With the lockout decreed Thursday in major baseball, the vote on the project of a team in shared custody between Montreal and Tampa may be postponed by a few weeks, or even a few months, depending on the duration of the conflict .
According to information collected by The newspaper, however, discussions continue between the Tampa Bay Rays and Stephen Bronfman’s group. The latter, however, declined to comment on Thursday.
In November, the draft was presented to the Major League Baseball Executive Council at a meeting in Chicago, but the eight members did not vote. For lack of time, he had been mentioned at this time.
“The council did not come to a conclusion on this subject, but it is almost exclusively because of our other more pressing issues,” the commissioner said at the time. It’s a complicated subject and a lot is going on right now [dont les négociations entourant la convention collective].»
Coming out of the meeting, Rays owner Stuart Sternberg said “Commissioner Manfred and Major League Baseball were pleased with the progress and efforts being made to secure the future of the Rays in Tampa Bay.”
He expected to have a comeback from MLB in the following weeks. As for the Bronfman group, he had mentioned in a terse press release “that there was still a lot of work to be done”, but to be “proud” of the relationship established with Sternberg.
Logistics issues
The project does not appear to be among the points being discussed between the players and Major League Baseball, as there is still no consensus among leaders on the concept of shared custody.
However, Tony Clark, the director of the Players’ Association, said in April that there are several issues surrounding this possibility, especially from a logistical point of view.
It remains to be seen whether the subject will be raised in the coming weeks, especially from players who might want to use it as a lever for negotiations.
Major issues of the conflict
Photo credit: File photo
Since midnight Thursday, major baseball players no longer have access to their team’s facilities. The teams can no longer hire independent players and the circuit sessions, scheduled for Sunday in Orlando, have been canceled for a second year in a row. Will this labor dispute be long? Hard to say, because if the two parties have agreed on certain points, a dozen issues are still stumbling. One thing is certain: to ensure a full season, an agreement will need to be reached before the start of March. Here are some of the major issues of the present conflict, according to information obtained by American media.
The autonomy of the players
Currently, major baseball players can claim their autonomy after six years of service or if they are released by their team before having played these six seasons.
Major League Baseball wants to keep the current formula or change the age of eligibility to 29.5. The players, for their part, want to keep the existing terms until the 2022-2023 offseason. Then, for the next two offseason, they ask that the players achieve their autonomy after five or six years of service or at the age of 30.5, whichever comes first. Beginning in the 2025-2026 offseason, they are proposing to reduce it to five or six years of service or age 29.5.
Salary arbitration
Right now, players who have more than three years of experience in Major League Baseball, but less than six, are eligible for salary arbitration if they don’t have a contract in their pocket for the following season. However, there are some exceptions.
The MLB wants to keep the current system or replace it with a system based on the prizes won by the players or the WAR (“Win above replacement”, a complex statistic which measures the value of a player in his team). The Players’ Association is proposing to lower the eligibility time for salary arbitration to two years.
The playoffs
Since 2012, two teams from each association have played a play-off before the start of the series. The winner advances to the playoffs, which bring together eight teams, four from the National, four from the American.
Major League Baseball proposes to play two play-offs per association, which would increase the number of teams entering the postseason tournament from 10 to 14. The players want to see 12 clubs in the playoffs and reduce the number of sections per association from three to two.
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