New York (AFP) – Players’ negotiators made their final counter-offer to the major leagues on Wednesday after Commissioner Rob Manfred missed his deadline for a 162-game preservation deal.
At varying intervals, the parties spent 16 and a half hours during a round of negotiations that began on Tuesday and ended at 3 am on Wednesday. They took a break so the players’ union could hold a conference call with its executive board.
Amid a mixture of rain and snow, union chief negotiator Bruce Meyer and attorney Ian Penny headed to the MLB offices to present the new bids and then returned to the union headquarters.
On the 98th day of the shutdown, MLB stated that no more games had been canceled and that negotiations were continuing.
On Tuesday, the MLB made several proposals to players on central economic issues: a so-called luxury tax, and the amount of a new bonus fund for players who have not yet qualified for salary and minimum wage arbitrations. The league has also insisted on its long-standing goal of creating an international draft to sign amateur players.
The teams will be rotated by selecting players from different divisions from the first round draft over a four-year period. It would be something similar to what the union accepted as of 2012 in the amateur draft covering residents of the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada.
The union’s fierce opposition to the international project remains an obstacle to a new collective bargaining agreement. In exchange for international draft acceptance, MLB will forfeit compensation with draft picks that are included in the signature of a free agent who has received a qualifying bid.
International players will lose the ability to sign for the team of their choice. The age for entry to the draft will be when the player turns 16.
Tuesday’s deadline is the third set by the MLB in the past two weeks.
It is the second longest shutdown in baseball history.
About 16 and a half hours of negotiations that began on February 28 in Jupiter, Florida, made progress but collapsed sharply the next day, when Manfred announced that the first two series of the season for each team had been halted.
There appears to be no chance of the campaign starting March 31, as planned. However, Major League Baseball warned the league that Tuesday was the last day an agreement could be reached that would allow 162 adjusted games to go ahead for each club’s schedule.
Compliance with this full schedule will allow full salary and service time to be taken into account so that players can declare themselves Free Agents.
MLB on Monday offered to raise the salary cap from $220 million to $228 million, with some concessions, a person familiar with the negotiations said, confirming a transcript from The Athletic.
The union started the week asking for 238 million.
The Players Association on Monday requested 80 million in funding for this year and the MLB proposed 30 million. While Major League Baseball suggests a minimum salary of $700,000, the league requested $725,000.
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