Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association moved the deadline for a new collective bargaining agreement to Tuesday morning after a 16-hour day of meetings. Tuesday.
While the sides made progress toward a new deal during the marathon negotiating session which included more than a dozen meetings and wrapped for the night around 2:30 a.m., gaps remain between the sides on the competitive-balance tax thresholds, minimum salary and bonus pool for pre-arbitration player The implementation of an international draft is on the table.
A league spokesman said that they want to exhaust every possibility to get a deal done. The sides will resume talks at 11 a.m.
The minimum salary was raised to $675,000 and the bonus pool was increased to $25 million, after MLB set a Monday deadline for a deal to save the opening day game. The continued meetings Tuesday show that the union is willing to move off of its demands. The proposal to increase the number of players with two years of service was dropped.
The players were offered a bonus pool of up to 40 million dollars if they accepted the expansion to 14 teams, but they decided to go for a 12-team playoff with a lower minimum.
The sides met for a 13th time after 2 a.m. in talks that began Monday. The labor dispute reached its 90th day on Tuesday. Commissioner Rob Manfred, who has said losing regular-season games would be a disastrous outcome, met with the union twice. After months of talks in fits and starts, the sides shifted into possible deal-making mode.
After his second session of the day with the union, he said that they were working at it.
The key figures in the meetings were Dan Halem and Morgan Sword. Some sessions lasted less than an hour and included senior vice president Pat Houlihan.
The owners and players met for eight days at the spring training site. The players were led by union chief Tony Clark and Bruce Meyer and were joined by executive subcommittee members, as well as rank-and-file members.
After the league locked out players, they preferred not to play, a departure from the last time the sides experienced a work stoppage in 1994, when games were played as normal without a collective-bargaining agreement until the players decided to strike in August. The playoffs were the most lucrative time of the year for the league. The current work stop is the second longest in the history of the game.
The sides have been far apart on the economic issues after owners made significant gains. The average player salary has fallen for four years in a row, leaving players looking for increases at every level, including minimum pay.
The first three years of the deal will see a flattening of the CBT and the final two years will see a raise. The union requested the same tax rates as the last basic agreement: 20% for up to $20 million over the threshold, 32.5% for $20 million to $40 million over and 62.5% for anything more than $40 million over.
The union will give $5,000 to members in February and March. The figure would increase in April. Usually player contracts are paid in the season. A stipend will be provided until a deal is reached.
The Associated Press and Jesse Rogers contributed to the report.
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