Baseball is back: MLB, players agree on new CBA to ensure full season; Pirates open April 7

After a lockout that lasted extra innings, baseball is back.

On the 99th day of the lockout, MLB and its players agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement to ensure a full season that will start April 7 and expands the playoff field to 12 teams.

The MLB Players’ Association on Thursday afternoon accepted the owners’ offer by a 26-12 vote despite all eight members of the executive subcommittee voting against it. Players from the Houston Astros, New York Mets, New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals voted against it. The league’s 30 owners voted unanimously to ratify the new CBA.

“I am genuinely thrilled to be able to say that Major League Baseball is back and we’re going to play 162 games,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said. “Looking forward, I could not be more excited about the future of our game.”

Manfred apologized to fans for the prolonged labor impasse that represented the sport’s first work stoppage since the 1994-95 strike — “I know the last few months have been difficult,” he said — that began Dec. 2 when MLB owners locked out players. Manfred said he reached out to MLBPA executive director Tony Clark and hopes the deal is viewed as an olive branch in brokering peace in future bargaining.

Baseball first has to repair its relationship with its fans.

For the Pittsburgh Pirates, that starts with Opening Day against the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium. The Pirates are scheduled to play their home opener against the Chicago Cubs at 6:35 p.m. on April 12 at PNC Park, facing the same opponent they originally were scheduled against March 31. The six games previously canceled will be made up as nine-inning doubleheadhers, as the regular season will be extended by three days.

At the minimum, the Pirates will be forced to spend — just not in the way favored by their fans. The new, five-year CBA improves minimum salaries from $570,500 last year to $700,000 this year, with $20,000 annual increases. A dozen players on the Pirates’ 40-man roster, including All-Star center fielder Bryan Reynolds ($601,000), earned less than the new minimum amount last season.

The CBA raises luxury tax thresholds from $210 million to $230 million, with increases each year until it reaches $242 million in 2026. The new deal also creates a $50 million bonus pool for pre-arbitration-eligible players, rewarding winners of top-five finishers of the MVP, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year and All-MLB picks. It also includes options limits (five per year) and a 20-round amateur draft.

“The deal pushes the game forward,” Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole, a former Pirate and member of the executive subcommittee, told the Associated Press. “It addresses a lot of the things that the players in the game should be focused on: the competitive integrity aspect of it.”

As part of the agreement, the MLBPA agreed to drop the grievance it filed in 2020, the season shorted to 60 games because of covid-19. The players, however, did not drop the grievance filed against the Pirates, Miami Marlins, Oakland A’s and Tampa Bay Rays over their lack of spending on major-league payroll.

According to Cot’s Contracts, the Pirates had the lowest Opening Day payroll the past two seasons, starting at $45.2 million in 2021, about $147 million below the competitive balance tax threshold.

Before arbitration with Reynolds and pitcher Chris Stratton, their highest-paid player this year is catcher Roberto Perez, who signed a one-year free-agent contract for $5 million.

The sides also agreed to add the universal designated hitter, ending the long-standing National League tradition of pitchers batting in the order, and implement a draft lottery for the first six picks. The Pirates drafted No. 1 overall last year and have the fourth pick this summer after finishing 61-101 last season.

“I love our game,” Manfred said. “Having said that, since I’ve been commissioner, I’ve talked about the need to make changes in some of our rules to enhance the entertainment value of our product for the benefit of our fans. And I think the new agreement opens up an opportunity that we can work with the players to make sure that we can make good rule changes that work for our fans.”