Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association finally returned to the table on Thursday afternoon as they continue to try to work towards drawing up a new collective bargaining agreement.
This was the first time they were meeting to discuss some of the core economic issues since the lockout began back on December 2. While the full details of the meeting are still not known, the players union reportedly didn’t react positively to the owners’ new offer.
Some of the key points in that offer have begun to trickle out. We will keep you updated as we see more.
According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, the proposal included an increase in salary for players with 2+ years of service, a potential solution to service time manipulation, and some tweaks to their proposed draft lottery system.
Others, including Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet, have mentioned that an expanded playoff (14 teams) was included in the owners’ proposal. This is clearly one of the key factors that the league wants.
Jon Heyman of Audacy reports that MLB remains dead set against lowering the time to get to free agency from six years down to five.
Lastly, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the universal DH was proposed, and that feels like something that both sides are ultimately fine with.
While it’s certainly disappointing they left the table with no deal and the two sides remain far apart, that’s about how things were expected to go today. The union will now make a counteroffer, though it is not known when that will come.
Hopefully that comes sooner rather than later and talks begin to heat up. If not, with pitchers and catchers scheduled to report about a month from now, it’s looking more and more likely that there may be a delayed start to spring training.
