Photo by Jose Francisco Morales on Unsplash
By Matt Guear, Staff Writer
The last MLB work stoppage happened in 1994 when the players went on strike, and it caused the World Series to be missed. Now, over twenty years later, Major League Baseball could be faced with something very similar, and with baseball only growing in popularity thanks to the exciting play of young phenoms like Fernando Tatis Jr, Shohei Ohtani, and Ronald Acuna Jr, this problem couldn’t have come at a worse time.
The Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) is an agreement between the thirty team owners and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) that outlines many aspects of how the operational side of MLB is run. Some of these details include player’s salaries, the luxury tax threshold, free agency, arbitration, as well as many other factors.
The CBA between the MLBPA and the team owners expires on Dec. 1, 2021. If it expires before a new agreement is reached, the owners could “lockout” the players and that could spell trouble for the upcoming 2022 season.
Although this has happened in the past, no regular season games have ever been missed due to a lockout. However, this time seems different. The two sides are as far apart as ever, and it doesn’t seem like they will be agreeing on anything anytime soon. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman cited a source that said the negotiations are “as bad as I’ve ever seen it” and we will be in for “two and a half months of pain”. Unfortunately, it’s looking like we could see games being missed because of a work stoppage for the first time since the 1994 strike.
Currently, according to multiple reports, the owners and Players Association are furthest apart on the financial aspect of things, specifically what the minimum salary for a Major League player is allowed to be.
When a player first comes up from the minor leagues, they are paid the league minimum, which is then adjusted to however many games they play at the Major League level. Currently, the league minimum salary stands at $570,500. While this number has been gradually going up over the last fifteen years, the Players Association still isn’t satisfied, and they want this number to increase even more.
Initially, this could seem a bit ungrateful considering it’s over half a million dollars. However, there’s a method to the player’s madness. You see, the owners like to take every opportunity to save as much as possible which is why they manipulate what is called service time.
Service time refers to the amount of time that a player is on the 26-man Major League roster. A player must accrue three full years of service team before they are eligible for arbitration and six years before they can become a free agent. Arbitration and free agency especially are where players make the most money.
Some owners and general managers are known for manipulating service time, meaning they will purposefully not bring a player up to the Major Leagues because they don’t want to start the service time clock, thus delaying when a player can start making anything but the league minimum.
This was an “unsaid truth” of the league for a while until early this year, when Kevin Mather, the former President/CEO of the Seattle Mariners, pulled back the curtain on the crooked ways that MLB teams have been operating for some time now, while speaking to a local Rotary Club over Zoom.
Mather talked about top OF prospect Jarred Kelenic and basically admitted to wanting to keep him down in the minor leagues even though he was ready to play at the Major League level. The whole ordeal was a huge mess and will serve as ammunition for the MLBPA while they are negotiating the next CBA. Mather has since resigned.
The Players Association will also be advocating for a “salary floor” that all teams must be above. They want to ensure that players are paid more during free agency because currently there is a huge gap between the salaries of the “superstars” and the “average” players. While there are some players yielding over $30 million a year, the average player salary in 2021 was just $3.9 million. This is down from 2017 when it was $4.1 million. The Players Association hopes to fix this problem and raise that average drastically.
The owners have proposed a $100 million floor for the upcoming agreement. However, it would be a “soft” floor, meaning that if teams fail to field a roster that exceeds $100 million in payroll, they will have to pay a sum of money to the league. However, there are some owners that are willing to deal with this penalty if it means they can continue to pay players less.
That’s the gist on the financial issues that are being addressed in the new agreement. To sum up, the players want the minimum salary increased as well as a salary floor to be implemented. This all comes down to the “average” players being compensated fairly. For every $400 million contract, there’s tons of players who aren’t being paid nearly enough and the MLBPA wants to correct that.
For everyone’s sake, both parties must come to an agreement quickly. Not only would the lockout effect the season, but it is almost definitely going to affect the free agent market this offseason.
This free agent class is star-studded and led by star shortstops Carlos Correa, Corey Seager, and Trevor Story. Additionally, former Cubs teammates Javier Baez and Kris Bryant are also looking to get paid well.
All in all, baseball is America’s pastime and to not have a season because of a few discrepancies about money would be a tragedy. For now, all we can do is keep our hopes up and fingers crossed that level heads will prevail.