The App is Back! Don’t forget to download the NBC Sports EDGE app to receive real-time player news, mobile alerts and track your favorite players. Plus, now you can check out articles and player cards. Get it here!
Play ball?
After a marathon 16-plus hour negotiating session which began Monday morning and ended after 2 AM on the East Coast, Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association finally appear to have made real progress on a Collective Bargaining Agreement.
At one point late Monday/early Tuesday, it had seemed that a deal was imminent. But while the two sides were not able to push this thing across the finish line, they felt enough headway was made that MLB agreed to push back its deadline to 5 PM on Tuesday. Negotiations will pick up again at 11 AM.
MLB is insisting this time that this is a hard deadline to reach an agreement in order to avoid canceling regular season games.
It’s not clear whether they had their fingers crossed behind their backs while making the declaration.
Things had been looking bleak over the weekend and at the start of the day Monday, with MLB reportedly telling the MLBPA that they were willing to miss a month of games if talks continued to stall. The MLBPA had grown frustrated to the point that they were considering walking away from the negotiating table.
However, the initial deadline MLB imposed did seem to finally spur action, with the two sides meeting on 13 separate occasions Monday to chip away at a deal.
“We want to exhaust every possibility to get a deal done,” a league spokesman said in the wee hours early Tuesday morning.
The two sides have reportedly agreed to expand the playoff field from 10 teams to 12 teams, which is two fewer clubs than MLB had sought. The league has also agreed to keep penalties for exceeding the CBT thresholds relatively static. The MLBPA, meanwhile, has expressed a willingness to drop its request for expanded arbitration eligibility.
The league has bumped its CBT thresholds to $220 million in years 2022, 2023 and 2024, $224 million in 2025 and $230 million in 2026. They’ve also inched the pre-arbitration bonus pool up to $25 million and the minimum salary to $675,000.
Still, most of those movements are pretty small relative to the union’s asks, so financial gaps will need to be closed.
MLB also wants an international draft, something the MLBPA has been very opposed to. Additionally, the league has said it is willing to drop direct draft pick compensation for free agents.
There are still plenty of puzzle pieces to put together, but at long last it does seem both sides believe there might be avenues to get them to fit.
Let’s play ball.
Editor’s Note: Play for FREE! Download the NBC Sports Predictor app, make picks and win huge, weekly jackpots. Get started here!
Jeter Jets out of Miami
A shocker out of South Beach came down on Monday, with Derek Jeter announcing he was stepping down as CEO and minority owner of the Marlins after four and a half years.
Jeter had been the sport’s first and only Black CEO.
In a statement, Jeter said, among other things, that while “the organization is stronger today than it was five years ago,” he is stepping aside because “the vision for the future of the franchise is different than the one I signed up to lead.”
Joel Sherman of the New York Post hears that a major reason Jeter had for stepping down was principal owner Bruce Sherman reneging on a promise to spend $10-15 million more on the payroll once the transaction freeze was lifted. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic also wrote that Jeter’s “abrupt departure suggests a possible falling-out with Sherman.”
In three full seasons with Jeter as CEO, the Marlins averaged 62.3 wins and never finished higher than fourth in the National League East. They did go 31-29 during the shortened 2020 campaign, sneaking into the postseason and beating the Cubs in the Wild Card round before being swept by the Braves in the NLDS.
Jeter did have a major hand in turning around Miami’s farm system, though, elevating it from one of the worst in baseball when he took over to recently being ranked No. 4 by ESPN.com. And that doesn’t include some of the organization’s young talent on the major league roster, particularly on the pitching side.
The Hall of Famer didn’t offer any hints in his statement what his future plans are, but friends of Jeter told Sherman they believe he will now take a period of reflection to see what next is possible.
Quick Hits: Brett Gardner told Joel Sherman of the New York Post that he plans to continue playing in 2022, and while he would prefer to do it with the Yankees, he’s open to joining another team … The Yankees on Monday announced the hiring of Hensley Meulens as assistant hitting coach …
