season or two — such as the Giants, Rangers, Mariners, or Dodgers — are in a bit better position.  Of course, the coming Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations are “the industry X factor” in all financial forecasts.

Tony Clark Skeptical Of Organizational Spending Plans

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After a 2018 offseason that saw countless veterans linger on the free agent vine much longer than anticipated, MLBPA executive director Tony Clark is expecting yet another cooled stove this winter–and, judging from comments made to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal on Thursday, he doesn’t sound particularly pleased about it.

“The Hot Stove season has traditionally been about ticket sales and fan engagement,” Clark told Rosenthal. “Yet several clubs are laying the groundwork for more of the same [this offseason], even as franchise values skyrocket and central revenues continue to increase. These blanket proclamations send precisely the wrong message to fans, and undermine the competitive landscape that fuels interest in the game from day one of spring training through the final game of the World Series.”

For context, it’s important to note that Clark is largely responding to recent comments made by several C-level club executives and owners around the game: Red Sox brass has indicated a desire to get under the CBT threshold in advance of 2020; the Rockies, fresh off of a fourth-place season, indicated a lack of “flexibility” in regard to finances for 2020; and, just this week, our own Steve Adams delved into the possible maneuvers the Astros could undertake in avoidance of the luxury tax line, after owner Jim Crane poured cold water on the idea of a Houston-Geritt Cole reunion. For teams at every position in the standings, “spending” has become a center-stage PR concern in 2019.

Clark also took pains to note that MLB saw a decline in gate attendance for the fourth consecutive season, with, specifically, a 1.6 year-over-year drop from 2018 to 2019. That such a decline would occur while another term–“tanking”–is also becoming common parlance would seem to add some teeth to Clark’s comments. In 2019, 20 teams finished with 90-or-more losses or 90-or-more wins, while a whopping eight teams finished with 100-or-more losses or 100-or-more wins.

Rosenthal’s column also features comments from MLB deputy commissioner Dan Halem, who takes–as one might expect–a more tempered view of game-wide spending patterns, noting that the Minnesota Twins saw a huge jump in 2019 attendance despite a quiet 18-19 offseason in terms of spending (the club’s two “major” expenditures being a collective three years of commitment to Marwin Gonzalez and Nelson Cruz). Certainly, this instance of public back-and-forth represents an interesting bit of repartee occurring between both league and players union in advance of the current collective bargaining agreement’s expiration in December of 2021.

Latest On Push For International Draft

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Major League Baseball is pressing a plan to implement an international draft in the near future, Baseball America’s Ben Badler reports. With ownership behind the initiative, says Badler, it’s possible that the league could attempt to institute such a system as soon as the 2020 international signing season.

That general attempt has long been anticipated. What’s most notable about the report, which arises in the wake of a league-run session with teams’ international staff members, are some of the potential particulars. The changes, if implemented, would represent a significant further tightening of an already closely controlled labor-intake system.

According to Badler, the initial structure under consideration features “hard slot value[s]” that would leave no room for negotiation for incoming players. In other words, in addition to losing their ability to select which organization would best nurture and care for a 16-year-old while providing the best long-term opportunity, players and their families would be stripped of the chance to negotiate a larger bonus than the system dictates.

The proposal also includes a simple rotation system for assigning top draft choices to teams. That’d make for quite a different approach from the domestic amateur draft, in which the order is tethered directly to MLB team performance. A rotating approach would largely preserve the status quo, in which spending pools aren’t connected to MLB-level outcomes; it’s unclear whether there would continue to be any connection to competitive balance (recipients currently get more pool money) or free-agent outcomes (there’s a pool hit for non-revenue sharing teams that sign a player who declined a qualifying offer).

MLB has already succeeded in shaving something like a quarter of its international expenditures by imposing hard caps on amateur spending. Though many players signing under the regime are teenagers, the rules also extend to cover those who haven’t yet turned 25 and who possess less than six seasons playing in a foreign professional league. (That’s why the immensely talented Shohei Ohtani signed for peanuts.)

It’s impossible not to connect the question of the international draft to the still-building labor battle between MLB and the MLB Players Association. First and foremost, the international intake system is subject to bargaining — just as it was when the union acceded to the hard-cap system. More broadly, there’s an obvious connection between amateur signing bonuses and early-MLB extensions — the recent run of which has had a huge (albeit still not fully known) impact on the ability of MLB players as a whole to command future free-agent earnings.

