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News, Blog and GuidesAfter negotiations threatened to go nowhere for so long, the MLB and the players passed a new collective bargaining agreement seemingly out of the blue
Jeffrey MayJeff_DiarioASUpdate: Mar 11th, 2022 22:20 EST
Greg LovettUSA TODAY Sports
After 99 days, the MLB lockout has finally borne fruit. We have an agreement and baseball is back on. But what is the agreement after all of that? Baseball fans are so relieved that the season is back on, that asking for the details of the new collective bargaining agreement is not high on everyone’s priorities.
Most of the news in the first two months focused on money. It is only in the last few weeks that we have become privy to some of the other issues holding things up. So it makes sense to start any discussion with the money. This issue is divided into several layers, but chief among them are the league minimum salary, the bonus pool and how it is divvied up, and the luxury tax, officially the Competitive Balance Tax, threshold.
"We must prevent the greed of baseball's oligarchs from destroying the game."–– @SenSanders https://t.co/Lbxw8jlKiu
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) March 11, 2022
Minimum salary
2022: $700,000 2023: $720,000 2024: $740,000 2025: $760,000 2026: $780,000
This represents the largest single-year salary increase in history, and a larger increase than the total from the past 10 years.
Competitive Balance Tax threshold
2022: $230 million 2023: $233 million 2024: $237 million 2025: $241 million 2026: $244 million
The $20 million increase from 2021 to ’22 is nearly twice as large as the biggest previous first-year increase. A fourth tax level has also been added at $60 million above the base threshold to address runaway spending.
Pre-arbitration bonus pool
$50 million (to be distributed to the top 100 players based on awards and statistical performance). MLB and the MLBPA have agreed to jointly develop a statistical method to fairly allocate this money.
A new feature of the CBA is the creation of a draft lottery. This will be created from the 18 teams who do not make the post season, with a weighting of the odds toward the bottom three clubs. This lottery will award the first six draft picks and is intended to prevent non-contention team from purposely tanking the back end of their season to get a higher pick.
Here's @jimcallisMLB's breakdown of how the CBA impacts the Draft, including the addition of a lottery: https://t.co/T6fQ1gBOw9 pic.twitter.com/EVwRQF1iIv
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) March 11, 2022
The suddenly-important-though-never-mentioned-before International Draft has come down with MLB agreeing to eliminate the qualifying offer system for free agents in exchange for the players accepting the International Draft.
This draft would be 20 rounds with signing bonuses guaranteed. Scouting and signing from emerging markets will also carry a financial incentive for teams.
