The baseball playoffs are current underway, delivering fans highlights and heartbreaks on a daily basis, but looming over the postseason is the threat of a work stoppage because the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association is set to expire soon, and the two sides are far apart when it comes to negotiating a new deal.
We’re going to enjoy the postseason while we still can, but with a lockout on the horizon, let’s break down what’s going on with the CBA. Here’s everything fans need to know.
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When does the current CBA expire?
The CBA, which is essentially the employment contract negotiated between MLB owners and players, expires at 11:59 p.m. ET on Dec. 1. It was signed on March 10, 2022.
What does it mean if there’s a lockout?
If MLB and the owners institute a lockout, it means that they have instituted a work stoppage and a freeze on communication between the two sides until a new CBA is agreed to. During a lockout, all player activity is halted, and neither trades nor free-agent signings can take place. Also, players are not allowed to have communication with any team personnel, including training and medical staff.
In a memo sent to league employees this week, MLB outlined how owners and executives should operate during a lockout and went as far as to say that they should not send holiday cards to players, but they can still attend players’ weddings. A lockout is lifted only when a new collective bargaining agreement is agreed to, voted on and ratified by the union. — Dorsey
What’s the difference between a lockout and a strike?
A strike and a lockout are both forms of work stoppages. But the difference is which party institutes it. A strike occurs when the players, led by the MLBPA, decide to withhold their services and refuse to play. Strikes don’t happen often in baseball, with the most recent player strike coming in 1994, which famously led to the World Series being canceled that season. A lockout occurs when the league and body of owners do not allow labor, in this case players, to report to work. When the last collective bargaining agreement expired on Dec. 1, 2021, MLB owners instituted a lockout.
Both strikes and lockouts are forms of negotiating tactics, enacted with the hope of inducing quicker action, gaining leverage and pushing one side’s cause and demands. A work stoppage does not guarantee that regular-season games will be missed, but it is a distinct possibility. The start of spring training and spring training games could also be impacted in 2027. — Dorsey
What is the main point of contention between the league and the players’ union?
A salary cap, which is a limit on the total any one team can spend on player salaries.
For years, the idea of a salary cap has been such a nonstarter for the players’ union that it has rarely sustained as a sticking point in CBA negotiations. Instead, the league and its owners have pursued other avenues to level the playing field — and more broadly improve their financial standing. The most obvious mechanism for that has been the luxury tax, which has been adjusted dramatically in recent years to add thresholds that punish teams with outlier payrolls by charging overage taxes and negatively impacting their draft positioning.
The most recent CBA also featured other wins for owners: the expansion of the postseason from 10 to 12 teams (the league was pursuing a 14-team postseason field, but the two sides met in the middle), the allowance of advertising on team helmets and uniforms, and the introduction of a Joint Competition Committee made up of six ownership representatives, four players and one umpire, which paved the way for MLB to have the majority needed to institute a huge wave of rule changes (pitch timer, shift restrictions, pickoff limits, among others) without interference from players.
But this time, with the backdrop of the Dodgers’ back-to-back championships fueled in part by their exorbitant payroll, the league appears more motivated than ever to seriously push for a salary cap. — Shusterman
What is the league proposing?
Brother, how much time you got?
Management’s desire for a salary cap is the headliner and deservedly so; it would be the most fundamental alteration to the sport in decades. That new system, based on an MLB proposal from the summer, would also include a salary floor.
But while cap-related topics will dominate much of the discourse and debate throughout the winter, there are a number of other changes that the league hopes to implement. The league is, in this window of bargaining, firmly on the offensive. In their most recent proposal, released Thursday, MLB introduced the idea of a 154-game regular season, a seven-game division series, a weekly off day and higher-seeded playoff teams selecting their opponents.
Other league propositions include but are not limited to:
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A reduction in pre-free-agency years from six to five for players 30 or older
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A cap on contract length at five years
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The abolishing of the qualifying offer
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A “cornerstone player” system similar to the NBA’s bird rights
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More restrictions on roster modifications
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An offseason signing window and offseason transaction freeze
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A total overhaul of how amateur players, in both the domestic and international markets, matriculate into pro ball. — Mintz
What is the union proposing?
The MLBPA appears to be seeking more modest changes compared to the enormous transformations offered by the league. Unsurprisingly, most of the union’s messaging thus far has been focused on warding off a cap. They have made it clear that any system involving a cap is a flat-out nonstarter for the players.
