Major League Baseball made a new proposal to the MLB submitted a proposal to the Players Union”>MLB Players Association on Saturday during a negotiating session in New York, hoping to give positive momentum to negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement.
Spring training camp is scheduled to open this week, so the schedule has become a factor as the two sides continue to work out a new deal to get the players back on the field.
“I’m an optimist,” Manfred said during a news conference Thursday after the MLB owners’ meeting concluded. “I am confident that we will have a deal in time to play our regular season… we are doing everything we can to get a deal done for our fans.
“You are always one step away from reaching an agreement. That is the art of this process.”
The regular season is scheduled to start on March 31, and Manfred assesses the possible loss of games as a “disastrous outcome for our industry,” adding that “we are committed to reaching an agreement and avoiding that.”
MLB’s most recent proposal includes movement toward players regarding four main economic issues:
Minimum salary: MLB’s proposal gives the MLBPA a choice between two systems. Under the first, players would receive a single minimum salary of $630,000 in 2022, which would be more than double the $27,500 increase players received in the first year of the last CBA. Under this system, the minimum salary would be uncapped — meaning teams could give raises at their discretion — while the 2021 $59,500 raise would be roughly on par with the raise ($63,000) players received during the five years of the totality of the previous collective agreement.
The league’s other proposal includes a tiered salary scale that would pay players with less than one year of service at the major league level $615,000; US$650,000 to players with one year or more of service and US$725,000 to players with two years of service or more – the latter representing an increase of US$15,000 compared to the previous proposal. Compared to the current player minimum salary of $570,000, players would receive a 16% raise ($278,500) in their first three years of service under this plan – and that’s not counting pre-arbitration money.
Funds for players prior to arbitration: MLB had already accepted the MLBPA’s proposal to create a fund paid by the league to reward outstanding Major League players with less than three years of service. MLB increased its offer from $10 million to $15 million on Saturday, the same increase the MLBPA proposed from $105 million to $100 million in its last offer.
The league’s proposal includes the formation of a Joint Committee (three representatives from MLB, three from the MLBPA) to develop a mutually agreeable WAR stat to allocate funds. (Both Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference expressed concern that their WAR metrics were used to compensate players.) Under this proposal, the top 30 players not yet eligible for arbitration would have seen their salaries increase by an average of 74%. )
Competitive Balance Tax: MLB has offered to increase the base tax and surcharge limits by $2 million per year in 2024 ($216 million), 2025 ($218 million) and 2061 ($222 million). In addition, the league made another concession to the union by withdrawing its proposal to require teams that go over the basic tax limit to forgo draft picks. Only teams that exceed the $234 million limit would lose picks in the Draft.
Teams over the $234 million limit would lose second-round picks, while teams over the $254 million limit would lose a first-round pick. Based on this proposal, teams would have only lost 14 picks during the last CBA compared to the 23 picks they had to give up.
MLB’s proposal also eliminates repeat offenses, creating more consistency from year to year in both team payrolls and competitive balance. Under the previous CBA, teams could “zero out” the penalties if they fell short of the CBA cap for one season, and then proceeded to spend huge sums of money; ending recidivism would curb spending sprees, which would help the competitive bottom line.
Service time: MLB added incentives in the form of draft picks to further dissuade teams from managing the service time of listed prospects. Teams could now receive two Draft picks per player if the player reaches certain levels in the voting for year-end awards.
Under the proposal made in January, MLB offered to adjust the eligibility requirements for all players with fewer than 60 days of service rather than players with no service time or who have been promoted in September, which would remove any incentive for a team to don’t use a prospect as a replacement for injury during the previous season. (In other words, players who received less than 60 days of service in one season would be picked again in the next.)
MLB’s proposal Saturday also increased the incentive for teams to bring up top prospects by allowing them to receive a Rule 4 Draft pick and an international pick (if implemented in the International Draft). Players said they didn’t think that a single draft pick would be reward enough for teams to bring up top prospects rather than manage their service time.
“We have moved to the key side of the players in an effort to ease their concerns,” Manfred said Thursday. “Under the proposal that we have on the table, each of the players who are not yet eligible for the arbitration process would be in a better position compared to the previous agreement.”
Among the other issues addressed by Saturday’s proposal are the following:
• Increase the signing bonus values of the Rule 4 Draft and the possible International Draft to add more than US$23 million of additional spending on amateur players compared to 2019.
• An NBA-style Draft lottery
• A proposal that players who are drafted after undergoing a physical must receive at least 75% of the job value associated with their selection and cannot be waived by the club for a post-Draft physical. (It would be something like the “Kumar Rocker Rule.”)
• Improvements in the health benefits package
• For the first time, a limit on the number of times a player can be sent to the minor leagues in a season (5).
Prior to this deal, MLB was already the only major North American sport without a salary cap, with guaranteed contracts valued in excess of $300 million and no limit on the longevity of contracts players can sign.
The current deal being offered by MLB includes several concessions that would benefit players in each category of service. For drafted players, the amount would increase by $20 million a year, while players not yet eligible for salary arbitration would earn more than $200 million in additional compensation over the life of the deal.
For veterans, the addition of the universal designated hitter would help prolong the careers of some players, and the average salary of a designated hitter – which was more than $9 million in 2021 – would create more than 15 permanent and important jobs on teams. of the National League.
MLB’s offer to eliminate the qualifying system would end draft-pick compensation, making top-tier free agents more attractive.
An expanded postseason — MLB is seeking to include 14 teams instead of the 12 the MLBPA has proposed — would boost playoff revenue for players, thanks to earnings from additional games. Expanding the number of qualifying teams would also mean adding more than 100 players to the postseason.
Since negotiations resumed after the lockout began, the MLBPA has not modified the proposal it made in November on key issues such as minimum wages, Super 2 eligibility, the competitive balance tax cap, the size of the lottery Draft and the expanded postseason.
The MLBPA made some adjustments to the money for players not eligible for arbitration, reducing the amount they are demanding from $105 million to $100 million and their requested reduction in revenue sharing from $100 million to $30 million. MLB has maintained from the beginning that reducing revenue sharing and expanding Super 2 eligibility are two issues that will not prosper from the league’s standpoint.
The only issue the MLBPA has budged on has to do with keeping the six-year period of free agency intact, and while the union accepted MLB’s proposal to combat service-time manipulation, it was on the condition that it incorporate its own plan to solve the problem.
