Down to its final strike to preserve a 162-game season, and mired in a messy and contentious lockout one day shy of reaching triple digits, Major League Baseball began climbing out of its sizable, self-created hole Thursday, as owners and the MLB Players Association finally found common ground on new collective bargaining agreement.
News of a deal broke shortly after the 3 p.m. deadline MLB set for its latest proposal, which amazingly affords enough time for a full season, despite commissioner Rob Manfred’s repeated threats that such a thing would not be possible.
Twenty-six of 38 on the players’ board voted in approval. All 30 owners — including Pittsburgh’s Bob Nutting — approved it.
“I am genuinely thrilled to be able to say that Major League Baseball is back, and we’re going to play 162 games,” Manfred told reporters in New York. “I do want to start by apologizing to our fans. … Looking forward, I could not be more excited about the future of our game."
While Manfred was talking about the big picture, the next steps for baseball are expected to be pretty crazy. Free agent signings and trades are once again legal, and the sport is expected to experience a busier 72-hour stretch than probably any in its history.
Pirates general manager Ben Cherington’s shopping list, as expected, doesn’t include a bunch of expensive items, but Pittsburgh is likely to primarily address its pitching depth, plus perhaps signing a catcher or outfielder and maybe making a trade to two. The Pirates also need to avoid arbitration with Chris Stratton and Bryan Reynolds.
“We expect a sprint,” Cherington told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last month. “It’ll be all hands on deck and probably some long days for a little while, but we’ll gladly take that outcome.”
Losing a week of the season will force MLB to get creative with its schedule. Opening Day has been moved to April 7, which means the Pirates will open by playing four games in five days at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. Their home opener is Tuesday, April 12 against the Cubs. The first spring training game is scheduled for March 18 (Orioles) at LECOM Park.
If Thursday’s news felt unlikely given the profound distrust and dislike between these two parties — not to mention a pair of previous near-misses, where agreements unraveled at the last-minute following marathon negotiating sessions — well, you’re not wrong.
A big part of Manfred’s press conference was spent talking about his frayed relationship with the MLBPA, one exacerbated by this painstaking process and something he believes he started to correct by phoning executive director Tony Clark once the agreement was ratified.
“One of the things that I’m supposed to do is promote a good relationship with our players,” Manfred said. “I’ve tried to do that. I think that I have not been successful in that. I think it begins with small steps.
“It’s gonna be a priority of mine moving forward to try to make good to the commitment that I made to him on the phone.”
The way things ended Wednesday, a deal looked highly unlikely, with MLB seemingly trying to shove through an international draft at the last second before players rejected all three options presented to them by the league, a move that clearly did not sit well with owners.
Then, improbably, they compromised.
Owners wanted to trade an international draft for the removal of draft-pick compensation on qualified free agents, which the union feels drags down the market. The solution: further discussing an international draft, which owners like because it creates fixed costs and cleans up a dirty system in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. If they don’t agree by July 25, draft-pick compensation disappears.
Although the recovery from this issue was ultimately what helped to get a deal done, it was also one of many that elongated this process after MLB locked out the players on Dec. 2, creating the second-longest work stoppage in the sport’s history.
“Our union endured the second-longest work stoppage in its history to achieve significant progress in key areas that will improve not just current players’ rights and benefits, but those of generations to come,” Clark said.
“Players remained engaged and unified from beginning to end, and in the process reenergized our fraternity.”
The litany of issues these negotiations covered included competitive-balance tax threshold(s), how much money should be made available for players who aren’t arbitration-eligible but outperform their contracts and the size of minimum salaries.
They did not, of course, include any sort of serious discussion over a salary cap and floor, the system exists in the NFL, NBA and NHL and one that has been long coveted by Pirates fans frustrated over the team's meager payrolls.
They're not wrong. And it's doubtful they'll like much of what MLB and the MLBPA took months to figure out — helping younger players get paid more, higher CBT thresholds and addressing service-time manipulation via draft picks teams can earn by playing young players earlier.
“I do believe — I hope — that the players will the effort we made to address their concerns in this agreement as an olive branch in terms of building a better relationship,” Manfred said.
Numbers-wise, the new deal means the minimum salary in MLB will jump from $570,500 to $700,000, rising to $780,000 by the end of the agreement. The CBT threshold will start at $230 million and reach $244 million. That pre-arbitration bonus pool — something that could help Reynolds — has been set at $50 million.
None of it comes close to the economic makeover baseball needs. The MLBPA also refused to drop its grievance against the Pirates and a handful of other teams, calling into question how they spend revenue-sharing funds.
But MLB will play 162 games, which means preserving full salaries and service time, something that could have made this situation stickier.
Sadly, most impactful to fans in Pittsburgh might actually be some changes away from the economic side of the game, things like the designated hitter now officially in the National League or a draft lottery for the bottom six teams (defined by winning percentage).
The new agreement also gives MLB power to implement several on-field changes for 2023 (provided it gives the union 45 days of notice) for things like the banning of shifts, a pitch clock and bigger bases. Playoffs will swell from 10 teams to 12 — but not 14 like the owners wanting. Players will wear patches on their jerseys and decals on their helmet
In total, the negotiations did include a lot. Manfred described the players' asks as "a very broad agenda for change" and said that was a big reason getting a deal done took so long.
Does it matter? Maybe other markets are excited. But it’s hard to imagine Pirates fans are too pumped about what transpired Thursday.
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG.
First Published: March 10, 2022, 8:25 p.m.
Updated: March 11, 2022, 11:08 a.m.