It’ll certainly be interesting to see how the MLBPA responds to this initiative. Chief Tony Clark hinted recently at a new stance on the amateur side, though it’s still not clear whether the union will be able to enunciate an encompassing vision to compete with the league’s — or, at least, use this topic to pry other, worthwhile concessions. Mid-CBA negotiations are now in process; the international question will no doubt feature significantly.

Badler notes that members of the international intake apparatus — trainers on the player side and scouts on the team side — are increasingly “split” in their views on the draft after a history of general opposition. That won’t dictate the players’ position by any stretch, but it’s a notable shift from a set of important stakeholders.

There are numerous considerations to be accounted for here beyond bonuses. The international signing system has long featured nefarious, sometimes dangerous, situations involving young and often vulnerable players. While there are indications that some of the most concerning elements have improved in recent years, it’s still plenty concerning that teams are lining up advance deals with extremely youthful players who are not yet eligible to sign. There’s still ample potential for harm. And while teams have increasingly seen the value in investing in education and health initiatives for their amateur players, there’s no common standard and no firm support system for those that aren’t chosen to continue advancing as professional ballplayers. It may be hoped that, if the league is successfully able to tighten control through a draft, it also focuses serious energy and resources to creating a truly just overall program for players that are eligible for selection.

Manfred On Ball, DH, Free Agency, Expansion, Rays

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If you ask Astros ace Justin Verlander, Major League Baseball has become a home-run happy farce. Verlander, who started the All-Star Game for the American League on Tuesday, issued acerbic comments on the direction of the game Monday, saying (via Jeff Passan of ESPN): “Major League Baseball’s turning this game into a joke. They own Rawlings, and you’ve got Manfred up here saying it might be the way they center the pill. They own the [expletive] company. If any other $40 billion company bought out a $400 million company and the product changed dramatically, it’s not a guess as to what happened.”

Sour grapes from someone who’s already close to allowing a career-high home run total for a season? It doesn’t seem that way. There is growing skepticism – not just from Verlander – about the integrity of the baseball MLB is using, and understandably so. Big leaguers are on pace to hit 6,600-plus home runs, which would crush the record of 6,105 set in 2017, Tyler Kepner of the New York Times notes. Like Verlander, MLBPA executive director Tony Clark is under the impression something is up. So are starters Max Scherzer, Charlie Morton, Jake Odorizzi, Marcus Stroman and CC Sabathia, as Kepner and Passan detail in their pieces.

“If there’s something that’s potentially altering that, just come out and say it,” Odorizzi said. “I think, as players, we’ve gotten to the point now where we’ve accepted it.”

However, according to commissioner Rob Manfred, there isn’t anything nefarious happening. Rather, the league “has done nothing, given no direction, for an alteration in the baseball.” Manfred added MLB doesn’t want more home runs – owners have “no desire” for an increase, he insisted Tuesday – so juicing the baseball wouldn’t make sense from MLB’s perspective.

At the same time, Manfred did admit Monday the ball has changed. He told ESPN’s Golic and Wingo (via Passan): “”Our scientists that have been now studying the baseball more regularly have told us that this year the baseball has a little less drag. It doesn’t need to change very much in order to produce meaningful change in terms of the way the game is played on the field. We are trying to understand exactly why that happened and build out a manufacturing process that gives us a little more control over what’s going on. But you have to remember that our baseball is a handmade product and there’s gonna be variation year to year.”

Whether Manfred’s telling the truth in regards to the baseball is up for debate. What’s clear is that the game won’t be injecting more offense by implementing a universal designated hitter in the imminent future. Manfred remarked Tuesday (via Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch) that a DH in the National League is not “inevitable,” indicating it won’t come up as a possibility until after the collective bargaining agreement runs out in 2021.

