Major League Baseball issued its latest proposal regarding a new collective bargaining agreement today. The key update is the league’s willingness to push the implementation of a salary cap/floor system from 2027 into the 2028 season, but the mere fact that the entire proposal is contingent on the implementation of a cap/floor system unsurprisingly resulted in a swift rebuke from the MLBPA.
The league’s bullet points on the matter sound appealing but are rather selectively framed. For instance, MLB’s press release proposes an increase to a $1MM league-minimum salary and a $15MM increase to the pre-arbitration bonus pool (plus an additional $10MM going into the pot over the life of the next agreement).
However, reading the actual document itself (link via The Athletic’s Evan Drellich) shows some key caveats. The supposed $1MM league minimum only applies to players with more than two years of big league service time. Since players reach arbitration at three years, that only applies to players with more than two and fewer than three years of service. The top 22% of those players already qualify for arbitration as “Super Two” players anyhow, so that $1MM minimum really only applies to 78% of the players with between two and three years of service.
Players with under two years of service would have a $900K league minimum. They can receive $100K from the pre-arbitration bonus pool to bump them up to $1MM — but only if they secure a full year of major league service time that season. Drawing from the pre-arb pool for that select group of players isn’t the same as simply guaranteeing those players $1MM and leaving the bonus pool untouched for the entire pre-arb class as a whole. A significant portion of the proposed $15MM pool increase would just go toward that set of pre-arb players getting a $100K bump to $1MM, thereby reducing the impact of the increase. (As a reminder, the current pre-arb bonus pool is $50MM, with each team contributing $1.667MM annually to pay out bonuses to MLB’s most productive pre-arbitration players.)
The cap itself is proposed for $258.2MM, with a $180.2MM floor, but those are merely projections. The specific numbers would be based on actual league revenue in the upcoming 2027 season and thus can’t be known at this time.
MLB’s proposal calls for a 50-50 split of all “baseball revenue” with the players beginning in 2028 but does not spell out what exactly “baseball revenues” entails and whether there’s any discrepancy between that and total revenue. Those cap/floor numbers would include annual contributions to the pre-arb bonus pool and benefits to players, meaning the actual cap/floor would be lower than those suggested figures; MLBTR contributor Ethan Hullihen projects that player benefits will cost $18,561,327 per club next year (as can be seen in MLBTR’s Payroll Tracker). The proposed changes to the pre-arb bonus pool would mean each club is contributing an additional $2.167MM which would count toward the cap/floor ($2.5MM annually by the end of a new agreement).
Other elements of today’s proposal include reducing the number of times a player can be optioned in a given season from five to four, eliminating the possibility of teams receiving a fourth option year on a player, and a vague mention of “restrictions on a Club’s ability to cycle a player on and off the 40-man and Active rosters throughout the season for strategic reasons.” (Presumably, that’s a nod to teams like the Braves and Orioles repeatedly cycling Carlos Carrasco, Elieser Hernandez and Albert Suarez on and off the 40-man roster via repeated DFAs.) MLB’s proposal also includes weekly roster limitations, moving Rule 5 Draft eligibility up by a year and makes reference to an International Draft (without explicitly proposing specifics surrounding the implementation).
The union’s response slams the league’s proposal as an effort to “continue to propose blowing up the current system and replacing it with one designed to line their pockets and increase their franchise values.” The MLPBA adds that pushing a cap/floor implementation back to 2028 still results in “massive reduction in player compensation,” “elimination of fundamental player rights, including guaranteed contracts,” “gutting of domestic and international amateur entry systems” and “replacement of market-based fundamentals with a zero-sum system that harms the middle class and pits player against player.”
The MLBPA concluded: “Players stand ready to negotiate in good faith toward a new CBA that will capitalize on our sport’s unprecedented momentum and benefit players, clubs and fans alike.”
The current collective bargaining agreement expires at 11:59pm ET on Dec. 1.
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