After 99 long days, the lockout has reached its end.
Major League Baseball owners and the players association reportedly came to an agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement on Thursday, per ESPN's Jeff Passan. The new deal is pending ratification by both parties, which is said to be merely a formality.
The players’s board voted in favor of MLB’s latest proposal, at 26–12, per Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The union's executive subcommittee voted 8-0 against the deal, and the four dissenting teams were the Mets, Yankees, Astros and Cardinals, per Rosenthal.
Ratification could happen as early as later today, with Opening Day slated for April 7. Once the new CBA is ratified, transactions will unfreeze, allowing major-league free agent signings and trades to occur. Players can begin reporting for spring training on Friday, per Passan. The season will still consist of 162 games, with lost dates on the calendar made up with doubleheaders. Players will receive their full salaries, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today.
Among the changes in the new CBA is the return of nine-inning doubleheaders, and a removal of the runner-on-second rule to start extra innings, per ESPN's Jesse Rogers.
As part of the agreement, the union agreed to drop its 2020 COVID-19 grievance claiming that the league did not act in good faith and schedule as many games as possible during the pandemic, according to SI's Stephanie Apstein. The union did not agree to drop the grievance surrounding revenue sharing, which accused the A's, Marlins, Pirates and Rays of not putting revenue-sharing money back into team payroll.
The news comes a day after commissioner Rob Manfred announced the cancelation of another week's worth of games. Manfred called Wednesday's negotiations a “last-ditch effort” to salvage a 162-game season, while the players association described the additional canceled games as “completely unnecessary.”
A critical issue at the heart of Wednesday’s discussions was the implementation of an international draft. The owners proposed three options for a draft of international players, all with qualifying offers for free agents tied to them. The union countered with a proposal to remove the qualifying offer component for this year, with a deadline of Nov. 15 to reach an agreement on the international draft.
On Thursday, the two sides agreed to continue working on a framework for an international draft that would begin in 2024, with a deadline of July 25, according to Passan. If no deal is reached by that time, qualifying offers attached to free agents would return, and the international system will remain the same.
