Baseball seems to be on an inevitable crash course with a regular-season work stoppage in 2022.
Evan Drellich of The Athletic relayed a statement from an MLB spokesperson Wednesday afternoon, which said the league will cancel regular-season games if an agreement isn’t reached by Monday.
“A deadline is a deadline,” the spokesperson said, via Drellich. “Missed games are missed games. Salary will not be paid for those games.”
The statement didn’t sit well with Giants left-hander Alex Wood, who has been using Twitter to voice his opinions throughout the offseason collective bargaining sessions between MLB and the MLB Players Association.
According to Drellich, there is currently an eight-person committee in Jupiter, Fla., representing the MLBPA during negotiations. The two sides are supposed to meet again Thursday for another day of face-to-face negotiations.
As Wood’s statement and the general reporting throughout the offseason would have you believe, MLB’s 30 owners aren’t budging at the negotiating table. Wood signed a two-year, $25 million extension with the Giants this offseason before the lockout and has been critical of MLB over the past few weeks in particular.
The players have been transparent in their demands seeking higher minimum salaries and preventing the manipulation of service time for younger players. The biggest looming issue seems to be the competitive balance tax (CBT) threshold. Per MLB.com, “Those who carry payrolls above that threshold are taxed on each dollar above the threshold, with the tax rate increasing based on the number of consecutive years a club has exceeded the threshold.”
MLBPA reportedly seeks a $245 million threshold while MLB wants to keep it closer to the current figure. During the 2021 season, the CBT threshold was $210 million and has been increasing by $2 million annually since 2019. Wood has also taken aim at MLB for its stance on the CBT.
Wood isn’t alone in his criticism of Manfred and MLB in general. It speaks to the level of dysfunction that players can feel so freely to call out the commissioner and the game’s shot-callers, but it’s hardly unexpected given Manfred’s embattled reign atop baseball.
Considering the 2020 season was also shortened to 60 games due to a rough round of negotiations during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, MLB appears to be in serious danger of missing its second 162-game season in three years.
Pitchers and catchers were supposed to start reporting on Feb. 15. As of now, spring training games have been canceled through March 4, but the stakes will get much higher starting Monday.
