Collective Bargaining Agreement

Major League Baseball announced it has postponed the start of the regular season for at least another week. A statement from Commissioner Rob Manfred reads:

“In a last-ditch effort to preserve a 162-game season, this week we have made good-faith proposals that address the specific concerns voiced by the MLBPA and would have allowed the players to return to the field immediately.  The Clubs went to extraordinary lengths to meet the substantial demands of the MLBPA.  On the key economic issues that have posed stumbling blocks, the Clubs proposed ways to bridge gaps to preserve a full schedule.  Regrettably, after our second late-night bargaining session in a week, we remain without a deal.

Because of the logistical realities of the calendar, another two series are being removed from the schedule, meaning that Opening Day is postponed until April 14^th.  We worked hard to reach an agreement and offered a fair deal with significant improvements for the players and our fans.  I am saddened by this situation’s continued impact on our game and all those who are a part of it, especially our loyal fans.

“We have the utmost respect for our players and hope they will ultimately choose to accept the fair agreement they have been offered.”

The MLBPA offered a statement of its own in response (via Twitter):

“The owners’ decision to cancel additional games is completely unnecessary. After making a set of comprehensive proposals to the league earlier this afternoon, and being told substantive responses were forthcoming, Players have yet to hear back. Players want to play, and we cannot wait to get back on the field for the best fans in the world. Our top priority remains the finalization of a fair contract for all Players, and we will continue negotiations toward that end.”

The league and union had seemingly closed the gap on core economics issues in an effort to hammer out a new CBA. However, the league’s efforts to tie the introduction of a draft for international amateurs to the elimination of the qualifying offer proved a sticking point in discussions. MLB had offered the union three proposals on the matter: 1) accept an international draft in exchange for the elimination of the QO, 2) leave both the QO and international signing period in place as they’d previously been or 3) agree to the elimination of the QO with the chance to reconsider the draft next offseason; taking the third route would’ve given the league the right to unilaterally reopen the CBA after the 2024 season if the union continued to object to the draft.

MLB tabled all discussions on other matters beyond that decision, presenting the MLBPA with an ultimatum — choose one of those courses of action or break off negotiations, which would result in another week’s worth of game cancelations. The MLBPA rejected the league’s proposals, instead putting forth a counteroffer. Jeff Passan of ESPN reports (Twitter link) the union proposed the elimination of the qualifying offer for next offseason with a November deadline for a final decision on the international draft. In the event the union rejected a draft at that point, the QO would return the following winter.

MLB declined to counter that proposal, maintaining that their three presented choices were the only scenarios on the table. The league then moved forward with another week of game cancelations. It’s not clear when the parties will reengage in negotiations, but future discussions now figure to be tinged with a whole host of new complications.

The league’s decision today appears to wipe out the possibility of playing a 162-game season. With the shortened schedule are likely to come debates regarding player pay and service time. Manfred has previously stated it’s the league’s position that players shouldn’t be paid for canceled games. MLBPA lead negotiator Bruce Meyer indicated the union would fight any efforts to prorate pay, noting that the game cancelations have been the sole decision of the league.

It’s frankly baffling that the league and union ended up where they did, given how much ground they’d closed on issues like the competitive balance tax, minimum salary and (to a lesser extent) the bonus pool for pre-arbitration players. Those topics hadn’t been formally settled, but the gaps between the parties’ respective asks on each seemed manageable enough to close with further discussions. Despite the movement on core economics, the international draft and indirectly, the qualifying offer, proved a bizarre roadblock.

The MLBPA has continually maintained an unwillingness to implement an international draft, suggesting that players from Latin America are particularly opposed. However, the league’s offers to take the international draft off the table in exchange for the continued existence of the QO make clear that compensation for signing free agents was an equally important issue. The qualifying offer hasn’t garnered a ton of attention as a contentious problem throughout negotiations.

That’s in part because the league agreed early on to its removal before later tying that to the implementation of the draft. However, it’s also because the union has focused much of its attention on a desire to improve compensation for players earlier in their careers. The qualifying offer isn’t related to those efforts, as it only comes into play for around 10-20 free agents (all of whom are at least quality players with six-plus years of service time) each winter. The MLBPA’s decision to draw a line on the qualifying offer is odd, as is the league’s immediate refusal to continue negotiations and cancel more games after the union’s small modification.

The players’ offer to eliminate the QO for one winter and then reevaluate the international draft in November wasn’t all that different than the league’s proposal to maintain the status quo on both topics. Were the union to refuse the international draft and reimpose the QO in 2023-24, the only benefit beyond what the league had been offering would have been one year of free agency without compensation: a matter that would have affected around a dozen players.

