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MLB and MLBPA reaches a new collective bargaining agreement

With the previous Collective Bargaining Agreement set to expire at midnight, MLB and the Player's Association were able to strike a deal to continue the run of labor peace. MLB has not had a work stoppage since 1994.

By Michael McDermott
The new collective bargaining agreement covers the 2017-2021 seasons.
The new collective bargaining agreement covers the 2017-2021 seasons.
Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports

Unlike other major sports in America in recent history, Major League Baseball has gone through fairly smooth and undramatic negotiations for their collective bargaining agreement. There were some minute concerns that the CBA would not be completed before the Winter Meetings were to start on Sunday. The last time MLB experienced a work stoppage was in 1994.

There were plenty of hot topic issues such as an international draft, draft pick compensation related to the qualifying offer system, the luxury tax and others. As more details come out, I will continue to post updates.

Qualifying Offers

This is good news for small market clubs that depend a lot on the draft and international FAs to get cost-controlled talent and removes a large obstacle that hinders the FA market. However, since the QO system was with the previous CBA in place, the penalty would still be a draft pick to see FAs that declined a QO earlier this month.

Luxury Tax

Obviously the luxury tax won't be an issue since the Diamondbacks will be operating at a payroll near $100M, which is about half of the payroll for the luxury tax threshold. The tax number is expected to go up each year, which might be a good thing since it's likely a reflection on the status of league revenue.

Here are a list of the penalties for teams that will go over the threshold since it affects the Dodgers and their $200M+ payroll.

If LA puts up a $250M payroll, they could be paying well over $400M when the luxury tax is included. While MLB doesn't have a hard cap in place, those type of severe penalties should shift competitive balance away from the Dodgers and towards the rest of the division.

International Free Agents

The Diamondbacks will be able to spend freely on the international market since their penalties from signing Yoan Lopez and Yasmany Tomás in the 2014-15 signing period. Teams will have a $5-6M cap in signing bonuses in the international market. The team recently hired a new latin scouting coordinator after the disaster signing period from two seasons ago. Contrary to popular belief, it isn't the big market clubs that have the biggest signing bonus on international free agents.

I'm not sure what the penalties are, but it could be a hard cap where any deal that would go over the cap number would be voided by the league.

Tomás' contract from the 2014-15 signing period would count under this CBA like it did when they did the signing in the first place. That's one thing the team needs to be wary of when the 2017-18 international signing period begins in July and the penalties from the 2014-15 signing period expire. With the team no longer handicapped in that department, it should be interesting to see how the team plans to add young, but far distant, talent to the organization.

26 Man Roster?

No changes to the rosters in this CBA. Before September, the roster remains at 25 and in September will be 40.

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