As the lockout between players and Major League Baseball presses on, Spring Training games continue to be cancelled with the ultimate threat of regular season games on the horizon. Negotiators recessed their talks until today, which is the deadline put in place in order to salvage Opening Day games scheduled for March 31st.
For what fans can only describe as agonizing, a series of short and more frequent meetings took place over the weekend that stretched into Sunday evening before discussions were tabled. MLB has already threatened that if a deal is not reached by today, regular season games will begin being cancelled and they will not be made up. Additionally, players will not receive pay for any cancelled games.
Teams and owners crossed some of their differences off the board on Friday and Saturday, which was the first sign of progress in their talks since negotiations began back in early December of last year. Entering the 88th day of work stoppage, they had still been far apart on glaring issues that included luxury tax thresholds and rates, the size of the new bonus pool for pre-arbitration players and minimum salaries. Additionally, management wants the union’s agreement to accept the expansion of the postseason from 10 teams to 14 – two more than players thus far have been willing to accept.
The last time a work-stoppage was seen in the sport was back in 1994-1995, long before many current MLB players were even born. Now, this generation could be merely weeks away from witnessing a stoppage of their own.
Player representatives for the MLBPA included Max Scherzer, Andrew Miller and Marcus Semien, who attended the talks alongside union head Tony Clark and chief negotiator Bruce Meyer. Additionally, MLB Executive Vice President Morgan Sword, Senior Vice President Patrick Houlihan and Vice President Reed MacPhail met with the union, a trio of the officials familiar with many of the details within the intricate collective bargaining agreement. The expired contract was comprised of 359 pages plus separate deals covering benefits, joint drug rules and dealing with domestic violence allegations.
By now, baseball fans, we were supposed to be in the thick of Spring Training, with games originally scheduled to have begun on Saturday. They’ve all been cancelled through March 7th.
The day of negotiations kicked off with the MLB offering to raise the luxury tax threshold from $210 million last season to $214 this year, with a final increase of $220 million by 2026. Teams also want higher tax rates, which the union says tend to act like a salary cap. Players want a $245 million threshold this year with a final increase of $273 million by the final season.
The union wanted to expand the players with at least two season of major league service and less than three to the top 35%, up from 22% cutoff in place since 2013. A proposition of the pre-arbitration pool having $115 million distributed to 150 players was met with management counter-proposing $20 million be split among 30 players.
The two sides remain at odds, but as an optimistic baseball fan, I’m rooting for the sport today, not for a team.