Given how close the parties are, it makes both the union’s decision to introduce this counteroffer and the league’s call to end negotiations look like the creation of an avoidable problem. Now, they’ll have to deal with the new issues of player pay and service time on top of whatever gaps remained in the actual questions of substance on the CBA. How long today’s setback will linger can’t be known, but it’s another blow to fans who’d gotten their hopes up at reports of progress over the past two days.

Andy Martino of SNY first reported the upcoming cancelation of games before the league announcement.

1:00pm: Alden Gonzalez and Jeff Passan of ESPN add some further details (Twitter links). The top pick’s slot value is actually a slight bit higher than previously reported, landing at $5.5125MM. That’s due to MLB upping the size of each slot value from the weekend by a matter of five percent. Gonzalez notes that MLB is “flexible” on the $20K cap for undrafted free agents, though the extent to which the league is willing to bend isn’t totally clear.

Passan writes that rather than set the draft order based on record, teams would be broken up into “pods” which would rotate every year. Castrovince suggested a similar setup this weekend, writing that pods of six clubs would rotate through the draft order each year; in other words, Pod A would have selections one through six in a given year, then seven through twelve the following season, etc. Passan posits “pod” sizes of seven or eight teams rather than six (thus giving teams a crack at the top of the draft every fourth year rather than every fifth), but the general concept remains the same.

11:50am: Newsday’s Tim Healey tweets that under MLB’s proposal, the international draft would not go into effect until 2024. That’s surely vital for Latin American players, as some prominent figures have stressed that if implemented, the finer details should not be rushed.

Among those prominent voices is Red Sox icon David Ortiz, who spoke passionately in a message to his countrymen from the Dominican Republic today (Twitter thread via ESPN’s Jeff Passan). Ortiz stressed the importance of the league and players working together to get the specifics of the draft right. Ortiz adds:

“Baseball is such a big thing in the Dominican. Baseball keeps kids off the streets. We don’t want that to walk away from us. We want it to get better. That’s my focus. Nothing else. We have the youth. People wanting to be me, Pedro, Pujols. We can’t let that go away. At the end of the day, I don’t want those kids to be affected by it. I already played baseball. I had a career. I care about the kids being treated right. I understand MLB wants to have control over everything they do, but you’re not going to change the system overnight. Baseball is one of the secret weapons of the Dominican economy. If you talk about a draft here in the states, you have choices. You can do football, basketball. … Dominican has baseball to make your way out. That’s it. You have to be careful.”

11:00am: The potential implementation of an international draft has become a focal point in collective bargaining between MLB and the Players Association as gaps elsewhere in negotiations begin to close. Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith reported last night that the international draft is one of the largest remaining obstacles in talks. The league, reportedly, is seeking to trade an elimination of the qualifying offer system for the draft — a concept they’d already proposed in prior packages. Of course, everything in these package proposals is dependent on other factors, so the league now using the QO elimination as a “give” in exchange for the international draft likely just reflects the manner in which other elements of the proposals have ebbed and flowed.

In some new developments on the topic of the proposed international draft, Maria Torres and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic report this morning that MLB’s latest proposal included a slot value of $5.5MM for the No. 1 overall pick (Twitter thread). That’s up slightly from the league’s weekend proposal, wherein MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince reported that MLB was positing a potential $5.25MM slot value for the first pick of a 20-round draft. Slots would be hard-capped and picks could be traded, per Castrovince, as opposed to the soft-capped “recommended” slot values in the domestic draft, where picks cannot be traded (save for those awarded via the Competitive Balance Lottery). The newly proposed $5.5MM top overall slot value is still miles shy of the $8.415MM first overall slot value from this past summer’s domestic amateur draft; today’s $250K bump narrowly pushes the top international slot’s value past the No. 7 overall slot value from the 2021 amateur draft.

Major League Baseball’s pitch to the union is that the proposed slot values could generate as much as $23MM in additional spending on international amateurs in a given year, per Torres. She adds that the final 100 slots in the draft would be valued at a combined $3.3MM, whereas MLB has pointed out to the union that the bottom 100 bonuses in the past couple of signing periods have averaged about $1.78MM in total. Notably, that particular spin ignores that the “bottom 100 bonuses” in prior signing periods is not necessarily equivalent to the “bottom 100 slots” in an international draft where only a finite number of players (600) can be selected. Torres notes that undrafted international amateurs could still sign, but Rosenthal tweets that bonuses would be capped at $20K.

