Major League Baseball and its players had a meeting on Monday. (1:01)
MLB and the MLB Players Association are far apart on a new collective bargaining agreement as the sides remain in the same room for five hours on Monday.
In the offices overlooking the spring field where the St. Louis Cardinals and Miami Marlins train, leadership from both sides began what is an important week of negotiations in order to preserve opening day.
The start of spring training has been delayed with games postponed until at least March 5 as the owners continue to impose a lockout on players.
The league increased its commitment to a pre-arbitration pool to $20 million and added another team to the lottery in its new draft proposal. Both sides have made adjustments throughout the negotiations.
Sources told Jeff Passan that MLB withdrew its request of the union to control the number of minor league playing jobs. The league won't try to do it on its own in the future, but it could try in the future. MLB pulled its offer limiting the number of times a player can be optioned to five after withdrawing the minor league playing jobs proposal. The constant shuttling between the big leagues and Triple-A is a quality-of-life issue for players, who have proposed a maximum of four options.
Major economic issues, including the competitive balance tax, minimum salaries and revenue sharing were not addressed in a meaningful way on Monday according to sources familiar with the talks.
The league believes the union will compromise in a proposal regarding the CBT after recently tweaking its latest offer with modest sized increases in the final three years of the next collective bargaining agreement. The last year called for a first tax threshold of $222 million. The union wants to see a raise of up to $245 million as soon as next season.
The sides are still far apart on the pre-arbitration pool. The union has always asked for at least $100 million in each proposal. The union asked for $115 million in its latest proposal, but it reduced the percentage of Super 2 players who would be eligible for arbitration from 100 percent to 80 percent.
The league added a fourth team to the lottery draft, but it isn't enough to address tanking according to sources on the players' side. The union wants eight teams to be in the lottery in order to avoid a race to the bottom.
After having a meeting for over an hour on Monday, the sides split up to talk for several hours before reconvening. They split up again before calling it a day. Time.
The meeting had ten players in attendance, including Max Scherzer, Francisco Lindor, and Paul Goldschmidt. During their time with their own caucus, players were able to meet other reps from around the country.
Colorado Rockies owner Dick Monfort and past chair and San Diego Padres owner Ron Fowler were in attendance. The union chief was there, but the commissioner was not.
The deadline to play Opening Day on time is at least a week away, but no one on either side believed Monday would be the game-changer. The sides will meet again on Tuesday.
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