Since bargaining commenced earlier this year, the MLBPA has submitted three distinct proposals featuring a smattering of pro-player details, including:
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Significant increases to minimum salaries
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Stricter guardrails to protect against service-time manipulation
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Increases of the luxury-tax thresholds
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A new “competitive integrity” tax on teams that fail to spend above a certain level
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Expansion of active rosters from 26 to 28 players early in the season in an attempt to protect players from injury
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A ban on prop bets targeted at individual players in hopes of reducing gambling-related harassment
It’s worth noting that most of these specific proposals, from both sides, are just negotiating postering. Some might be implemented as proposed; most won’t be. They make for juicy headlines, yes, but we’re still far too early in the process to know how realistic any of these offerings will be. It’s all about the cap, anyway. — Mintz
What happened with the 2021-22 lockout?
When the previous CBA between MLB and the MLBPA expired on Dec. 1, 2021, the league instituted a lockout, beginning baseball’s first work stoppage in 25 years. From that point, more than three months of long, tenuous negotiations between the league and the union took place. After being locked out for 99 days, MLB and the MLBPA agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement on March 10, 2022.
That agreement led to a chain reaction of events in early March. First, there was a flurry of transactions as free agents looked to find new homes and teams were finally allowed to make trades and signings to fill their rosters. Then a condensed, three-week spring training began on March 17. Opening Day was pushed back by one week, from March 31 to April 7. All 162 games were played, the regular season ended on Oct. 5, and the final game of the World Series was played on Nov. 5. — Dorsey
What dates do fans need to know this winter?
Dec. 1 is going to receive the most airtime, but the owners locking out the players on that date is fait accompli. Don’t expect a flurry of negotiation between the two sides leading up to the deadline. It’s more likely that LeBron James requests a trade to the Cincinnati Reds than that the union and league settle things before Dec. 1.
The next critical guidepost will be the week of Feb. 9. That’s when pitchers and catchers typically report to spring training complexes, about 45 days before Opening Day. The passing of that date won’t trigger anything tangible in regard to bargaining, but it will serve as a symbolic moment, with players likely to still be home at that juncture.
About a month after that — let’s call it the week of March 10 — is probably the most important cutoff on the calendar. That’s when the lack of resolution on a new CBA would necessitate a revision of the 2027 regular-season schedule. During the last labor cycle, the agreement on March 10 delayed Opening Day by one week, but MLB still crammed in 162 games by pushing the postseason back as well.
This time around, there might come a point when a 162-game season becomes unviable. Given that players need at least a few weeks of spring training-style ramp-up, that line in the sand is probably around March 15. You can push back the season only so far before the league is playing World Series baseball in a mid-November blizzard. — Mintz
Will the 2027 MLB season start on time?
Probably not. In July, MLB announced that the 2027 regular season is scheduled to begin with “Opening Night” on Wednesday, March 24, followed by a full Opening Day slate on Thursday, March 25. But again, using the lockout five years ago as a reference point, these dates could be altered should negotiations drag on.
On March 1, 2022, with negotiations still stuck in the mud, Manfred penned “a letter to baseball fans” in which he stated that “the calendar dictates that we are not going to be able to play the first two series of regular season games and those games are officially canceled.” After another week of talks without a resolution, MLB announced that more games were being eliminated from the schedule, stating that “because of the logistical realities of the calendar, another two series are being removed from the schedule, meaning that Opening Day is postponed until April 14th.”
That sounded rather definite at the time, but once a deal was reached on March 10 — three weeks before the originally scheduled Opening Day — both sides agreed on a compressed spring training and adjusted regular-season slate that featured additional double-headers (and a later finish) and allowed clubs to play all 162 games while delaying the start of the season by only eight days.
Recent history and the current climate make it unlikely that Opening Night on March 24 will take place as scheduled, but it’s impossible to say just how delayed the regular season could be — and learning from past experience, declarations that games are officially canceled should not be taken at face value. That said, the limits of flexibility required to squeeze in all 162 games remain unclear. And given the contentious nature of the talks to this point, it’s quite possible that there will be increased willingness from both sides to accept a shortened schedule, not just a compressed one. Clarity in this regard is unlikely to come until March.
As of now, Opening Day 2027 is still March 24. But plan something joyful for that day. There probably won’t be baseball to watch. — Shusterman