Regardless of specific permutations on the late rounds and undrafted amateurs, there’s still some considerable pushback against the concept from the players’ end of things — particularly among Latin American big leaguers. Padres shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. has publicly pushed back, telling El Caribe (Twitter link):

“The International Draft is going to kill baseball in [Dominican Republic]. It’s going to affect us a lot, because there will be many young people who used to give them the opportunity to get a bonus and with the draft it will not be the same.”

ESPN’s Marly Rivera reports that many Latin American players share those concerns, adding that the general sentiment among Puerto Rican players is that their entry into the amateur draft has stunted the development of baseball on the whole. Astros catcher Martin Maldonado, originally drafted by the Angels out of Dr. Juan J. Nunez high school in Puerto Rico, tweeted this morning that he “agrees 100%” with the concerns raised by Tatis.

As Rivera further notes, MLB’s position on the international draft is that it will help to regulate some of the many improprieties that currently exist on the international market. It’s a poorly kept secret that verbal agreements between Major League teams and international amateurs are in place years before those players are eligible to sign on their 16th birthdays; Major League scouts are regularly evaluating players before they even reach their teenage years, and players can have verbal agreements with teams as early as 13 or 14 years of age. Additional concerns include steroid usage among baseball hopefuls during those critical formative years, as well as exploitative behavior from many “buscones” who arrange deals between teams and amateur players.

The pushback from the union, presumably, is that these improprieties can be corrected without the implementation of an amateur draft. Major League Baseball has rules and regulations in place that are intended to bar early agreements of this nature. However, with the exception of former Braves GM John Coppolella being banned for circumventing those rules, punishments have been few and far between. Even after Coppolella’s ouster, early deals have continued. As Mike Axisa of CBS Sports explored recently, MLB could crack down on corruption on the international market by simply choosing to enforce its own typically ignored rules and regulations.

All that said, the draft system does figure to have some benefits for international amateurs. MLB’s current system is hard-capped, and while the draft wouldn’t change that, the simple fact that the combined value of the draft slots being proposed exceeds the combined value of the current international bonus pools means more money will go to those amateurs. Further, even though the league could likely cut down on corruption without implementing the draft, that does not change the fact that the draft ought to nevertheless curtail those early agreements. (Other forms of corruption, of course, will be more difficult to suppress.)

For the players, concerns surely remain about the potential stunting of baseball’s growth in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Panama, Colombia and other markets. It’s also a clear negative for a player not to be able to choose his first team and to not be able to negotiate more openly. The draft could potentially lead to fewer high-dollar deals for the market’s very best prospects — depending on the exact distribution of slot values.

Ultimately, given the manner in which the two sides have begun to move closer to an agreement on other elements of the deal, it seems hard to imagine the finer points of an international draft truly scuttling a deal. It’s clear there’s still work to be done, though, and much of it will center around this topic.

11:46 pm: Nicholson-Smith reiterates that the international draft has become a key sticking point (Twitter links). He hears that the league considers it a crucial feature of any agreement but the union still has concerns about its inclusion in a deal.

11:26 pm: Jon Morosi of MLB.com tweets that the league has indeed received the MLBPA’s counterproposal and is currently reviewing it.

11:20 pm: Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post tweets that both the league and union are meeting amongst themselves at the moment. The plan is to continue negotiations even though MLB’s imposed midnight deadline has passed on the East Coast. It’s not known whether the union has yet officially made its counteroffer.

10:14 pm: Nicholson-Smith hears that the union has discussed the possibility of lowering its demand on the pre-arb bonus pool to $70MM this season, followed by $5MM raises annually. That’d still be a rather significant gap above the league’s proposed flat $40MM mark, although it’d be down $10MM — the same amount of MLB’s most recent move — from its last offer.

10:10 pm: Ben Nicholson-Smith and Shi Davidi of Sportsnet report (Twitter links) that some players are “encouraged” by the league’s movement on core economics. However, the union has expressed concern about the possibility of an international draft, which would inherently involve those players no longer getting a choice of their first employer. That’s been of particular concern to some Latin American players, according to Sportsnet.

Jon Heyman of the MLB Network reports that the union will soon send back a counteroffer, with multiple reports indicating tonight’s discussions could carry over into the early morning hours. Nicholson-Smith describes the international draft/qualifying offer as the biggest obstacle, hearing that the sides are “close” on the numbers for things like the CBT and pre-arb bonus pool (Twitter links).

