Earlier on Sunday, MLBPA reportedly proposed to MLBPA a proposal to delay the start of spring training and the one-month season, allow a 154-game season and provide players with a full salary of 162 parties.
According to a follow-up article in Athletic written by Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich, there is reason to believe the players will reject the league proposal on Monday. If that happens, it looks likely spring training will begin punctually in mid-February, and the regular season for the Mets will begin on April 1st.
There are several reasons why players do not consider the proposal acceptable. Among them are the following:
There is no guarantee that the 154 games will actually be played, as the season would be compressed (although it would last two weeks longer than initially planned). If games are postponed for any reason, it would be harder to invent them. The commissioner could have the authority to cancel, rather than postpone unplayed games, which may affect the proposal to pay the player’s full salaries. There is no real guarantee of the total salary in the proposal.
Players believe that the delay can affect their typical training regimes and can set the stage for injuries during the season.
Universal DH remains a bargaining chip and a point of contention between the two parties. The league is willing to offer a universal DH (which could result in some highly paid features for players such as Marcell Ozuna i Nelson Cross) in exchange for extended playoffs. The MLBPA is not in favor of extending the playoffs, as it fears the format will be a disincentive for teams to spend on players, as more teams would qualify for the postseason. The league offers $ 80 million to the set of players for extended playoffs (the league put $ 50 million into the pool during the abbreviated 2020 season), which is the same amount as the 2019 season, the last full season played with bleachers.
And, in addition, there is the biggest problem of all of them, the expiration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) after the 2021 season and the need for comprehensive bargaining before the 2022 season. Players can show -are reluctant to accept the extended playoffs now (apparently the key issue for owners) and may prefer to keep this high-value chip for use when the sides sit down to talk about a new CBA. Players are expected to look for measures in the upcoming CBA to increase overall competition, such as a reverse luxury tax that would effectively serve as a mandatory ground in the team’s payroll.
If you’ve been a baseball fan for a long time, you know the sides just don’t trust each other. As noted by Rosenthal and Drellich, players fear that Commissioner Rob Manfred will be free to cancel games if conditions (COVID) are deemed unsafe, impose double headers, and otherwise implement measures that will affect pay. and player service time. .
If players reject MLB’s offer, with such a short time ahead of the scheduled start of spring training, it is unlikely that a new proposal could be made that would affect the start of the pitches. The DH issue could be agreed before the start of the season, as will the extended playoffs (the latter was agreed very close to the start of the 2020 season).
It’s almost unattainable that we’re 17 days away from pitchers and catchers, and there are still doubts about the reporting date and the rules under which the season will be played.
Again, after the labor issues that have plagued the baseball scene since the early 1970s, it may not be such a big surprise.
