There will be a baseball season, and a full, 162-game one at that.
Hannah Keyser at Yahoo! News:
After all that, there will be a 2022 baseball season. And while some things will look different — more on that in a minute — the most important things will look the same. Three outs, 30 teams, one trophy, six months and — this is the big one — 162 games.
Nine days after commissioner Rob Manfred canceled opening day and over three months into an owner-implemented lockout, Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association agreed to a new labor contract Thursday afternoon in New York City, ensuring a full season and averting the most catastrophic consequences. Call it the 11th hour or the bottom of the ninth, but after the union successfully called the league’s bluff in the face of several ultimatums, the pressure of an impending season finally forced a mutually tolerable compromise. Pending formal ratification by both sides, a frenetic close to the frozen free agency period and a condensed, concurrent spring training can now ensue. And on the other side of those: Opening day on April 7. The full 162-game slate will be made up with doubleheaders and days added on to the end of the season, the details of which are still to come.
The collective bargaining agreement that will govern owner and players relations for the next five years represents a concerted effort by the union to close some of the loopholes by which teams have suppressed salaries in recent years and wrest a greater portion of the growing economic pie for themselves. The union’s more radical goals targeting the reserve clause and revenue sharing eventually fell off the table as concessions to achieve gains in the form of higher minimum salaries, a new way of compensating high-performing younger players, a draft lottery, a policy to disincentivize service time manipulation, and a luxury tax they can live with.
The more visible changes were not what bogged down the bargaining for months at a time, but the baseball that returns to the field this summer will feature a universal designated hitter and a 12-team postseason. The new deal also paves the way for the league to implement more changes — including a pitch clock, bigger bases and a ban on certain defensive shifts — as soon as 2023.
On the core economic issues that made up the meat of the negotiations, here’s where the deal reportedly landed:
The minimum major-league salary will rise from $570,000 to $700,000, and escalate to $780,000 by the end of the deal.
The competitive balance tax threshold for team payrolls will start at $230 million in 2022 and rise to $244 million over the deal.
A $50,000 bonus pool will be distributed annually to the most productive players who haven’t reached arbitration.
A draft lottery — a la the NBA, but with only six picks involved — will be instituted as part of an effort to discourage tanking.
Teams will be eligible for draft pick incentives if they promote top prospects for opening day.
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