9:35 pm: Sawchik adds that the “gap has closed” today, but he cautions there are “still issues to work through.” Michael Silverman of the Boston Globe tweets that some on the players’ side don’t believe a deal is close to being finalized. The union is still reviewing the terms of the league’s offer.

9:17 pm: MLB’s proposal contained a 12-team postseason field, reports Travis Sawchik of the Score (on Twitter). The union was only amenable to a 14-team playoff that would’ve introduced the “ghost win” for division winners, according to Sawchik, an idea that proved a non-starter for the league.

8:44 pm: Drellich and Ken Rosenthal report that the league has proposed a bonus pool that would hold flat at $40MM each season throughout the terms of the CBA. That’d involve a $1.33MM annual payment from each of the league’s 30 teams, which would be counted against every club’s luxury tax calculations. The Athletic also reports the year-over-year breakdown the league is offering on both the base tax threshold and the league minimum salary (annual CBT and minimums, respectively):

2022: $230MM, $700K
2023: $232MM, $715K
2024: $236MM, $730K
2025: $240MM, $750K
2026: $242MM, $770K

Additionally, Drellich and Rosenthal report a pair of the important conditions the league has attached to its most recent proposal (Twitter links). Most notably, MLB is hoping to introduce a fourth level of penalization to the luxury tax thresholds. Under the last CBA, there was a base tax threshold (set at $210MM in 2021) followed by levels of surcharge taxes for clubs that a) exceeded the tax by between $20MM and $40MM and for b) clubs that exceeded the tax by more than $40MM, with clubs greater penalties for reaching each tier. The league’s latest proposal would add a third surcharge level for teams that go more than $60MM above the base tax marker (with presumably even more penalties) in an obvious effort to curtail teams from blowing by the thresholds, as the Dodgers did last year and as many believe the Mets are prepared to do in 2022.

Additionally, MLB is tying the introduction of an international draft to the elimination of the qualifying offer. Removing draft pick compensation for signing free agents has been a goal of the union’s throughout the process. Drellich hears that MLB is also pursuing expedited authority for all rules changes, which would only be made over an offseason.

The Athletic reports a few more minor provisions of the league’s last offer. MLB is willing to make the first six picks of the domestic amateur draft determined by lottery — it had previously been at five — with limits on how many consecutive seasons a club could be eligible based on market size. The league’s proposal would also include a limit on the number of times a player can be optioned to the minors within a season (five), would grant a full year of service time to the top two finishers in Rookie of the Year voting and would award teams additional draft picks for carrying high-performing players on their Opening Day rosters.

7:57 pm: Yesterday, Major League Baseball set tonight as its latest deadline for a new collective bargaining agreement to preserve a 162-game schedule. The league and Players Association have been meeting throughout the day. The tenor and specifics of those conversations has been kept relatively quiet, although some details have begun to trickle out.

Most notably, Evan Drellich and Andy McCullough of the Athletic report (on Twitter) that the league has offered a small bump on the competitive balance tax. The league is now offering to set the base CBT threshold at $230MM in 2022 and would see that figure rise to $242MM by the end of a five-year CBA. That’s up $2MM in Year One and $4MM by 2026 relative to the league’s offer yesterday. Whether the union has moved on the tax today isn’t clear; previously, the MLBPA had sought a $238MM figure for the upcoming season that would rise as high as $263MM by the end of the CBA term.

That would appear to be a minor move in the players’ favor on the surface, although Drellich cautions the rest of the league’s offer is unclear. Yesterday’s proposal of a $228MM base tax marker was said to come with “major strings attached,” and The Athletic reports today that MLB’s offer contains “other issues players are concerned with.”

Without knowing the full terms of the league’s offer, it’s impossible to hypothesize whether the sides are making progress towards any sort of agreement. In addition to the CBT, prominent topics of discussion include the expanded playoff field, the extent of a bonus pool to award excellent pre-arbitration players, and the league’s desire to institute a draft for international amateurs. MLB has also pushed to expedite the process by which it could implement on-field rules changes.

The union agreed last week to give the league authority to more quickly implement a few specific changes — namely a restriction on defensive shifts, larger bases and a pitch clock. However, MLB is seeking broad autonomy to unilaterally implement any on-field rules alteration within 45 days of informing the union. Russell Dorsey of Bally Sports tweeted this afternoon that expedited window was among the conditions attached to the league’s willingness to move the luxury tax upwards (although it’s unlikely to be the only tradeoff).

