Baseball is back: MLB, players agree on new CBA to salvage 162-game 2022 season
Source: USA Today
In a startling turnabout after more than three months of largely stagnant negotiations, Major League Baseball and the MLB Players' Association have reached a tentative agreement Thursday on a new collective bargaining agreement that will significantly impact the game, capping a five-day stretch of lengthy bartering that resulted in the chance to salvage a full, 162-game season.
The proposed five-year agreement came 99 days after MLB commissioner Rob Manfred imposed a lockout following expiration of the last CBA, and one week after the clubs concluded eight days of bargaining in Florida with no deal, prompting MLB to cancel one week of games. The 2022 Major League Baseball season was scheduled to begin on March 31.
And it came one day after Manfred announced that "another two series are being removed from the schedule," pushing Opening Day from March 31 to April 14, a potentially massive black eye for a sport that largely avoided labor fisticuffs since a strike and lockout canceled the 1994 World Series and the first 18 games of the 1995 season.
Instead, the delay will be one week: April 7 is expected to serve as most teams' Opening Day, with the first week of games to be made up via doubleheaders throughout the course of the season. The season will conclude with expanded playoffs, with 12 teams - six in each league - making the field for the first time in a 162-game season. That's a lot of baseball compressed from early April into November.
Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2022/03/10/mlb-lockout-2022-season-players-owners-opening-day/9429523002/
(changed sources since most of them, including the MLB webpage, keep updating over and over)
Just heard this on my local CBS radio affiliate as a breaking news.
Original headline: MLB lockout ends as MLBPA, owners reach agreement: Live updates, reaction to baseball's return
Here's an updated version of the CBS Sports article - https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-lockout-ends-as-mlbpa-owners-reach-agreement-live-updates-reaction-to-baseballs-return/live/
Players will have to report for spring training over the coming days, and free agency and trades are likely to resume Thursday night.
The lockout came to an end in its 99th day. The owners first enacted the lockout on Dec. 2, when the previous CBA expired, marking MLB's first work stoppage since the 1994-95 players strike. Though the league characterized that act as a defensive mechanism it hoped would hasten negotiations, the owners then waited more than six weeks to make their first proposal. Talks finally heated up in the final week of February, when the two sides daily met in Florida. An agreement was reached Thursday after hours of negotiations this week in New York.
Original article - https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-lockout-ends-as-mlbpa-owners-reach-agreement-live-updates-reaction-to-baseballs-return/live/
The owners first enacted the lockout on Dec. 2, when the previous CBA expired. This was MLB's first work stoppage since the 1994-95 players strike. Though the league characterized that act as a defensive mechanism it hoped would hasten negotiations, the owners then waited more than six weeks to make their first proposal. Talks heated up starting in the final week of February, when the two sides daily met in Florida, and an agreement was reached Thursday after hours of negotiations this week in New York.
Commissioner Rob Manfred previously announced the cancelation of two weeks of the 2022 regular season, but it appears a 162-game season will still be played. A date for Opening Day was not immediately clear.
Throughout the process, the union sought to raise the league minimum and the Competitive Balance Tax thresholds; implement a centralized bonus pool for pre-arbitration players that would be based on performance; and introduce some measures that would curb anti-competitive behavior, like tanking. The owners, for their part, prioritized an expanded postseason, an international draft, and the power to make rule changes, including, potentially, installing a pitch clock and larger bases, as well as restricting defensive positioning. This was the first lockout in league history that compromised the regular season.
CBS Sports will have more on this breaking news story.
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