MLB: The season will be shortened if there is no deal by the end of Monday

JUPITER, Florida (AP) – Major League Baseball said it had only five days left to salvage its March 31 opener. And an entire season, he tells closed players that matches will be called off if a work contract is not agreed by the end of Monday.

After a third straight day of negotiations with little movement, the MLB announced what it had told the union on February 12.

“The deadline is a deadline. Missed games are missed games. No stipend will be paid for those games,” an MLB spokesperson said after the bargaining ended Wednesday. An MLB spokesperson spoke on condition of anonymity.

Players did not accept Monday as a deadline and suggested that any missed games could be part of a double-headed game, a method the MLB said it would not agree with.

The federation told MLB that if games are lost and salaries are lost, clubs should not expect players to agree to management’s proposals to extend the post-season period and allow advertising On uniforms and helmets.

The haggling is set to continue on Thursday, and the two sides have said they are ready to meet until Monday.

The shortened season will be baseball’s second season in three years after reducing the 2020 schedule from 162 games to 60 due to the corona virus pandemic. The last seasons to be cut short by labor conflict were during the strike that ended the 1994 schedule on August 12 and caused the start of the next season to be postponed from April 2 to April 25. The 1995 schedule was reduced from 162 games to 144..

Players are only paid during the regular season, accruing 1/162 of their salary per day. Players will risk losing up to $232,975 per day in the case of Mets pitcher Max Scherzer.or less than $3,441 for a player with a minimum score of $640,000.

Baseball’s hiatus was on its 84th day, and the three sessions this week have increased the total of core economic issues to just nine since the shutdown began on December 2..

Spring practice was scheduled to begin on February 16, and the MLB has already canceled the first week of the exhibitionswhich was scheduled to start on Friday.

Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said on February 10 that at least four weeks of training is needed before the season starts. The agreement will allow by Monday that plus a few days for the players to report to the camps in Arizona and Florida.

Manfred has only spoken publicly once since the day the shutdown began and union president Tony Clark has never done so.

The MLB public statement was interpreted as a lobbying tactic by the union, which was angry that payrolls decreased during the expired five-year deal and the number of teams ditching higher-paid veterans and moving into rebuilding mode increased.

“To get bears in the woods, you can’t offer them bear traps,” said Scott Borras, an agent for five of the eight players on the union’s subcommittee.

After a day of making only small moves by the union in response to management’s increased proposal the day before, MLB made just one change: Teams offered to increase the minimum salary from $570,500 to $640,000, up from their previous proposal of $630,000. The minimum will increase by an additional $10,000 each season during a five-year agreement. The clubs withdrew their proposal for a tiered minimum, which the players opposed.

Players demanded $775,000 in 2022 and an additional $30,000 jump in each subsequent season. The union evaluated the MLB proposal as adding $5 million annually.

There was no discussion on Wednesday about the main issue of luxury tax limits and rates, but players did express concern about the lack of competition and the need for younger players to earn higher salaries early in their careers.

The federation proposed $115 million of the money to go to 150 players before refereeing annually, while the clubs offered $20 million to be distributed to 30 players.

Joining the talks were Yankees players Gerrit Cole and Zach Britton, two of the six members of the sub-executive committee that oversees the negotiations. They were joined by Scherzer, pitcher Andrew Miller, Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor, and Houston hunter Jason Castro.

After meeting at the start of the day at Roger Dean Stadium, the vacant spring training headquarters of the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals, the two sides gathered and then held a smaller group meeting that included Deputy Commissioner Dan Halim, Colorado CEO Dick Monfort, Scherzer and Miller.

Teams told the union they would not reduce revenue sharing nor add new ways for players to accumulate service time, which the union said was needed to prevent teams from hindering players to delay free agency.

Clubs are also refusing to increase arbitration eligibility among players who have had at least two years of service and less than three, of whom the best 22% of service time are eligible. The union wants to expand it to 75%.

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