Dorsey also adds that the league may be targeting some form of “penalty for excessive spending.” What form that would take isn’t clear, although the union adamantly pushed back against the league’s push earlier in negotiations for stricter penalties for teams that exceeded the luxury tax. MLB agreed to take those off the table, but it’s possible the league is hoping to reintroduce something to that effect in exchange for an increase in the thresholds themselves.

Regarding the bonus pool, there was an immediate $50MM gap at last check. MLB had offered to allocate $30MM annually to that system throughout the term of an agreement. The union sought $80MM for that pool in 2022 and wanted that figure to rise by a few million dollars each year thereafter. Dorsey hears the league could be willing to go to $50MM on the bonus pool but is tying that to the union signing off on a 14-team postseason. The MLBPA has expressed amenability to a 14-team playoff but would prefer a 12-team system, and it’s not clear MLB moving from $30MM to $50MM on the bonus pool would be a sufficient enough incentive in the union’s eyes.

The parties continue to discuss these issues in an attempt to close the gap tonight. The league has already canceled the first two series of the regular season. It indicated those games could be made up in the event of an agreement today, but MLB has suggested another week’s worth of games would be scrapped if the parties don’t come to terms in the coming hours.

March 8: SNY’s Andy Martino tweets that MLB’s most recent proposal does not include any movement on the pre-arbitration bonus pool. The league is still offering a flat $30MM pool with no increases over the five-year term of the agreement. The MLBPA had lowered its ask from a $115MM peak to $80MM at last check, though the union was also believed to be seeking annual increases to the size of the pool.

March 7, 10:52 pm:  Jeff Passan of ESPN writes that if an agreement were to come together Tuesday, Spring Training camps could open as soon as Friday. However, he cautions that the gaps between the two sides remain significant enough to “temper expectations” about a deal coming to fruition.

8:50 pm: MLB offered to raise the base luxury tax threshold to $228MM next season, with that figure rising to $238MM over the course of the CBA, Drellich reports. That’s a fairly notable jump over MLB’s previous offers to start that mark at $220MM and rise to $230MM by 2026, and it’d be an $18MM year-over-year jump from last season’s $210MM mark.

However, Drellich cautions that the league’s offer to move on the CBT came with “major strings attached.” Those conditions aren’t clear, although MLB has sought a 14-team playoff field and a draft for international amateurs in past proposals and could again be trying to get the MLBPA’s approval on either or both topics. The union has been seeking to increase the CBT to $238MM next season and move to $263MM by the end of the CBA.

8:29 pm: After yesterday’s proposal from the MLB Players Association to the league was met with hostility, lead negotiators reconvened today, reports Evan Drellich of the Athletic (Twitter link). They’re expected to meet again Tuesday, and MLB has suggested those discussions could be of particular importance.

Drellich reports that the league views tomorrow as the deadline for a new collective bargaining agreement to be in place to conduct a 162-game season (and with it, a full year of salary and service time for players). He and colleague Ken Rosenthal add that the league has informed the union it expects to cancel another week’s worth of games if no deal is done. Commissioner Rob Manfred already announced the cancelation of the first two series of the regular season last week, and the league had previously been adamant those games would not be made up. It now seems MLB is willing to entertain that possibility, although only if a new CBA is finalized on Tuesday.

This marks at least the second (arguably the third) time the league has imposed a deadline for an agreement to avoid the loss of regular season games. MLB had previously set February 28 at 11:59 pm EST as a marker to avoid delays to Opening Day. With the parties beginning to close the gap in negotiations that evening, the league pushed back that deadline to March 1 at 5:00 pm EST. Ultimately, no agreement was reached — the league claimed the union upped its demands overnight, while the MLBPA accused the league of exaggerating the previous night’s progress in the first place — and Manfred announced the cancelation of the first two series that evening.

The union expressed its displeasure with that decision. MLB had unilaterally instituted the lockout and set the end of February deadline for an agreement, while the MLBPA maintained that further negotiations should proceed without game cancelations. It’s not clear whether the union views tomorrow’s league-imposed deadline in the same manner. We’re a bit more than three weeks from the originally scheduled Opening Day, March 31. It seems likely that with those first two series already canceled, the path to 162 games would involve reworking the schedule and/or instituting doubleheaders rather than simply putting those games back on the docket.

Even if the lockout lingers to a point where everyone agrees a 162-game season is unfeasible, it stands to reason the union would embark on some efforts to recoup pay and service time lost. MLB instituted the lockout, after all, and their initial game cancelations were imposed over the objections of the union. MLBPA lead negotiator Bruce Meyer stated in the immediate aftermath of Manfred’s announcement it was the union’s position that players should receive compensation for games lost. As MLBTR’s Steve Adams noted last week, a battle regarding service time could be even more important than any dispute over pay.

