While the players association has agreed to drop their 2020 grievance against Major League Baseball as part of a new collective bargaining agreement, they will not drop the revenue-sharing grievances they have with four clubs, including the Pirates.
Those grievances were filed in February 2018, alleging that the Pirates, Athletics, Rays and Marlins had not sufficiently dedicated their revenue-sharing funds to improving the on-field product. The grievances were further expanded in the following years.
The news was first reported by Stephanie Apstein of Sports Illustrated.
It’s not known what the union wants to resolve these grievances, which could potentially mean an arbitrator or punishing the clubs in question.
Dropping all five grievances was brought up during CBA negotiations.
Those four teams have ranked near the bottom of the league in payroll for each year of the previous CBA, though the other three have made the playoffs at least once and won at least one playoff series over the past two seasons, the Pirates have not made the playoffs since 2015.
According to Forbes, the Pirates’ had the lowest team payroll in 2021 at $50,337,389, down 36% from the last full season in 2019. The only team to see their payroll get slashed lower in that time was the Guardians.
In the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, only the Orioles had a lower team payroll than the Pirates. Entering the shutdown, they were projected to have the lowest.
While there should be a flurry of signings and trades across the league once the new CBA is ratified, thus officially ending the lockout, the Pirates currently have the lowest projected payroll again.
The grievance that was dropped pertained to the league not starting the 2020 season as soon as the players thought as possible, which impacted their prorated salaries. The union filed the $500 million grievance in May of 2021, but did not pursue it any further.
