As they paced from one side of the Cardinals’ spring training complex to the other, from huddles to conversations, negotiators seeking to end Major League Baseball’s lockout had little progressed on Tuesday.
Despite so much walking, so much discussion and so little movement, they continue to tiptoe around the pitfalls that any path leading to an agreement must ultimately take.
The players’ union made its first counterproposal during meetings this week at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Fla., and scaled back its demand for expanded arbitration eligibility, but also increased salary minimum. Echoing the owners’ offer on Monday, the union also dropped its proposal that the first eight picks in the draft would be drawn randomly from the top seven, local media reported. The owners had increased their offer from the first three to four. This do-if-do toward an intermediate point will continue with meetings Wednesday as owners prepare their response.
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After two days of meetings aimed at reaching an agreement before MLB’s Monday deadline to ensure a full regular season, one overarching question looms larger in his absence.
The two parties, according to journalists on site and confirmed by a source, did not speak this week about the Competitive Balance Tax (CBT), or “luxury tax”. The MLB Players Association believes that the CBT has become a salary cap, by another name. The owners’ most recent proposal, which included changes to the CBT, toughened penalties for spending over the limit. The players’ union has insisted that the CBT threshold should increase from its stagnation and reflect revenue growth. Closing this gap, arguably the most important of these talks, will be essential to any new collective bargaining agreement and ending the second-longest work stoppage in baseball history.
The owners have informed the union that in order to start a regular season as planned on March 31 and have a full season – and therefore full salaries – a new collective bargaining agreement must be agreed to by Monday. Commissioner Rob Manfred canceled the first week of spring training games, but an agreement by Monday and ratified within days could start spring training by March 4.
The union did not agree to that deadline for a full season, but both sides agreed to meet every day this week to maintain a sense of urgency that had disappeared over the winter.
MLB negotiators called Tuesday’s negotiations a ‘step backwards,’ according to ESPN.com.
Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt and Mizzou great and St. Louis-area native Max Scherzer – both of whom called Jupiter home during the offseason – were again members of the group of players that met with MLB negotiators on Tuesday. Scherzer serves on the union’s executive committee, and the Washington Post reported that he had a small-group meeting with MLB lead negotiator Dan Halem after Tuesday’s formal discussions. Another member of the union’s executive committee, veteran reliever Andrew Miller, most recently with the Cardinals, plans to join talks in Jupiter on Wednesday.
The owners began the lockout on December 2 after the previous collective bargaining agreement expired and plunged the game into its first union quagmire since the 1994-95 players’ strike.
The lockout preemptively erased the possibility of a players’ strike at any time this season – but it also had a more subtle purpose. The luxury tax expired with the CBA and, without this penalty, several teams could have inflated their payroll without penalty.
Which further illustrates the players’ concerns.
The strike that cost Major League Baseball the 1994 World Series was due to players’ resistance to the salary cap. In practice, the CBT that the union accepted in recent agreements has become a less rigid version.
Last season, teams that spent more than $210 million had to pay an overage tax. Two teams – the Dodgers and Padres – have eclipsed that number. Five teams were under $4 million. By putting another one aside, these teams prevented a free agent from signing before moving on. The Dodgers had a payroll of $285.6 million, according to MLB calculations, and under the previous CBA they paid a tax penalty of $32.65 million. That figure was based on a 20% penalty on the first $20 million in excess, 32% on the next $20 million, and 62.5% on anything over $250 million.
The union proposed raising the threshold to $245 million for 2022 and up to $273 million in the fifth year of a new collective agreement.
The owners reportedly countered by proposing to start with $214 million in 2022 and increase to $222 million in 2026. Beneath the surface, however, the owners’ proposal hides the harshest penalties — those similar to violators for the third time in the country. previous ABC. In the owners’ current proposal, which is reportedly still on the table, there is a 50 percent tax on the first $20 million in excess, 75 percent on the next $20 million, and a one-dollar tax for every dollar on anything over $254. million in 2022.
The Dodgers’ 2021 payroll would result in a tax of $56.6 million under the proposed structure, more than 70% more than the tax paid this year.
This is what has a deterrent effect – and then come the selection penalties.
Those same harsher tax penalties, if applied to the union’s proposed CBT threshold, would have resulted in a $25.6 million penalty for a payroll the size of the Dodgers.
This reflects the magnitude of the gap that has been overlooked so far this week.
In its Tuesday proposal, the union dropped its demand to increase arbitration eligibility from 80% to 75% of players with two years of seniority. That would put the Super 2 class around 70 or 80 players, and last year it would be the difference between Cardinals lefty Genesis Cabrera (2 years, 40 days) being arbitration eligible and likely ineligible. The owners held on at 22%, which left Tommy Edman (2 years, 114 days) two days away from eligibility.
By reducing the “Super 2” class and thereby increasing the pool of players who would not be eligible for arbitration, the union balanced the equation by increasing the minimum salary to $775,000 in 2022 and reducing its increase each year. . By securing an increase in the minimum salary, the union would give young players a higher starting point when they enter arbitration and salary increases accelerate. The owners, knowing how much that cost could swell if all players started arbitration at a higher salary, reportedly proposed a minimum salary of $630,000, which would rise to $725,000 in the fifth year of the contract. agreement.
The setting for this week’s meeting was chosen based on geography, but it also brings symbolism. Reporters on site shared photos of MLB negotiators walking behind padlocked doors. And in the distance, on those backfields, several Cardinals minor league players not on the 40-man roster began their first jump at spring training.
They are not represented by the union and are therefore not subject to the lockout.
They will inherit whatever comes out of it.
