Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association reportedly made progress Monday toward an agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement that would end the owner-imposed shutdown after a marathon negotiation session that lasted into the early morning hours. The MLB originally set a Monday (February 28) deadline to reach an agreement before canceling regular season matches and postponing the 2022 opening day. However, the league’s self-imposed deadline has been pushed back to 5 PM ET Tuesday, According to Jeff Bassan of ESPNThe two sides continue talks throughout the day.
The MLB and MLBPA both spent more than 16 hours at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Florida, on Monday before calling it night around 2:30 a.m. ET. As much progress has been made during the Monday/Tuesday early morning marathon sessions, Ken Rosenthal from The Athletic Reports indicate that there has been “clear progress”, but that “significant gaps remain in key areas”.
The MLB began negotiations on Monday by informing the MLBPA that it was willing to miss matches for a month and took on a more threatening tone, According to Evan Drelish of The Athletic. Several reports said, several hours later, that the two sides ended up agreeing to coordinate an expanded 12-team supplement. However, talks about the competitive balance tax threshold (also known as the luxury tax), minimum salary and bonus package for players before arbitration were ongoing.
It was also reported that more trivial matters such as the limitations of defensive transfer were part of the discussions. In all, there were 13 separate face-to-face meetings between the two sides at the spring training facility on Monday. The bottom line is that there is an iota of hope that the season will start as planned on March 31st, but there is still heavy lifting to be done on Tuesday when the parties meet again.
CBS Sports has provided a closing schedule here, but the short version is that the owners set the locks on when the previous CBA expired on December 1 – exactly three months ago. They were not obligated to do so, but it was described as a defensive maneuver. Then the league waited more than six weeks to make its first proposal. The two sides have since conducted a number of personal negotiations. CBS Sports offers live updates of Tuesday’s talks. You can continue below.