Whether the parties will be able to come to an agreement tomorrow remains to be seen, but the recent tenor hasn’t been promising. There’s still a sizable gap on issues such as the competitive balance tax and the bonus pool for pre-arbitration players. Rosenthal wrote yesterday the league is willing to move in the players’ favor on the CBT in exchange for concessions by the union in other areas, but MLB’s other demands aren’t clear.

The league presented a formal counterproposal to the PA’s most recent offer at today’s call, reports Bob Nightengale of USA Today (Twitter link). According to Nightengale, that “(included) flexibility on several issues,” but it doesn’t seem the union viewed it that favorably. One player involved in discussions tells Rosenthal the offer remained too tilted towards MLB’s interests, while another said he was “done getting (his) hopes up” for an agreement.

9:25 pm: Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that the league is willing to increase the first CBT threshold if the union makes concessions in other areas. The most recent negotiations have had the owners unwilling to raise the threshold beyond $220MM with the players trying to push it to $238MM. Even that $220MM has been difficult for the owners, as four of them voted against that offer.

In order to bridge that gap, Rosenthal says the owners would want “a variety of adjustments,” which would include the players lowering their ask on the bonus pool for pre-arbitration players. The players did indeed drop their ask on the pool in their proposal today, from $85MM to $80MM, but a further reduction would apparently be necessary in order to get the league to budge on the CBT issue. Furthermore, Rosenthal adds that the league “would want the union to accept a streamlined process for implementing rules changes beyond the 2023 season.” This would apparently go beyond what the union already agreed to earlier today, as Rosenthal writes that “The league wants the ability to make other changes for subsequent years within 45 days of the end of a season. Such changes would be implemented upon the recommendations of a competition committee composed of more league than union representatives, effectively giving commissioner Rob Manfred the power to act as he chooses.”

3:59 pm: Bob Nightengale tweets that the union disputes MLB’s characterization of the situation, listing several concessions they have made.

3:40 pm: Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that the sides could meet again as soon as Monday, with the league expected to announce further game cancellations.

3:28 pm: MLB spokesperson Glen Caplin responded to today’s meeting, with James Wagner of the New York Times providing the full quote on Twitter:

“We were hoping to see movement in our direction to give us additional flexibility and get a deal done quickly. The Players Association chose to come back to us with a proposal that was worse than Monday night and was not designed to move the process forward. On some issues, they even went backwards. Simply put, we are deadlocked. We will try to figure out how to respond, but nothing in this proposal makes it easy.”

The use of the word “backwards” is a bit confusing on its face, given that the union made notable concessions on some of the issues detailed below. However, Wagner elaborates in another tweet that “MLB felt that things were suggested verbally in Florida on Monday, such as the size of the pre-arbitration bonus pool being smaller than $80M, that weren’t reflected in today’s offer,” and that is why they characterized today’s written proposal as going “backwards.” The MLBPA denies moving backward from any verbal offer.

1:20 pm: Representatives from the league and the MLB Players Association met today in New York, with the union bringing both some written responses and counter-proposals to the owner’s most recent collective bargaining agreement offer.  Today’s negotiating session lasted around an hour and 40 minutes, and details have begun to emerge (from The Athletic’s Evan Drellich and The Washington Post’s Chelsea Janes) about the union’s latest proposal.

Perhaps the most notable difference is that the players agreed to give the league the authority to make on-field changes within a 45-day window of initial proposal, in regards to three specific rules — a pitch clock, restrictions on the use of defensive shifts, and the size of the bases.  The last CBA gave the league the ability to implement rule changes a full year after an initial proposal to the union, and reports recently emerged that the owners were looking to drastically shorten that period of time in this latest agreement.

Any of the proposed rule changes would be explored via a committee that would have player representation.  The three proposed rule changes would begin in the 2023 season.  One other rule change that the MLBPA did decline was in regards to the “robo-ump,” or an automated system for calling balls and strikes.

The players had been seeking an $85MM bonus pool for pre-arbitration players, though that number has now been dropped slightly to $80MM.  It should be noted that this would be the starting price for a pool that would be expected to gradually increase over the five-year span of the CBA, and presumably those increases are still part of the latest proposal.  The drop to $80MM probably isn’t too likely to get the league’s attention, as the owners have been open to the idea of a bonus pool, though at the much lower price of a flat $30MM pool for each of the next five seasons.

