MLB cancels games as league, players can’t come to terms on collective bargaining agreement
The 2022 Major League Baseball season is not starting on time.
With no collective bargaining agreement in place as the league’s self-imposed lockout of its players enters its fourth month, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred announced Tuesday the league is canceling at least the first two series of the season — a move Manfred had previously said would be “a disastrous outcome for this industry.”
For the Miami Marlins, that’s March 31-April 3 against the Atlanta Braves and March 4-6 against the Texas Rangers, all home games at loanDepot park. It’s the consequence the league said it would impose if league owners and the MLB Players Association failed to reach a deal by the league’s self-set deadline — originally Monday but later extended to 5 p.m. Tuesday.
“My deepest hope is we get an agreement quickly,” Manfred said. “I’m really disappointed we didn’t make an agreement.”
This marks the first time outside of the COVID-19 shortened 2020 season the league will not play a full 162-game season since 1995.
“Today is a sad day,” union leader Tony Clark said. “The reason we are not playing is simple: a lockout is the ultimate economic weapon.”
How final day of negotiations unfolded
They had six final hours to make a deal and come to terms on a collective bargaining agreement.
In the end, they couldn’t.
The decision came on the 90th day of the league-imposed lockout of its players and after the league and MLB Players Association met for a ninth consecutive day of bargaining at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium, the spring training home of the Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals.
The league extended its deadline given to the MLBPA from Monday to 5 p.m. Tuesday “to exhaust every option to get a deal done” after the two sides negotiated for more than 16 hours starting Monday morning and carrying on into the early hours Tuesday.
The sides separated at about 2:30 a.m. Tuesday and reconvened at the ballpark later that morning — the MLBPA showing up around 10 a.m., the league an hour later.
But instead of using all their time to position themselves to make a deal, the sides spent a portion of their precious final six hours posturing to the court of public opinion.
Shortly before 3 p.m., an MLB league official said the MLBPA “had a decidedly different tone [Tuesday] and made proposals inconsistent with the prior discussions” and presented the MLBPA with what it called its “best offer” about an hour later, which the players declined.
A union official said players strongly disagreed with MLB’s suggestion that their tone has changed and reiterated that sides continued to be far apart on key economic issues.
Among them:
The threshold to initiate the league’s competitive balance tax, a penalty for payrolls exceeding a certain dollar value. The figure was $210 million for the 2021 season, with teams paying a fine for every dollar above that total (the total varies based on how many consecutive years a team is over the stated total). The league’s last offer had the figure at $220 million for the 2022, 2023 and 2024 seasons, $224 million for 2025 and $230 million for 2026.
The MLBPA offer: $238 million in 2022, $244 million in 2023, $250 million in 2024, $256 million in 2025 and $263 million in 2026.
League minimum salaries. MLB’s final offer had minimum salaries starting at $700,000 with $10,000 increases over each year of the agreement. The MLBPA’s asked for salaries to start at $725,000, with increases of $20,000 over the first few years of the deal, followed by a different increase on the back-end of the deal.
The bonus pool allotted to pre-arbitration players. The league’s offer is $30 million per year with no annual increases. The MLBPA on Tuesday lowered its request from $115 million to $85 million in the first year with $5 million increases annually.
The league’s final offer Tuesday also included postseason expansion to 12 teams, the creation of an international draft to replace the international signing period, a universal designated hitter, top-two finishers in rookie of the year voting in both leagues being granted a full year of service irrespective of days on the MLB roster, a draft lottery for the first five picks, teams getting bonus draft picks for putting top prospects on opening day roster and limit the amount of times a player can be optioned to the minor leagues in a year to five.
Negotiations will continue — legally, both sides have to continue bargaining until an agreement is made.
To Manfred, the next move is the union’s to make.
“Every single issue in the basic agreement, we have made the last proposal,” Manfred said. “You draw your own conclusion as to who ought to go next.”
The MLBPA’s stance on this?
“They made an offer that they characterized as best and final,” union chief negotiator Bruce Meyer said. “To me, that means there’s no proper counteroffer. .... In terms of who’s court the ball is in, I think it’s incumbent on both sides to be at the negotiating table.”
Players ‘prepared’ for an extended lockout
Unless a deal is agreed upon in the near future, the league will most likely continue to keep pushing back the start of the season — and canceling games as a result.
“We’re prepared,” said pitcher Andrew Miller, one of eight players on the MLBPA’s executive subcommittee. “We’ve seen this coming in a sense. It’s unfortunate, but this isn’t new to us. This is not shocking.”
Manfred has made clear that teams ideally will need a minimum of four weeks of spring training to prepare for the season and said he anticipates spring training camps could open within a few days of the CBA being agreed upon.
The union said that it will push for canceled games to be rescheduled when talks resume.
“To say they won’t reschedule games if games are canceled or they won’t pay players for those games that are canceled is solely their position,” Meyer said. “They’re not legally required to take those positions. ... We would have a different position.”
This story was originally published March 1, 2022 at 5:30 PM.
.JPG)