Home Major League Baseball CBA Madness, Phase I (Give or Take)

CBA Madness, Phase I (Give or Take)

By
Rice Cube
-
22

While pondering whether we are even allowed to pod anymore given the current Cubs freefall (please stop) and also realizing the silly pun I inadvertently put in the parenthetical, there’s multiple reports out there (summarized by MLBTR among others) that the players side have made the first formal proposal in the negotiations for the next CBA. As a reminder, the current CBA expires this December, and we’ve already had some discussion about whether or not there might be a lockout or missed games in 2027, though I feel like the consensus is that nobody is stupid enough to kill the entire season this time around. Here are the general details from the MLBPA release:

  • Raise the minimum sallary from $780K to $1.5MM
  • Expand the pre-arbitration bonus pool from $50MM to $180MM
  • Increase the Super Two pool from 22% to 44% of players with between two and three years of service
  • $3MM minimum arbitration salary
  • Drop the service time needed for free agency to five years for players who are 30+ years old, though teams can keep those players with a contract equivalent to the current qualifying offer metric
  • Increase the competitive balance tax threshold from $244MM (I think this rises due to inflation anyway but this is the first tier) to $300MM
  • Remove non-monetary penalties such as the forfeiture of draft picks
  • Restructure draft lottery to reduce tanking
  • More rules to reduce service time manipulation
  • Competitive integrity tax against teams that don’t spend at least $150MM on payroll
  • Mechanisms to make sure small market teams get revenue sharing but actually use it on payroll

The players are dead-set against a cap despite the fact that most owners, MLB itself, and the talking heads they’ve probably paid off have been stumping for the salary cap for months if not years. Apparently the owners are going to present a counteroffer tomorrow, but at least we have one end of the spectrum to work with before we see the other end wherein we can figure out where they might meet in the middle. Given the historic revenues and popularity of the sport, even with the various TV carriage and blackout issues, it would be pretty stupid for the two sides not to find common ground, but I’m going to wager against a salary cap for now.

22 COMMENTS

  1. Here’s the bit from Drellich

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0

  11. So the union has realized that most of it’s members don’t make $30M/yr. Good for them. I like the approach that supports younger players.

    Raise the minimum salary to $1.5MM,
    Expand pre-arbitration bonus pool to $180MM
    Increase the Super Two pool from to 44%

    I guess all these will be negotiated down. $1.2/$100/30%

    $3MM minimum arbitration salary

    That will boost the price of relief pitching for sure. My guess is that the many more players will not be offered arb at this rate and will then be forced to sign smaller than $3M contracts right before spring training. Though I guess it isn’t that much more than the $1.5M minimum after 3 years.

    Drop the service time needed for free agency to five years for players who are 30+ years old, …

    This seems fair, considering how brief careers are after 30. If it stays, I bet it ends up at 31.

    Increase the competitive balance tax threshold from $244MM to $300MM

    With new salary minimum requests, they’ve added about $15M already to pre FA players. Small markets won’t go for this. I bet this is negotiated to about 260.

    I’d rather they exempt all players that came up thru a club’s minor league system (no more than 15 days at AAA elsewhere or something) from the Comp Bal tax and then lower the threshold to $120M. So your young guys don’t count against your tax, and your stars that you sign long term don’t either. That’s good for fans and players and teams, unless they suck at player development. You can still sign a couple big FAs and some midlevel guys before incurring the tax. Or 2 Ohtanis.

    Remove non-monetary penalties such as the forfeiture of draft picks

    I’m for this if no draft picks can be traded.

    Restructure draft lottery, reduce service time manipulation, competitive integrity tax, make sure small market teams revenue sharing use it on payroll.

    Yes yes yes

    I think this is a reasonable open by players.

    Owners should ask for some concessions on injured player salaries in the tax structure. Other than that, screw em, they make plenty. Owners will definitely ask for expanded playoffs to which I say No. No team that doesn’t win at least 82 games should be in the playoffs. What’s the point of a regular season if half the teams get into the playoffs? So no 4-team divisions after expansion.

      Quote  Reply

    0

    0

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here