MLB, MLBPA Begin CBA Negotiations - MLB Trade Rumors

Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association held their first official collective bargaining meeting of 2026 in New York City today, per reporting from Jeff Passan of ESPN and Evan Drellich of The Athletic.

At this point, there’s not much in terms of news. Both reporters note that today’s meeting was mostly about the two sides presenting basic overviews of their positions. Formal proposals will come in future meetings. The current collective bargaining agreement expires on December 1st. It’s not unusual to begin talks about this far out. As noted by Drellich, they are actually starting a little later than last time. In 2021, opening presentations were made in April.

SEE UPDATED POST BELOW AS OF 5/28/26

Edited May 28May 28 by rmc523

If they had started negotiations in 2024, they could have saved the 2027 season.

18 minutes ago, TaiwanMarlins said:

If they had started negotiations in 2024, they could have saved the 2027 season.

Nah cause they won't actually start hammering out vital details until after the lockout begins no matter what. These early talks are mostly meaningless no matter how early they begin them.

MLBPA put out their proposal. MLB will reportedly put out theirs today or tomorrow.

MLBPA details below:

MLBPA Releases Details Of Collective Bargaining Proposal - MLB Trade Rumors

Many of the details involve the adjusting of measures already in place, in a pro-player direction. For instance, the union proposes raising the minimum salary to $1.5MM, almost double this year’s $780K minimum. It would continue to go up to $1.65MM, $1.825MM, $2MM and $2.2MM in subsequent seasons. They also propose expanding the $50MM pre-arbitration bonus pool to $180MM. The Super Two designation that currently goes to 22% of players between two and three years of service would jump to a 44% cutoff. The minimum tender in arbitration would be $3MM. The service time needed for free agency, which is currently six years, would drop to five years for players at least 30 years old. However, teams could keep such players for a sixth year by offering them a contract with a salary that averages out the 125 highest-paid players in the league, which is the same calculus for the current qualifying offer. (Passan relayed those details in a subsequent post.)

Those measures would all directly benefit players financially. They also propose measures that would help players indirectly, by improving the abilities for club to spend. The threshold of the competitive balance tax would jump from $244MM to $300MM, then $315MM, $330MM, $345MM and $360MM in subsequent seasons. Non-monetary penalties, such as the impact on draft picks, would be eliminated. The qualifying offer would be eliminated, along with the penalties for clubs who sign free agents, though the bonuses for lower revenue clubs who lose free agents would be increased. The draft lottery would be expanded to further disincentivize tanking. The rules to address service time manipulation would be expanded.

There would be a “competitive integrity tax” for any team that does not spend $150MM. This would be an inverse to the competitive balance tax, which is already in place. Currently, baseball effectively has a soft cap in the form of that tax. Some teams blow past it but face penalties, both in the form of the payments and the impact of picks being pushed later in the draft. There’s not really a soft floor, as teams who receive revenue-sharing payments don’t really have conditions attached.

The Athletics did lose their revenue-sharing status for a while and they seemed to spend a bit more on players recently because they didn’t want to go down that road again, but no other club has been similarly motivated. The A’s reportedly had to get their CBT number up to $105MM to avoid a grievance but several other clubs have carried CBT numbers well below that without any consequences.

As mentioned, many elements of the proposal involve significant changes to the revenue-sharing system. Under this proposal, teams would actually send out less stadium revenue but there would be a notable increase in terms of the sharing of broadcast revenue. Lower revenue clubs would receive at least $240MM annually but with conditions. Teams who do not spend the revenue-sharing money would be subject to penalties. Teams that do spend that money would receive bonuses if they make the playoffs or have a winning record.

These revenue-sharing details are significant because they are presumably a counter to a salary cap. The league is expected to push for a cap, something they have wanted for decades and have pushed for in the past. Some fans like the idea of a cap because of the economic imbalances in the game. The clubs with greater revenue and higher payrolls have had a lot of success in recent years, with the Dodgers being an oft-cited example. The teams have pushed farther apart recently in terms of broadcast revenue. The clubs in large markets are generally doing fine while many of the smaller clubs have seen their broadcast deals collapse. The league has stepped in and is now handling broadcasts for almost half the league. That setup can reach more viewers via streaming but generally leads to less revenue.

With these revenue-sharing elements, the players appear to be trying to address competitive balance in a way that does not involve a cap. They directly address the broadcast revenue imbalance and would broadly be giving the smaller clubs a greater ability to spend. They also put conditions on the money, so that lower-revenue clubs can’t just pocket what they get from other teams, which is a concern in the current setup.

