Yesterday, I was writing a paper mentioning that the MLB and the players were considering adding several doubleheaders (of seven innings) to the program to play as many games as possible if an agreement was not in place by February 28.
But ultimately, forget it.
Rob Manfred said the deadline to agree on a new contract is February 28 and that was a fixed date. From there, each day that passes without an agreement will mean that matches will be cut.
Nothing less.
MLB says the Feb. 28 deadline is a real deadline. If there’s no deal in place by then, games would be canceled and player pay lost, they say.
—Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) February 23, 2022
What this means is that if the collective agreement (for example) is signed on March 15 and the season starts on April 15, all games before April 15 will never be resumed. Players would not be paid for the two weeks missed and the season would be around 150 games.
I say approximately because the matches played before will ultimately never exist and the rest of the calendar will not be affected. Players will therefore be paid for the number of days (out of 186) that the season will last.
Players would lose about $20.5 million in salaries each day the season is delayed, according to an Associated Press study. It’s unknown how much the owners would lose each day.
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) February 23, 2022
Will all teams play a different number of games and is it the percentage of points that clubs will go into the playoffs? Will the calendar be a bit adjusted at the very beginning? I’ve no idea.
The question to ask is therefore whether there will be an agreement from February 28. After all, it’s in four days…
Hard to say.
Even if everyone is negotiating a lot (there should be sessions scheduled every day between now and the 28th), the two parties are moons away from agreeing on several issues, including the luxury tax cap. Currently, there is a difference of $31 million, which is not insignificant.
Five days before the deadline MLB says will postpone regular-season games, here’s the gap between the sides in their latest proposals:
CBT: $31M
Pre-arb bonus pool: $95M
Minimum salary: $135K/player
Draft lottery: 3 picksThat’s a lot to cover in less than a week. Like, a lot.
—Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) February 23, 2022
Jeff Passan has also laid great series of tweets about it yesterday. It is worth reading it.
It’s a bit the same thing for the minimum wage, where the gap is quite significant between the demands of the players and those of the employers.
The difference in minimum salary proposals between the two sides after #MLB raised its minimums by $10,000 a year:
MLB
2022: $640,000
2023: $650,000
2024: $660,000
2025: $670,000
2026: $680,000
MLBPA
2022: $775,000
2023: $805,000
2024: $835,000
2025: $865,000
2026; $895,000— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) February 23, 2022
If you want my opinion, I don’t believe that at the rate things are going there will be an agreement on February 28. So I believe that games will be canceled and, in my opinion, we will not have a season of 162 games.
However, you have no idea how wrong I hope I am.
