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Jeff PassanESPN
Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association plan to launch talks on a new collective bargaining agreement Wednesday morning after deep discussions throughout the night had produced enough progress toward a potential deal for the league to cancel another installment of the regular season game.
Nearly 17 hours of negotiations starting Tuesday morning and ending 3 a.m. ET yielded some breakthroughs on MLB’s 97th day of lockdown, but the union has asked to reconvene with leaders players on Wednesday before responding to the league’s proposal, according to an MLB official.
MLB has threatened to cancel the second week of the season, an action that could have dire consequences at a particularly delicate time in negotiations. The ultimatum from the federation, which locks players on December 2, is simple: With a new base deal, players will report to spring training locations this week, the free agency will reopens, and after a shortened spring training session, a 162-game season offering players full pay and service time will begin.
Players spent hours on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning discussing the federation’s request for an international draft, a topic the federation had rejected in previous negotiations. and that doesn’t have significant support from a team ranked with almost a third from Latin American countries. Additionally, the players continue to balk at the league’s latest offer of a competitive equalization tax, which starts at $230 million in 2022 and ends at $242 million in 2026. sources said.
Other proposed trading points instilling hope around Tuesday’s game that a deal to save a 162-game season and prevent the sides from falling into an even worse labor turmoil more will come true. The league proposed a six-team, 12-team post-season draft lottery and a 45-day deadline for MLB to change the on-field rules, all of which are consistent with the federation’s earlier proposal.
Binding the international draft to the removal of compensation for direct draft selection – in which teams are penalized for draft selection signed with a top free agent – has the union pondering over the wisdom of overhauling the game’s international system, sources said. The international market, which offers an inexhaustible source of talent, is fraught with problems, the most prominent of which is children under the age of 12 agreeing to contracts they cannot sign until they are full. 16 years old. The federation believes a draft will help clean up setting up a system that has historically seen team officials receive money back for signing players and coaches to provide boosters. performance for teenagers.
The late night was like eight days before, when a 17-hour negotiation session moved to the next day amid a deadline set by MLB to cancel regular games of the season. The sides began negotiations hours later, only to see them disband before commissioner Rob Manfred canceled the first week of the season.
The MLBPA has said if the federation refuses to make concessions on full pay and time of service, it will remove the extended knockouts – key to a fundamentally new deal for MLB – from its proposal. . With the parties long unable to agree on core economic issues, deducting important benefits for the union and an additional amount to negotiate for the union – full service time is essential. paramount – will add to the difficulty of discussions.
The length of service consideration is important for players, who reach referee salaries after three years of major league service and free agent after six years. Players will receive a year of service if they spend 172 days on a tournament mainline. There are usually 186 days in a season, and if more than two weeks of the season are cancelled, the recall service will become part of any further negotiations.
If the parties agree to a deal, the second-longest shutdown in baseball history will come to an end and some semblance of normalcy will return after months of intense negotiations. Now, baseball is in its toughest spot, with new obstacles to overcome as the game tries to find its footing amid an increasingly disgruntled fan base.
Negotiations were heated on Monday, as the federation made a proposal to close a significant gap on competitive equalization taxes, a key issue as the urgency of the situation grows. Bargaining continued all day Tuesday under a new basic agreement, which governs most aspects of the game.
Baseball’s core economics had been central in labor negotiations before international draft discussions entered. While MLB has moved $20 million above the first threshold of CBT from the 2021 figure, the federation has requested a fourth level to discourage fugitive spending, sources said. Previously, the three tiers of CBT were from the first threshold to more than $20 million, the second from $20 million to $40 million, and the third to anything over $40 million. The new threshold will penalize teams that exceed $230 million to $60 million or more.
Among the league’s other proposals, according to sources:
• $40 million total prize money for players who have not reached the referee salary; union is looking for 75 million dollars
• Minimum wage starts at $700,000 and increases to $770,000 in the fifth year
• Shortened deadline for MLB to unilaterally implement rule changes – among them the pitch clock, ban on changing defenses and larger bases during the 2023 season
• Player uniforms feature advertising for the first time, with stickers on jerseys and decals on polishing helmets
• National League through Designated Player
• Draft selection suggestions to prevent service time manipulation
• Limiting the number of times a player can be selected for minor leagues in a season to five
Talks of a new underlying agreement began last year and progressed slowly leading up to the previous version’s December 1 expiration date. The league and the federation had made little progress in the previous months and Manfred locked the players out just after midnight on December 2. A gap of 43 days in negotiations occurred later and at the time. The point is that spring training is scheduled to begin in mid-February. around, the gap between the financial positions of the sides is large enough that the possibility of losing the regular games of the season becomes stronger.
Manfred’s cancellation of Opening Day a week ago attracted players, who, after 2016 negotiations that resulted in dire economic consequences, were intent on making a substantial financial return after 2022. Player salaries have fallen over the past four seasons despite growing revenues, topping an estimated $10.7 billion in 2019. Dramatic rise in franchise value – almost up four times more than the previous two base agreements – have become a rallying cry for players.
At the same time, tournament matching with the current economic system has pushed back the huge profits that players hoped to reap. While the potential guarantees for younger players is up to around $100 million, the game’s uncapped system allows teams to spend less on older players to balance the costs. increase.
