Update on Tuesday’s Labor Talks

For the second straight day, MLB and the players’ association met to negotiate through some of the many hang-ups that have led to the current lockout. While again it looks like some marginal progress has been made, there is still no deal, and no deal appears imminent.

One of the main issues that was discussed was increased pay to pre-arbitration eligible players, and the league upped their offer slightly from previous negotiations. After originally proposing a salary of $600K to players with 0-1 years of service, the league now proposed $615K. Additionally, the league again offered a 650K salary for players with 1-2 years of service and $700K to players with 2-3 years of service.

When it came to arbitration, the league withdrew their proposal to change the arbitration structure, which has been their first real concession after the players withdrew their free agent threshold alteration from past proposals on Monday. From the players’ perspective, this withdrawal by the league is seen as a positive for them.

Finally in Tuesday’s meeting, which lasted approximately a half hour, MLB agreed to parameters of a pre-arbitration bonus pool related to WAR. However, the two sides are far off on the size of the pool with the players wanting $105M and the league offering just $10M. While the two figures are not close, it’s a positive sign to see both sides agree on this and through negotiation, they will eventually inch closer.

For the first time really since negotiations started, there have been signs of progress the past two days. These meetings have resulted in encouraging steps, but still quite a ways to go before a deal is reached. While no date has officially been set, the next meeting is expected to take place relatively soon.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan and The Athletic’s Evan Drellich were the first to report the details of Tuesday’s labor negotiations.