Previewing Baseball’s CBA Talks

There are a plethora of ways that the MLBPA could attempt to improve the players’ financial position in the next CBA. For example, Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal have reported that the union’s initial proposal to management included increases to the minimum salary and luxury tax thresholds, as well as modifications to the league’s existing arbitration, draft order, revenue sharing, and service time rules.

Conversely, the owners will likely be looking to preserve as many of the economic gains they have achieved over the past several CBAs as possible. And while MLB likely realizes that it will need to make at least a few economic concessions to the players, the owners will certainly expect to receive something substantive from the union in return.

For instance, an expanded playoff is something that MLB will likely pursue during the negotiations, an issue that the union could potentially trade-off in exchange for some meaningful economic concessions from the owners. Meanwhile, one lingering item on the owners’ wish list during the 2016 CBA talks is getting the union to sign off on an international amateur draft. MLB has reportedly attempted to revive this concept during the current talks, although an international draft is probably marginally less pressing for the owners today since they were able to successfully implement meaningful spending limits on international amateur signings in the last CBA.