With spring training set to begin in just over three weeks and teams still very far apart on the conclusion of a new employment agreementMajor League Baseball and its players union met Monday and planned to meet again Tuesday.
Monday’s meeting at the players’ union offices in Manhattan – only the second major negotiating session since the start of the lockout on December 2 — lasted more than two hours and included what one MLB official described as a lively back-and-forth. The small group included, among others, union officials, such as chief negotiator Bruce Meyer and a representative of the major players, Andrew Miller, as well as MLB officials, such as Dick Monfort, the owner of the Colorado Rockies and the chairman of the league’s labor committee. , and Dan Halem, MLB lead negotiator.
During the previous bargaining session, held on January 13, MLB made a proposal to the union during a virtual meeting that it said addressed some of the players’ concerns about paying their bills more quickly. young talents.
On Monday, the union formally rejected that offer — it didn’t believe some of MLB’s ideas would accomplish what the league claimed — and made its own counterproposal. The union abandoned, for the first time, its proposal to allow certain players (those with five years of service) to access free agent status based on their age (30 and a half and later 29). and a half) rather than the decades-long standard based on service time. alone. The union also changed its previous proposal to reduce revenue sharing between teams.
MLB said that allowing players to reach free agency more quickly and changing the money distributed between teams were areas he didn’t want to touch.
Overall, the union has sought a series of improvements, with the aim of helping younger players, improving competition between teams, reducing service time manipulation and injecting more spending. The league, however, believes that players benefit from a fair system with no salary cap and views this as a matter of wealth distribution – which star players disproportionately command more and more than others.
Since Monday, both parties now believe they have made recent offers that go in the direction of the other. But to what extent depends on point of view. There is still work to be done, but the pace of discussions — with time running out for the start of spring training and perhaps the season on time — is picking up.
