BRADENTON, Fla. -- Opening day isn't saved yet.
After making significant progress Monday night for the first time since Major League Baseball instituted a lockout on Dec. 2, the league and players association still remain far apart in negotiations for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.
The deadline to reach a new deal is 5 p.m. Tuesday, and according to Hannah Keyser, the league will make their "best" offer to the union before then. If a deal isn't agreed upon, regular season games will be cancelled.
Major League Baseball and the players association were unable to reach a new collective bargaining agreement by the league’s Feb. 28 deadline, but the two sides made significant process in a full day’s worth of negotiations Monday, to the point that it looked like a deal could have been reached.
However, several reports, including one from Mark Feinsand, indicate the players association has taken a different tone Tuesday after reconvening to discuss the competitive balance tax. That has been the main issue upholding a potential new deal for some time.
Reaching a new deal Tuesday would end the second-longest work stoppage in the league’s history, get players to their spring training homes in Florida and Arizona in a matter of days and start the regular season on its originally scheduled March 31 date.
Spring training games have been postponed through at least March 7, though a shorter spring is an obvious necessity in this scenario.
After barely making any traction on a new CBA since Dec. 2, both sides have negotiated in Jupiter, Fla. every day over the last week to try to get a new deal done and start the season on time. That was a vital point for both sides, with owners vowing to start canceling regular season games if a deal wasn’t done by Feb. 28 and the players telling the league they would reject an expanded postseason if a 162-game regular season isn’t played. The owners granted one more day of negotiations Monday night.
Earlier Monday the league threatened they would be willing to cancel a month’s worth of games, but it appeared they were more willing to bargain after barely budging to the players association’s new offers this week.
While many details have yet to be finalized or released, Andy Martino reported the main holdup of the deal was not the collective bargaining tax, like it had been for most of the negotiations, but rather if the postseason should expand to 12 or 14 teams.
Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that the two sides have agreed to a 12-team postseason field, an increase from the 10-team system that has been in place since 2012. Nightengale also reports that the owners have agreed to the same luxury tax penalties as the previous CBA.
There are still issues that need to be resolved before that new CBA is finalized, including the CBT number, what the minimum salary will be and how large the bonus pool for pre-arbitration players will be. The league’s offers for the pre-arbitration players was tied to the number of postseason teams, offering more for a potential 14-team field. Jon Heyman reports that the $230 million figure, which was about the middle ground between the league and players' offers, has been discussed for the CBT, but that the league is still sticking at around $220 million.
Heyman also reports that the league wants the players to drop their 2018 grievance against the Pirates, Rays, Athletics and Marlins as a concession for small market teams.