As mentioned, MLB will make their opening proposal tomorrow, but they have already gone public to oppose what the players have proposed. MLB spokesperson Glen Caplin released a statement, with Drellich among those to relay it, effectively saying that MLB’s position is that this proposal makes competitive balance worse and not better.

That sounds like a really dumb proposal. Maybe a significant penalty for underspending could save it, but is hard to imagine the league imposing a $50M+ penalty.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/48903168/mlb-owners-propose-first-salary-cap-1994-strike

Salary Cap: $245.3 Million

Salary Floor: $171.2 Million

If this goes through Sherman will be living on the streets.

4 hours ago, farmer_fran said:

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/48903168/mlb-owners-propose-first-salary-cap-1994-strike

Salary Cap: $245.3 Million

Salary Floor: $171.2 Million

If this goes through Sherman will be living on the streets.

I like this proposal.

Two choices for Sherman, SPEND or SELL.

This was posted in its own thread for some reason, but I'm adding it here to keep it consolidated:

MLB Submits Initial Counterproposal To MLBPA - MLB Trade Rumors

One day after the Major League Baseball Players Association released the details of its initial proposal on a new collective bargaining agreement to the public, the league submitted a counteroffer to the union, as expected. While MLB did not formally disclose the details to the public, ESPN’s Jesse Rogers reports that the league’s proposal contained a hard salary cap set at $245.3MM and a salary floor set at $171.2MM.

The Athletic’s Evan Drellich adds that the league is proposing an even 50-50 split in revenues. It’s not entirely clear how that can coexist with the more concrete numbers the league also suggested. In the event of a percentage-based revenue sharing split, the cap and floor would be fluid and dependent on revenues.

We’ve seen that fluidity play out in other leagues. NBA players, for instance, were only paid 90.9% of their reported salaries for the 2024-25 season after the league’s revenues came in under projections. (The NBA’s bargaining agreement calls for 51% of league revenue to go to players.) The NBA held 10% of player salaries in escrow to begin the season, and 91% of that money wound up going back into teams’ pockets rather than to the players. It’s possible that the $245.3MM cap and $171.2MM floor are just based on current projections for the 2026 season, but specific details surrounding the proposal have not fully come to light.

Rogers further notes that MLB’s proposed floor includes player benefits (insurance, transportation costs, etc.). Player benefits are already factored into each team’s luxury-tax ledger to the tune of about $18MM per year. It’s not clear whether the $1.667MM each team contributes yearly to the leaguewide pre-arbitration bonus pool are factored into that spending floor as well, but that sum does count toward a team’s CBT calculation. If both player benefits and pre-arb bonus pool contributions count toward the floor, that $171.2MM floor proposal (however it’s been calculated) would realistically call for closer to $150MM of spending toward player salaries.

Phillies' Bryce Harper Concerned Over MLB Lockout Ramifications

What an asshole Bryce Harper is. I've hated him since he came into the league.

Edited May 31May 31 by Rusty Shackelford

The owners were idiots for caving in 1994. They should have started playing the season with scab players like the NFL did. They could have broken that union. They wouldn't be in this mess now.

Rob Manfred Discusses Economic Proposals - MLB Trade Rumors

“We have tried mightily over several rounds of bargaining to use a competitive balance (luxury) tax to address competitive concerns,” Manfred said. “And sometimes you’ve got to admit you failed.” Manfred didn’t expressly state that a cap was the only solution but implied that drastic changes were necessary.

“We made a proposal on one set of topics. At the outset of negotiations, I went and said myself, ‘We’re open to whatever ideas people have, but we need a realistic framework that addresses the fans’ concerns about competitive balance.’ You just can’t ignore that financial penalties have not gotten it done for us.” The luxury tax has been in place since 2003.

Opinion piece Part 1:

Beyond the Cap, Part 1: Why the Cap Is the Wrong Fight - MLB Trade Rumors

The owners’ opening proposal for the next labor deal contains the best idea anyone has put forward for fixing baseball’s competitive imbalance, bundled with the one idea the players will never sign. The good idea is pooling local television money and sharing it equally across all 30 teams. The dealbreaker is the hard salary cap attached to it. Pull those apart, add one move nobody is talking about, and there’s an agreement here that owners, players, and fans could all call a win. This is part one of two: why the cap is the wrong fight, and what real restraint looks like. ....

Part 2 of the writeup nobody read lol...

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2026/06/beyond-the-cap-part-2-the-move-nobody-is-talking-about.html