After a 99-day lockout, Major League Baseball and the players association are in agreement for a new collective bargaining agreement, meaning the 2022 can officially start.
The regular season will start April 7 and players will begin to report to spring training March 13. Spring training games will start from March 18-20.
Jon Heyman reports that the final player vote was 26-12. The union executive board voted 8-0 against the deal, but 26 of the 30 player reps voted to start the season.
The owners unanimously ratified the deal.
"I do want to start by apologizing to our fans," MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters. "... Looking forward, I could not be more excited about the future of our game."
"Our union endured the second-longest work stoppage in its history to achieve significant progress in key areas that will improve not just player's rights and benefits, but those of generations to come," MLBPA leader Tony Clark said. Players remained engaged and unified from beginning to end, and in the process re-energized our fraternity."
After instituting what he then called a "defensive" lockout on Dec. 2, Manfred commented that having a good relationship with the players is part of his job, and while "I've tried to do that. I have not been successful in that."
Despite having the lockout result in the second-longest work stoppage in the sports history, Manfred defended the decision.
"If we had just started the season without a lockout," he said, "I don't think we'd have an agreement today."
The news of a deal comes one day after the league and players failed to meet another deadline that MLB set forth. Manfred announced that the regular season would be postponed to at least April 14 Wednesday and that the first two series of games would be cancelled, not postponed, a week ago, but it looks as though neither announcement will come to fruition.
Progress for a deal hit a road bump Wednesday when owners insisted on implementing an international draft rather than continuing with the free agent system currently in place. Players voiced concerns over what a draft would do to baseball in the Dominican Republic, and several union reps voiced their frustration that this became an issue at the 11th hour of negotiations.
Both sides agreed not to have the draft hold up a potential CBA now, and instead they will continue to talk about it until July 25. If a draft is agreed upon by then, the qualifying offer system, something players have wanted to get rid of for years, would be scraped. If not, the qualifying offer will stay.
According to Mark Feinsand, the bonus pool for pre-arbitration players will be $50 million, the minimum salary will be $700,000 and increase by $20,000 each year of the five-year deal and that the draft lottery will apply to six teams.
The competitive balance tax, which had been the most contentious point throughout the negotiations, will start at $230 million in 2022 and rise to $244 million in 2026. There will also be a fourth tier for luxury tax penalties for any club who spends more than $60 million. Penalties will be based on if teams go more than $20, $40 or $60 million over, though the actual penalties is not yet known.
Feinsand also reports that teams who promote top prospects on opening day will be eligible to receive draft picks if they finish either in the top three for rookie of the year voting or top five for MVP voting. Players who finish in the top two for rookie of the year voting will receive a full year of service time, regardless of when they were promoted.
For the Pirates, those service time and draft pick rules could play a role for Oneil Cruz and Roansy Contreras, two top 100 prospects who made cameos at the end of last season. Both are expected to be in spring training competitions for opening day roster spots.
As for the Pirates' non-protected prospects, the major-league portion of the Rule 5 draft has been cancelled.
We previously knew that the playoff field will be expanded from 10 to 12 teams, the National League will adopt the designated hitter in 2022 and that shifts will be banned, bases expanded and a pitch clock will be implemented during the life of the CBA.
The 2023 schedule will also be more balanced, with each team playing at least one series against each team in both leagues.
The players will also dismiss their 2020 grievance against the league for how they handled negotiations to restart the 2020 season, but they did not drop their 2018 revenue-sharing grievances against the Pirates, Rays, Athletics and Marlins, per Stephanie Apstein. More on that here.
Assuming the original regular-season schedule is used, which is believed to be the case, the Pirates will open the season in St. Louis on April 7. Their home opener will be April 12 against the Cubs.
Originally, the Pirates were supposed to start the season at home against the Cardinals on March 31 and then travel to Cincinnati to take on the Reds. The regular season will be extended three days for one of those series, while the other will be made up with scheduled nine-inning doubleheaders.
The Pirates' first scheduled spring training game is currently March 18 against the Orioles at LECOM Park.
