MLB and the Players Association met for a third straight day, on Wednesday, to discuss core economic issues for the new collective bargaining agreement (CBA), as well as other important topics.
According to MLB insider Bob Nightengale of USA Today, however, there is one particular item that wasn’t discussed in the first two meetings, held on Monday and Tuesday.
There still have been no exchange of proposals on the luxury tax the first two days either between #MLB and the #MLBPA, with MLB sitting at $214 million with stiffer penalties than the previous CBA and the union at $245 million.
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) February 22, 2022
Nightengale tweeted that “there still have been no exchange of proposals on the luxury tax the first two days either between #MLB and the #MLBPA, with MLB sitting at $214 million with stiffer penalties than the previous CBA and the union at $245 million.”
The sides are yet to talk about the problematic competitive balance tax (CBT) this week, which is not ideal with so little time to go until reaching February 28’s deadline, imposed by the league.
MLB thinks that if there is no deal before or by that date, the season won’t start on time.
The CBT is nothing more than the luxury tax applied to teams that surpass a certain threshold in payroll expenses.
It’s not a hard cap, but since there are penalties involved to those who exceed the threshold, it acts as a soft cap.
Players Want A Higher CBT Threshold
Players, naturally, want the threshold to be higher and the penalties to be lower so teams aren’t so afraid to spend on better contracts for players.
Teams, on the other hand, want a lower threshold and stiff penalties: those who can pay the penalties are so rich they probably don’t care, and most other organizations have shown they can maneuver under the threshold, which was at $210 million last season.
This has the look of an important stumbling block in negotiations.
The league not only wants to keep last year penalties: they want them to be even stiffer.
That won’t work for players.
Stay tuned, because this particular topic has the potential to derail negotiations.
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