Should teams surpass the various tiered thresholds of the luxury tax, the league had been proposing methods of punishment beyond just a financial penalty, such as the last CBA’s penalties of moving a team’s top draft pick back 10 slots if they exceeded the tax threshold by more than $40MM.  The MLBPA had been resistant to such “non-monetary penalties” as Drellich called them, but the union has now okayed some similar type of punishment in exchange for the elimination of the qualifying offer.  The league had previously floated the idea of eliminating the QO, so teams who sign particular free agents would no longer have to give up draft picks as compensation, though the teams that lost said free agents would still get a pick.

In regards to the larger and more thorny issues of the luxury tax thresholds themselves, the union made no changes to their past proposal.  As well, the MLBPA stood by their previous demands for an increased minimum salary.  The concept of an expanded postseason continues to factor into negotiations, yet while the union had been open to a 14-team playoff with a particular format, the players today opted to just stick with a 12-team format.  The MLBPA also continued to decline the league’s overtures for an amateur draft for international players, and in regards to the domestic draft, the union still wants a proposed draft lottery to cover the top six picks in the draft (while the league wants only the top five picks impacted).

While the owners are sure to reject this proposal on the whole, some small positives could be taken from today’s news, even if the bigger obstacles holding up a new CBA remain in place.  The union’s previous issue with the league’s rule-change proposals had more to do with the introduction of the topic at what seemed to be a pretty late stage in CBA talks, rather than an objection to the content of the rule changes themselves.  Given how the three rules in question have already been being tested at the minor league level, it was no surprise that the league was seeking implementation eventually, though commissioner Rob Manfred said back in December that the owners would likely hold off discussion of any alteration of on-field rules in order to focus on the big-picture financial concerns.

Limiting the 45-day implementation to just these three rules represents a seemingly acceptable compromise for both sides, and such, it now seems like a fairly safe bet that for the 2023 season, fans will see a pitch clock, larger bases, and some changes to how teams deploy defensive shifting.  Any of all of these concepts can be argued as ways to improve the on-field product, with the larger bases and the limited shifts in particular intended to promote more offense and action on balls hit into play.

A clock could also potentially lead to more action, should a pitcher (perhaps feeling the pressure of a ticking countdown) rushes a mistake pitch that the batter knocks for a hit.  But in general, the pitch clock is intended to address the longstanding concern over the time and pace of games.  The exact mechanics of the rules are still to be worked out and quite possibly determined by committee, and The Score’s Travis Sawchik also notes that the clock could be a way of enforcing rules already on the books about keeping batters in the box during plate appearances.

ESPN’s Jesse Rogers reported earlier today that the league was aiming for a 14-second pitch clock with the bases empty, and a 19-second clock with runners on base.  This represents a change from the times tested in low-A ball last season, as pitchers had 15 seconds to throw with the bases empty and 17 seconds when a runner was on base.  Looking at the numbers from 2021, the clock seemed to indeed result in shorter games, as the low-A games saw a reduction of about 21 minutes in the average game time.

TODAY: The league and the MLBPA have scheduled a meeting for tomorrow, according to Ken Rosenthal (Twitter links).  The union will be presenting responses, in writing, to the league’s last proposals.

MARCH 4, 8:55 pm: Jeff Passan of ESPN writes that the union’s “ghost win” proposal would actually function as akin to starting a three-game series up 1-0. Under that scenario, the division winner would only need to win one game to move on to the Division Series, while the Wild Card club would need to win two straight games.

4:58 pm: In an effort to finalize a new collective bargaining agreement before the league’s imposed deadline to avoid regular season game cancelations, MLB and the Players Association reportedly agreed to move forward with the framework for a 12-team postseason field. With that deadline having passed with no overarching agreement and the league having since scrapped the first two regular season series, the union is apparently willing to reconsider a more expansive field.

Buster Olney of ESPN reports (Twitter link) that the MLBPA has informed the league it’s amenable to reopening talks on a possible 14-team playoff. That has been an important initiative of MLB’s throughout negotiations, with a broader field giving the league more postseason games it can sell to television providers. Andrew Marchand of the New York Post reported this week that a 14-team playoff would see MLB recoup an extra $100MM annually as part of its broadcasting agreement with ESPN.

