Spring Training Likely Delayed As Negotiations Stall

  As Nate Mendelson reported on MMO, MLB and the MLBPA had another negotiating session on Tuesday. Little (if any) progress was made, as the players made small concessions on service time manipulation and the amount of money requested for a bonus pool (details below). It’s February 2, the day after many suggested a new […]

The post Spring Training Likely Delayed As Negotiations Stall first appeared on Metsmerized Online.

As Nate Mendelson reported on MMO, MLB and the MLBPA had another negotiating session on Tuesday. Little (if any) progress was made, as the players made small concessions on service time manipulation and the amount of money requested for a bonus pool (details below). It’s February 2, the day after many suggested a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) would need to be in place for an on-time start of spring training. Though the sides will meet again today to discuss non-core economic issues, a new CBA is, in all likelihood, not close.

Baseball is looking at a public relations problem if spring training (and possibly the season) is delayed. The NFL has just enjoyed rounds of thrilling playoff games, and the NBA and NFL have navigated through the choppy COVID-19 waters, and persevered to minimize interruptions in their seasons. And then there’s MLB. Rather than talk of trades and signings, and soon the crack of the bat and pop of the catcher’s glove under palm and cactus trees, MLB is once again airing its grievances publicly. Some fans may shrug their shoulders and wait for an agreement, others will be turned off and reluctantly return when action resumes, if they return at all.

The lockout is now two months old, and the “defensive” move by Commissioner Rob Manfred has failed to instill a sense of urgency in the negotiations. There was optimism after the players and owners met on consecutive days last week, with both sides seemingly making concessions. The players let go of their request for earlier free agency, and the owners agreed in principle to a compensation system put forth by the union for pre-arbitration players. With agreement on the concept of a draft lottery also reportedly in place, it’s fair to wonder why they are not close to a new CBA.

In an article in The Athletic, Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal provide some insight. Regarding the agreement in principle on paying pre-arbitration players using a bonus pool, some key differences remained before Tuesday’s bargaining session.

The difference in the amounts proposed for the pool — $10 million by the owners, $105 million by the players — actually is greater than those numbers suggest. The league would make its $10 million available to all 0-to-3 players except the Super Twos who are eligible for arbitration. The union, on the other hand, based its plan on players becoming eligible for arbitration after two years. Thus, the $105 million it requested would go only to 0-to-2 players, a much smaller group.

On Tuesday, the MLBPA lowered its request to $100 million for the bonus pool. Still, they are far apart on how much money, and how broadly it’s distributed. I remain convinced that if the players and owners agree on expanded playoffs, the money in the bonus pool should logically come from the increased revenues. Of course, they will differ on how much goes in the pool, and they still have to determine how many are paid from the pool. However, it seems this one should have a path to resolution.

Gregory J. Fisher-USA TODAY Sports

The Competitive Balance Tax (CBT) also remains an unresolved issue. From the above-referenced article:

The previous largest jump in the threshold (for the CBT) was $11.5 million from 2013 to ’14, and the league is proposing less than that — an increase of $4 million to $214 million in year one, topping out at $220 million in the final year of a five-year deal. Teams that exceed the threshold would be subject to financial penalties that are more than double what they were previously, and draft-pick penalties that are also worse than before.

The owners want to place a drag on spending at the top and continue with revenue sharing. The players are not big fans of the degree to which revenues are shared and how shared revenue is spent, arguing that recipient teams do not always invest the money in their on-field product. The owners prefer to continue to revenue share similarly to how they are currently doing so. This will be a tough one to resolve, since they are philosophically apart on both issues. The players want significant increases in the CBT threshold, and to lessen spending penalties incurred by big-spending teams.

As an industry, baseball has taken financial hits in the last two years, with no fans in 2020 and seating capacity limits early in 2021. Rosenthal and Drellich introduce some ways in which the clubs may realize additional income in the near future, making their claims of the need to control spending less credible.

Legalized gambling offers meaningful potential. And eventually, the league also plans to expand by two clubs, and commissioner Rob Manfred has said the fees for each could be in the range of $2.2 billion.

There are other issues in the labor negotiations. The minimum salary is up for debate. Here is the current status, from Drellich and Rosenthal.

The players have proposed increasing the minimum from $570,500 to $775,000. The owners have proposed that the players will earn $615,000 in their first year, $650,000 in their second and $700,000 in their third. The increase of $44,500 for first-year players would be the largest they have ever received, and $27,500 more than the amount the union negotiated for them in the 2016 CBA.

As noted above, there are concerns over service time manipulation, where teams bring players up just after the point where they would qualify for a year of service time. Tuesday, the union said it was open to the owners’ idea of rewarding teams that do not manipulate a top prospect’s service with a draft pick. Also on Tuesday, the union reduced its ask for the number of players who would be awarded an additional year of service time based on performance metrics. While there may have been progress in these two areas, that progress can best be described as minimal in the overall scheme of the labor dispute.

This is a high-level view of the key issues that have to be resolved. There are more areas of disagreement, concerning the number of playoff teams, rule changes, and other non-economic matters. So much work to do, and so little time (to somehow avoid a delayed season). If there is no agreement by the end of February, the season will not start on time. The public relations hits will just keep on coming if games are lost.

The optimist says that often in negotiations, things settle quickly when both sides feel they have something to lose by remaining at an impasse. MLB and the MLBPA have plenty to lose, and perhaps that will motivate an expedited settlement. The realist sees the chasm that exists between the players and owners, the history of mistrust, and their misguided idea that their objective is to beat the other side, and senses that delays are inevitable.

Tuesday’s session resulted in an inch stone of progress, when milestones are needed, and needed quickly. Today’s negotiations will not move the needle on core economic issues. We are about three weeks from a certain delay in the regular season if no agreement is reached.

The current situation between MLB and its players is self-induced. Now they have to find it within themselves to do what it takes to hammer out a new deal, and then go into damage control mode, when they should be getting ready to engage fans for a new season.

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