The Players take some hits in the first movement since December.
The MLB Player's Association made the first move towards ending the lockout and resuming baseball operations before spring training begins, retracting a demand the owners had maintained was a non-starter in a meeting last week.
The Players wanted to reduce the current five-year mandatory service period before a player is eligible for free agency to five years (or 30.5 years of age, whichever comes first), reasoning that many players spend the best years of their careers making relative pennies only to be past their prime when they hit free agency. The owners held firm, even displaying a willingness to miss games over this issue in the mid-January meetings, leading the players to concede the proposal in favor of pursuing other major goals.
Still on the table are the revenue-sharing disagreements due to the expanded postseason television contracts, and the time it takes for a player to reach arbitration. Arbitration is essentially a salary negation for players who have not yet reached free agency, and the Union wants those negotiations to begin after two years from when a player is signed. All the Union demands are money-driven, mainly trying to get players more money at a younger age, and the owners are understandably resistant to that.
The Union also reduced the amount of revenue sharing in their demands at the January 19 meeting from roughly 100 million to 30 million. With the free agency concession and the revenue reduction, the Union feels they are acting within reason and their hope is this show of good faith will entice the owners to make some concessions themselves, mainly with arbitration and minimum player salaries, although the owners rejected those proposals previously and haven't shown signs of budging.
From a fan perspective this is good, because it indicates the lockout will be resolved before any meaningful baseball is missed. It also shows us the Player's Association knew several of their demands had a low chance of success, thus scrapping those focuses attention on the more realistic items on their agenda (at least, one would assume).
The arbitration issue is a huge one and would essentially cost the owners potential billions in salary increases for players at all levels of baseball. The MLB owners stood fast last week, maintaining that changes to current arbitration rules would not be discussed.
If the Player's Association can't get any movement on the arbitration or minimum salary proposals, they will be faced with a tough choice: extend the lockout into the regular season and everything that comes with that, or cave completely and sign a new CBA that doesn't include any of their demands. If the latter happens, it will be the first MLB strike/lockout to not end in the Player's favor.
As we sit now, it's unlikely the owners meet any of the player's demands without outside legal involvement. That will certainly mean missed baseball games if it goes that far. If the CBA agreement is reached without owner concessions, it means five more years until the Player's Association can plead their case once again for a revision in the control the MLB has over them.
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