Free agency, like the DH, will be an important discussion point during talks on the next CBA. Clark conveyed a desire this week to restore “meaningful free agency.” Manfred seems happy with the current system, though, saying baseball has the “freest free agency in any sport” – one devoid of a salary cap, franchise tags and max contracts. He expressed satisfaction that MLB “has produced more $100 million guaranteed contracts than the rest of professional sports combined.” While Manfred did indicate a willingness to negotiate with the union as regards free agency, the league’s “economic system has to preserve the competitiveness of those small-market clubs. That is always our overriding goal.”

Concerning the markets MLB plans to occupy going forward, Manfred put the kibosh on any short-term expansion possibilities, stating, “There’s no way we’re biting into expansion until we get Tampa and Oakland (which also needs a new stadium) resolved one way or the other.” 

Tampa Bay, however, is exploring becoming a two-city franchise – an idea the league has thrown its support behind. In Manfred’s estimation, the Rays’ proposed Tampa Bay-Montreal team-sharing setup would present “an opportunity to preserve baseball in Tampa Bay. And I’m not prepared to say one way or the other what’s going to happen if that effort turns out to be unsuccessful.”

MLBPA Chief Tony Clark Discusses CBA, Juiced Ball

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MLB Players Association executive director Tony Clark chatted with the media today as part of this week’s All-Star festivities. The Twitter feeds of Alex Speier of the Boston Globe and Eric Fisher of the Sports Business Group feature many of the key comments. Those interested in reading more about the labor situation should also read this interesting look at the efforts of Clark and other union leaders from Tyler Kepner and James Wagner of the New York Times.

Clark emphasized just now notable it was that the union and league have launched negotiations now, well in advance of the expiration of a collective bargaining agreement. He didn’t shy away from a lofty goal, stating: “We are interested in restoring meaningful free agency.”

The MLBPA is chasing other goals as well, including putting a stop to service time manipulation, increasing the marketing of players, and boosting compensation for young players that haven’t yet reached arbitration eligibility. On that last score, Clark says that “a young player needs to be fairly compensated for what he’s doing.”

As ever, the question remains just what alternatives can be proposed to create the desired outcomes. In part, MLB teams’ collective shift away from free agent spending is a reflection of the volume of young talent now rising to the majors. That speaks in favor of boosting pre-arb spending, but the capital side of the equation surely won’t boost the compensation of such players unless there are corresponding savings elsewhere.

Clark notes that the $555K league minimum is only that. “You can pay players more,” he says. “Teams are choosing not to.” But it isn’t clear why organizations would come forward with across-the-board raises for young players when there’s nothing compelling it. And it’s also fair at least to note that some teams have gone well over the minimum, especially for star players. That they have done so on an essentially ad hoc basis reflects the simple fact that the current CBA does not require more.

It still isn’t clear just what universal approach the players would like to accomplish, not that they necessarily want to put forth a complete vision at this stage. That’ll ultimately be necessary if Clark and co. want younger players to grab a bigger slice of the pie — or, perhaps, get the piece of the action that the owners seem to have taken away from free agency (not that they’d see it that way). Perhaps there are ways to find some extra cash to bring to the players’ coffers; Clark did note the ongoing influx of gambling money (and potential problems along with it).

On some level, though, the discussion will have to involve moving resources from one class of player to another. It’s at least somewhat curious, then, that Clark also indicated it was “not yet” necessary for a radical overhaul of the general arbitration and free-agent systems of compensation — a system that he has said previously “doesn’t work” in its current form. He did say that he has broached the concept of ending the amateur draft, which would assuredly represent a dramatic change in approach (albeit one that seems quite unlikely to gain traction and that might result in undesirable side effects).

Clark also addressed the matter of the increasingly regular long balls finding their way out of the field of play. He declined to subscribe to any particular conspiracy theories, but did say that he has clearly noticed the jump: “I believe the ball suddenly changed, and I don’t know why.”

That matter is not directly related to the labor situation, but it has loads of potential to impact the transactional market and is certainly a subject in which the union will take great interest. Given the strange degree of intrigue surrounding the MLB ball in recent years, perhaps it’s also a subject that the union can utilize for a smidgen of public relations leverage. And the rise in dingers may actually create some opportunities to shake up the labor market. The arbitration system, for instance, will struggle to react. It’ll take some creativity and foresight to take advantage (and avoid disadvantage) on the union side from disruption of this sort.

