Greg Lovett-USA TODAY NETWORK
Evan Drellich of The Athletic reported that MLB and the MLBPA met Monday, and MLB has put a new deadline in place. MLB has now said that if the two sides come to an agreement by the end of Tuesday, March 8, they can play a full 162-game schedule.
Last week, Rob Manfred and Major League Baseball canceled the first two series of the year. This led to further complications, as the MLBPA said that they wouldn’t accept a deal with fewer games or without compensation for lost games.
This possibility is still on the table because they have only canceled two series. How they would make them up is unclear, whether they would do double-headers or simply adding them to the end of the season.
However, MLB told the MLBPA that if they do not reach an agreement tomorrow, they will cancel another week of games. That leads to the belief that if/when MLB cancels games, it will be in one-week chunks.
Jon Heyman of MLB Network reported that MLB made some proposals Monday that were significantly more beneficial for the players. Drellich reported that MLB raised its offer to start the competitive balance tax from $220 million all the way to $228 million, the largest jump they have made so far. By the end of the deal in MLB’s proposal, the CBT would be up to $238 million.
These numbers are significant increases and brings the two sides closer in their numbers. The MLBPA’s last offer for CBT started at $238 million and ended at $263 million. That MLB came up to $238 million could be enough to possibly nudge the players towards accepting that portion of the deal.
It is unclear what the rest of the offers are, but the CBT has been the biggest roadblock so far. In the last proposal, the two sides were $18 million off in the first year of the luxury tax. Now they find themselves only $10 million apart.