That makes the 14-team playoff an enticing carrot for the league, one the union would no doubt make contingent on movement from MLB in other key areas. Where to set the competitive balance tax thresholds has been perhaps the biggest sticking point in negotiations. The league is reluctant to go beyond a $220MM base tax marker next season, while the union’s latest offer included a $238MM CBT base. That $18MM gap would only widen over the course of the potential agreement, with the MLBPA seeking more rapid increases in future seasons than the league has proposed. The parties also disagree on the amount of money that should go towards the pre-arbitration bonus pool and the league minimum salary, among other issues.

Reopening talks on the 14-team playoff could serve to kickstart talks as the parties regroup following MLB’s game cancelations. However, it’s worth noting that the 12-team postseason framework already marked a notable concession by the union. The status quo, of course, had been a 10-team field. Merely agreeing to bump from 10 to 12 teams created the possibility for extra playoff rounds and a corresponding windfall for the league. Marchand reported that a 12-team format would itself have led to around $85MM per season in extra revenue for MLB, again per the terms of the league’s broadcasting agreement with ESPN.

Approximately $85MM per season isn’t $100MM per season, though, so it’s little surprise the league had sought a 14-team playoff for most of negotiations. The union has maintained that it’d prefer a 12-team field. The MLBPA has expressed concerns that allowing 14 teams in would disincentivize clubs from ardently upgrading their rosters. The MLB postseason is more variable than those of other leagues — the playoff team with the worst regular season record won the World Series just last season, as an example — and the union fears those fluctuations could allow teams with already-strong rosters to be content not to push hard for further upgrades. That could have a trickle-down effect of limiting teams’ urgency to spend in free agency, a behavior the MLBPA wants to avoid.

The previous 10-team format offered a powerful incentive for clubs to try to win their division. Wild Card qualifiers were tossed into a one-game playoff, leaving little more than a 50-50 shot for any Wild Card team to advance to the Division Series. MLB’s proposed 14-team playoff setup would offer a first-round bye to the team with the best record in both the AL and NL (as in the case with the NFL’s system). However, the relatively minor favors for the other two division winners over the four Wild Card qualifiers — the division winners would get home field advantage and have the right to choose their first round opponents from among the bottom three Wild Card teams — weren’t significant enough needle-movers, in the players’ eyes.

Max Scherzer, a member of the union’s executive subcommittee, expressed reservations with that setup earlier this week. “It really came down to a format issue,” he told reporters (including Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch). “In a 14-team playoff structure we felt that competition could be eroded in that area. … (When one team gets a bye), solely home-field advantage was not going to be the advantage to go out and win the division.”

Scherzer’s comments leave open the possibility for alterations to the league’s playoff format that could still see 14 clubs qualify. During earlier stages of negotiations, the union floated the concept of a “ghost win” for the first round. Under that system, the two division winners per league that did not receive a bye would automatically get the equivalent of a 1-0 advantage in a best-of-five series against the bottom two Wild Card qualifiers. Thus, the division winner would only need to win two out of a potential four games to advance to the second round; the Wild Card club would need to win three out of four to move on. The top two Wild Card teams in each league, meanwhile, would face one another in a standard best-of-three set (via Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic).

There’s no indication the league was on-board with the “ghost win” idea, but it highlights the possibilities for the sides to find a mutually-agreeable solution in this area. The MLBPA would likely prefer a standard 12-team playoff group, but agreeing to 14 teams seems to be the best way to get the league to move on other issues the union considers important. It stands to reason the MLBPA will push for strong bonuses (like the “ghost win” concept) for division winners as the parties reengage on the 14-team postseason.

That might reinvigorate talks between MLB and the union, but the league’s call to cancel regular season games now looms over all discussions. Rosenthal tweeted this morning that the MLBPA is preparing a response to the league’s final pre-cancelation offer, which the union rejected on Tuesday to end a stretch of nine consecutive days of negotiation in Jupiter, Florida. The parties are expected to schedule their next talks fairly soon, but they’ll face a whole host of new challenges whenever they do meet again.

Commissioner Rob Manfred is on record as saying the league is of the opinion that players shouldn’t be compensated for lost regular season games. MLB has been adamant those games are officially canceled and won’t be made up. Union lead negotiator Bruce Meyer has unsurprisingly argued that the MLBPA will pursue compensation for salary lost to game cancelations. As MLBTR’s Steve Adams wrote yesterday, the union figures to take an especially hard-line approach to making sure players aren’t forfeiting service days as a result of the lockout. The MLBPA has also previously indicated they’d refuse to expand the playoff field in 2022 if the league cancels games and strips players of any salary (as it since has). That all sets up even more difficulties for leadership on both sides to work through, but the hope is that the union’s willingness to reconsider a 14-team postseason could be a catalyst for progress on those issues.