MLB commissioner Rob Manfred announced on Tuesday that the first two series of the season were cancelled after the owners and players failed to reach a deal on a new collective bargaining agreement.
The players ultimately rejected the final proposal made by the owners and released a statement explaining their decision.
Tony Clark, head of the players union, as well as current players Andrew Miller and Max Scherzer — who serve on the Executive Subcommittee and have been involved in the negotiations — also spoke to reporters on Tuesday night and said that players are prepared and united to miss games.
“We’re prepared,” Miller said. “We’ve seen this coming in a sense. It’s unfortunate, but this isn’t new to us. This is not shocking. Our communication, our willingness to see each other’s point of views and find solutions to fight for what’s right is nothing like I’ve seen before.”
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Miller noted it’s not just financial issues they are fighting over, but also issues regarding competition, such as incentivizing teams not to tank and spend money to build winning ballclubs.
“We’ve been screaming for years about competition issues,” Miller said. “Those are important to us. This is not just about shifting the pieces of the pie around. … A core goal of this negotiation is to increase competition and we’re not leaving the table without that.”
One of the core issues appears to be the competitive balance tax, which the owners refused to raise past $220 million in the first three years of their final offer and only willing to go up to $230 million.
The current threshold is $210 million, which only the Dodgers, Phillies and Red Sox exceeded last year.
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Scherzer argued that the tax has acted like a salary cap, which is not its intention.
“We look at the competitive balance tax as a breakaway spending mechanism,” Scherzer said. “That’s how this thing was originally negotiated. And… we’re not seeing that function as breakaway spending. We’re seeing it act as a salary cap.
“No other way can be shown, point blank, plain and simple, than the San Diego Padres having a higher payroll than [the] New York Yankees.”
The Yankees actually finished the 2021 season with a payroll nearly $700,000 higher than the Padres, per Spotrac, but the fact that the Yankees — playing in the biggest market — are spending as much as the small market-Padres is a case that teams are reluctant to go over the luxury tax threshold.
The players also said they are willing to continue negotiating tomorrow, contrary to Manfred, who said the earliest would be Thursday.
“We’re willing to stay here and have a conversation tomorrow,” Clark said. “We’re willing to fly back to New York. We’re willing to go wherever we need to go to get back in the room and continue the dialogue that has begun.”
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