Clock ticking as MLB, players' union solve nothing in 15-minute meeting

When it comes to baseball’s ongoing collective bargaining agreement negotiations, the only math that’s truly meaningful involves subtraction, as in removing days from the calendar. Each one that comes off without a deal puts Opening Day further in jeopardy.

After Thursday’s latest round of talks between MLB and the Players Association in Manhattan — if you could even characterize the 15-minute session as that — the count stands at 11 days left to keep the scheduled March 31 opener intact.

Listening to both sides describe the standoff, it’s difficult to envision a new CBA coming together in that relatively short span of time. While neither has publicly shared the drop-dead date that has been discussed behind closed doors, commissioner Rob Manfred has suggested that a month of spring training likely will be necessary for Opening Day to go off as originally planned, which is why March 1 looms large.

Also, the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues are scheduled to begin on Feb. 26, which means MLB soon will have to announce those games being pushed back as well, without a tentative start date. That is all but inevitable after Thursday’s counteroffer by the union was shrugged off by MLB officials as half-baked and woefully insufficient, especially in the wake of their own 130-page CBA framework delivered on Saturday.

Another meeting is scheduled for Friday, but that is not expected to include any of the core economic issues, which are the major stumbling blocks in these negotiations. Basically, the two sides remain miles apart on those particular issues, both philosophically and numbers-wise, and didn’t get any closer on the 78th day of the lockout.

The main focus of Thursday’s proposal by the union involved more adjustments for pre-arbitration candidates, part of its efforts to get raises for younger players. On that front, the Players Association dropped its bid to lower arbitration eligibility to two years of major-league service but with the super-two group (at least two years but less than three) expanded to the top 80% by service time, up from 22%. With the additional players in that category, the union also raised its proposal for the bonus pool to $115 million, up from their initial request of $100 million.

While the union believed the counterproposal represented movement in the teams’ direction, MLB — which has suggested a bonus pool of $15 million — greeted Thursday’s offer as a step backward in negotiations. According to both sides, none of the other core issues were addressed during Thursday’s brief 15-minute summit at the Players Association headquarters in midtown Manhattan, but the two chief negotiators — the union’s Bruce Meyer and MLB’s Dan Halem — did huddle privately for an additional 20 minutes.

The purpose of that post-meeting session was not immediately clear, but it has become apparent that the Players Association is growing increasingly frustrated with what it perceives to be management’s stubborn reluctance to move in crucial areas. While the negotiating parties don’t put much emphasis on the actual length of these meetings — more specifically, the startling brevity — others don’t feel that way.

"I’m pretty sure I’ve had at-bats longer than this meeting . . . ," tweeted the Mets’ Luis Guillorme, who once worked a 22-pitch walk during a spring training game against the Cardinals on March 14, 2021.

The Competitive Balance Tax (CBT) was not discussed during Thursday’s bargaining session and the Players Association believes that MLB has not made any real movement on this critical issue since the summer. While management has made slight raises to the thresholds for payrolls and removed the draft-pick penalty from the first tier, the union is adamantly against the increases in tax rates for the teams that go over, insisting that it functions like a salary cap.

"I just hope something gets resolved quickly," DJ LeMahieu told The Associated Press after working out with Aaron Judge at a college field in Tampa. "Baseball becomes a business — it’s not as fun — but it’s something that definitely needs to happen."

By David Lennon

dave.lennon@newsday.comDPLennon

David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.