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At long last, it’s time to play ball.
After a lockout that spanned 99 days, MLB and the MLB Players Association reached a tentative agreement on Thursday afternoon, The Post’s Joel Sherman confirmed. The two sides finally found the common ground to reach a deal for a new collective bargaining agreement, paving the way for the regular season to begin by next month.
Following a contentious battle that blew past multiple league-instituted “deadlines” over the past week-plus — which threatened to do further damage to the sport the longer it lingered — baseball has labor peace once again. Both sides need to ratify the deal, but that is the expected outcome.
While the competitive balance tax thresholds appeared to be the biggest hurdle for most of the negotiations, the hangup on Wednesday — leading to commissioner Rob Manfred announcing that two more series (making it four total) had been “removed from the schedule” — was over the league’s proposal to introduce an international draft in exchange for eliminating the qualifying offer, which the union declined.
But the two sides continued to talk, even after Manfred announced Wednesday night that Opening Day had been pushed back to April 14 at the earliest, and on Thursday morning came to an agreement on the international draft, according to reports. The two sides agreed that they would have until July 25 to negotiate the specifics of a new international draft (which would begin in 2024). If they are able to reach a deal by that deadline, the qualifying offer would be removed. But if no deal is reached, the current international entry and qualifying offer systems would remain status quo.
With that hurdle cleared, the sides then turned their attention back to core economic issues, with the margins between each side’s proposed numbers having gotten smaller in recent days.
The new CBA also includes increased luxury tax thresholds, higher minimum salaries and a pre-arbitration bonus pool for the top young players, among other issues.
Once the lockout and freeze on player transactions are officially lifted — Manfred and the owners imposed them on Dec. 2 after the previous CBA expired — there is expected to be a mad rush of signings and trades before players report to spring training. Big names such as Carlos Correa, Freddie Freeman, Kris Bryant, Trevor Story and Carlos Rodon remain on the market and could quickly find new teams as baseball gets back into business.
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