Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association reached a tentative agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement Thursday, ending the league’s 99-day lockout of the players and salvaging a 162-game season, sources familiar with the situation told ESPN.
With the end of the second-longest work stoppage in the game’s history, spring training camps will open Sunday, free-agent signings can begin Thursday night, and baseball will attempt to return to some semblance of normalcy after months of fraught negotiations.
The deal materialized after talks ratcheted up this week, when the league made a proposal that bridged the significant gap in the competitive-balance tax, a key issue in the end stages of talks. A dispute over an international draft threatened negotiations and caused the league to “remove from the schedule” another two series Wednesday, but those issues were resolved Thursday morning and the league delivered a full proposal to the union, which it voted to accept.
The final vote by the MLBPA’s eight members of the executive subcommittee and 30 player reps was 26-12 in favor of the agreement, sources told ESPN.
The basic agreement governs almost all aspects of the game, but baseball’s core economics were front and center in the labor talks.
MLB had pushed for expanding the postseason to 12 teams — a plan to which the MLBPA agreed. Additionally, player uniforms will feature advertising for the first time, with patches on jerseys and decals on batting helmets.
Other elements of the deal include:
- The National League adopting the designated hitter.
- A draft lottery implemented with the intent of discouraging tanking.
- Draft-pick inducements to discourage service-time manipulation.
- Limiting the number of times a player can be optioned to the minor leagues in one season.
Now comes a frenzied free-agent period that will see star shortstop Carlos Correa, first baseman Freddie Freeman, shortstop Trevor Story, pitcher Clayton Kershaw, third baseman Kris Bryant and others sign. The Oakland A’s could trade first baseman Matt Olson, third baseman Matt Chapman and a number of starting pitchers.
And while a March 31 Opening Day won’t happen, baseball will return in mid April hoping for five years of labor peace,.