Start of regular season likely to be delayed

Although it’s not official, don’t expect Opening Day to be played on schedule. As of right now, the Dodgers are expected to play the Rockies on March 31 in the first game of the season.

I don’t think that’s going to happen.

As expected, there wasn’t a deal reached on Saturday. According to ESPN’s Jesse Rogers, Major League Baseball tweaked their proposal regarding the competitive balance tax. In his article, Rogers wrote that the change to the CBT eliminates draft pick penalties for teams exceeding the first threshold while raising the threshold from previous offers in the final three years of the deal, sources said.

ESPN’s Joon Lee that the players came out of the meeting unimpressed by the league’s offer and that the two sides are still far apart on an agreement. In other words, not good.

Loon went on to say that the gap is ‘enormous’ between the two sides. He said that the players association is arguing that how the baseball’s economy operates fundamentally doesn’t work while Major League Baseball is trying to address those concerns by saying that adding an expanded playoffs and a universal DH creates more job ms and leads to more money for players.

Here were some of the other things discussed at Saturday’s meeting:

• Minimum salary: Previously, MLB had offered straight salaries of $615,000, $650,000 and $700,000 for zero- to 3-year players. On Saturday, it bumped up that final year to $725,000.
• Pre-arbitration bonus pool: The league increased its offer from $10 million to $15 million while offering a six-person panel — three from each side — to develop a mutually agreeable WAR statistic to allocate the funds
• Service time manipulation: The league increased the incentive for teams to keep their best prospects in the majors, offering them two draft picks within the player’s first three years if he finishes in the top three in Cy Young, Rookie of the Year or MVP voting.
• Roster continuity: The rule would limit the total number of minor league options in a season to five

• Pre-draft physical: Under the league’s proposal, players can submit a pre-draft physical, and if a team selects them, it is required to pay the player at least 75% of slot value and he can’t be failed by the team in a post-draft physical.
• Draft and follow: The league is offering to reinstitute a policy by which teams can draft a player who might not be ready for professional baseball and send him to junior college for one year.

Links

• The Chicago White Sox are requiring COVID-19 booster shots for their players with minor league contracts in order to participate in spring training. The Citrus County Chronicle with all the information on Chicago becoming the first team to announce this.
• A Major League Baseball lawyer said in federal court Friday that minor league players should not be paid during spring training, because they should be considered trainees. The argument was part of a broader push by MLB to toss an eight-year-old lawsuit brought by Aaron Senne and other minor leaguers over their compensation. Evan Drellich at The Athletic with the latest on this ongoing saga.
• Fabian Ardaya at The Athletic writes about how the Dodgers can benefit from the designated hitter coming to the National League in 2022