After 99 days, Major League Baseball has lifted its lockout as the owners and players finally came to a deal on a new collective bargaining …
After 99 days, Major League Baseball has lifted its lockout as the owners and players finally came to a deal on a new collective bargaining agreement on Thursday. Opening Day may have been delayed but the season won’t be lost. Do you have questions about how it happened and what comes next? We have some answers. A: For a long time, the competitive balance tax thresholds were the biggest hurdle to clear, but in the final days of the lockout, it was the prospect of an international draft. After failing to agree on it by the latest “deadline” Wednesday, owners and players reached a deal Thursday to have until July 25 to negotiate the specifics of a new international draft that would begin in 2024. If they are able to reach a deal by that deadline, the qualifying offer would be removed. But if no deal is reached, the current international-entry and qualifying-offer systems would remain status quo. Once that was squared away, the owners came back with one more offer and raised some of the numbers on core economic issues, which player reps and the MLB Players Association’s executive subcommittee voted in favor of 26-12.
