Maybe the full season is not lost, after all.
With the Major League Baseball Players Association and MLB negotiating in the early hours of Tuesday morning in Jupiter, Fla., momentum towards an agreement for a new collective bargaining agreement seemed to start gaining more steam than at any time since talks began.
While the finish line is still seemingly a ways away, enough progress was made that MLB agreed to move the deadline to get a deal done - which left a full slate of games in the balance - to 5 p.m. Tuesday. The original jumping off point was Feb. 28.
As the Washington Post wrote, "(The) union indicated a belief that MLB showed a willingness to get a deal today." And in the Athletic, Evan Drellich opined, "To player leadership, something seemed to change in Rob Manfred’s approach Monday. More aggressively than before, the commissioner signaled he wanted a deal."
After the 16 1/2-hour negotiating session Monday, there seemed to be common ground on the postseason expanding to 12 teams (rather than the 14 suggested by MLB), along with a universal designated hitter.
MLB also agreed to not increase the tax rates for CBT penalties while adding to the minimum salary and the new pre-arbitration bonus pool. The new minimum salary, according to the St. Louis Dispatch, would be $670,000 after sitting at $570,500 in 2021.
A significant concession by the MLBPA appears to be its willingness to drop a demand to change the percentage of arbitration-eligible players with two-or-more years of service time.