The MLB Players Association hasn’t quite achieved its objective of shortening the years until free agency and an adequate way to compensate players between 0-3 years of service time.
However, they did achieve something on that front: MLB will create a bonus pool for outstanding pre-arbitration players.
After all, some of the game’s best players are being paid near the league minimum while some aging veterans are making more than $20 million per year.
It doesn’t make sense, and that’s why the league was seeking a solution.
When the league agreed to the players’ idea of the bonus pool, it proposed putting just $5 million into it, while players wanted $115 million.
MLB was slowly adding $5 million to their offer until reaching $25 million, which is their last known proposal as of Tuesday afternoon.
Both Sides Will Likely Meet Somewhere In The Middle
Players are also going down in their demands, at least according to MLB insider Jon Heyman.
“Word is the players union lowered their bonus pool ask to less than $100M. (Exact figure not known.) MLB was last at $25M. Seemingly a decent sized gap remains,” he wrote via Twitter.
Word is the players union lowered their bonus pool ask to less than $100M. (Exact figure not known.) MLB was last at $25M. Seemingly a decent sized gap remains.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) March 1, 2022
The huge gap in the bonus pool remains one of the roadblocks towards a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) being worked out on Tuesday.
The gap is very large because the league, at least initially, wanted to compensate 30 players who topped the Wins Above Replacement (WAR) rankings, while the league was shooting for 150.
The most logical thing would be for them to meet somewhere in the middle.
There are still some details to work out until we can firmly say the labor conflict is finished, but the progress the parties have made in the last few hours is undeniable.
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