MLB, MLBPA Launching Bargaining Talks

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Major League Baseball and the MLB Players’ Association have been circling one another warily for some time now, with occasional moments of accord but a pervasive sense of tension. Now, as Tyler Kepner of the New York Times reports, they’re headed back to the formal bargaining table long before the expiration of the current collective bargaining agreement at the tail end of the 2021 season.

Ever since the last Basic Agreement was hammered out, readily discernible changes in teams’ market behavior have spurred growing unhappiness from the players’ side. Union chief Tony Clark put it in stark terms to Kepner, saying flatly that “the system doesn’t work.” He also offered a warning: “either we’re going to have a conversation now, or we’re going to have a louder conversation later.”

Of course, there were indications of systemic problems even before the latest CBA, with increasingly analytically advanced teams finding new ways to achieve cost-efficient on-field performance. But the changes to the game’s governing document only exacerbated matters for players, with new luxury tax rules creating new spending disincentives for teams. After two tense winters, we saw a dizzying run of extensions this spring. That spate of dealing seemingly reflected some fear and uncertainty in the free agent process as well as labor peace more generally. It put new money in players’ pockets, but also took quite a few potentially valuable seasons of future performance out of future open-market scenarios.

Over the past two and a half years, the MLBPA has hired a chief negotiator, added a familiar face to advise on PR, launched a still-unresolved grievance action against several teams, and otherwise made clear it is readying for a larger battle. While the league and union attempted to sort through a range of matters over the offseason, only a few rule changes were implemented.

Every on-field or transactional tweak proposed has understandably been viewed through a broader economic lens. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s pace-of-play initiatives have met headwinds from the players, perhaps owing to a need to find leverage that’s otherwise lacking. After all, the CBA is binding until it expires. And the players’ side will face many challenges in winning a better deal.

All of those developments have felt like a prelude to the unusual and potentially quite complicated process that is now being plotted out. Understandably, the initial discussion is a logistical one. Kepner says that the bigwigs on both sides of the aisle have chatted in person about how to approach this early engagement on the CBA.

On the league side, deputy commissioner Dan Halem says the goal is “a system that satisfies our competitive-balance concerns and basically keeps the overall economics where they are — but at the same time addresses the issues that [the players are] going to bring to us.” He reemphasized MLB’s oft-stated position that the players continue to enjoy the same-sized pie slice they always have, framing the matter as “really a distribution issue.”

It’s unlikely that Clark and company would fully agree with that sentiment. All can agree broadly with the goals of enhancing competition and ensuring that the game’s best talent is playing in the majors as soon as it’s ready. But the players also desire those results because they hope to unlock new earning avenues for more of their members. Per Kepner, they also wish to “restor[e] meaningful free agency” and improve the earning power of players with lesser service time. That sounds like something quite a bit different from redistribution; it sounds like the players ultimately want more pie. There are different ways to count the leaguewide dollars and cents. The players will undoubtedly argue their share has fallen and seek more.

 

 

 

MLB, MLBPA Nearing Rule Change Agreement

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Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have spent the winter negotiating over rules changes while publicly bickering over the operation of the player market. The sides now appear to be nearing agreement on a package of new rules, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (Twitter link), though it’s not likely to address the broader concerns.

According to Rosenthal, a new deal may only be a day or two away from completion. It’s not clear just what’ll be covered by the pact, though we’ve known of the areas under consideration for the past week or so. From a hot stove perspective, the application of a single trade deadline and roster size modifications (26-man roster with two extra openings in September) appear to be the most important possible tweaks under contemplation.

There are some much more consequential possibilities that the union would also like to discuss, given its frustrations with the transactional landscape. Those conversations would occur during the season to come, per Rosenthal’s prior reporting, with at least some possibility of a CBA renegotiation and extension.

Meanwhile, the league has announced a new deal with the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol. The MLBPA has ratified the pact, which will govern the movement of players from Mexico’s top league to MLB organizations.

Players who have deals with LMB clubs will be free to go to the majors without compensation once they reach 25 years of age and have accumulated six seasons of professional ball. To acquire a LMB player who hasn’t yet reached that status, MLB teams will need to work out a contract with the player and convince his former team to accept a release fee — 15% of guaranteed MLB money or 35% of a signing bonus on a minors deal — to cede its control over the player’s services.

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