Major League Baseball and the players’ union have paused negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement after a 16-hour day of meetings that stretched into early Tuesday morning.
Enough progress was made that the league and MLB Players Association will meet again later Tuesday in hopes of finalizing a deal. MLB has extended its deadline for reaching a deal to 5 p.m. on Tuesday in order to salvage a March 31 opening day.
“We want to exhaust every possibility to get a deal done,” an MLB spokesman said.
Commissioner Rob Manfred previously said losing regular-season games would be a “disastrous outcome” for the sport.
A league-imposed lockout of players has been in place since the expiration of the last collective bargaining agreement on Dec. 1.
In talks that began Monday, the sides met for a 13th time with a session that started after 2 a.m. as the lockout reached its 90th day. They made progress toward an agreement but remained very far apart on key issues.
Manfred met with the union twice — once more than he had previously since the lockout began. After months of talks in fits and starts, the sides shifted into possible deal-making mode.
“We’re working at it,” Manfred said around 6 p.m. after his second session of the day with the union.
Deputy commissioner Dan Halem and executive vice president Morgan Sword were key figures in the meetings. Some sessions lasted mere minutes and also included senior vice president Pat Houlihan.
Owners and players initially converged last Monday at the spring training site of the St. Louis Cardinals, holding face-to-face meetings for eight straight days. Players were led by union chief Tony Clark and lead negotiator Bruce Meyer and were joined by subcommittee members, including Max Scherzer and Andrew Miller, as well as rank-and-file players.
Owners ultimately decided they preferred not to play while negotiating a new deal, a departure from the last time the sides incurred a work stoppage in 1994, when games were played as normal without a collective bargaining agreement until the players decided to strike in August. The rest of that season was canceled including the most lucrative time of the year for the league — the postseason.
The sides have been far apart on the core economic issues for a long time after owners made significant gains in the last two CBA’s. Average player salaries have declined over the last few years, so players were looking for increases at every level, including minimum pay at the bottom of the structure as well as a raise in the competitive balance tax — with less penalties for going over it — at the top.
The union has prepared for the loss of paychecks, providing $5,000 for members in February and March. That figure will increase in April. Player contracts are normally paid out in-season only. The union’s war chest will provide a stipend until a deal is reached.
ESPN’s Jesse Rogers and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
