OVER THE 18 frenzied days that saved baseball, there were two all-nighters, dozens of Zoom sessions and countless livid text messages. There was hope and dread, threats and bluffs, truths and lies, deadlines set and broken, pessimism and, finally, triumph. Opening Day is nigh, the 2022 Major League Baseball season set to begin, but if not for those 2½ weeks in which the league and players resolved their differences and ended the owners' 99-day lockout, Thursday would be just another day in April.
"I'm not sure people understand just how close we were to doomsday," said one player representative who voted in favor of the March 10 deal that brought back the game -- and who, like many others, requested anonymity to speak freely on the negotiations. "This was a disaster already. And it could've been much, much, much worse."
By the time both parties arrived for a summit in Jupiter, Florida, on Feb. 21, marking the beginning of the sprint toward a deal, 10 months of disappointment and disillusionment had been building. Starting with the first talks on a new collective bargaining agreement April 20, 2021, MLB and the union brought baseball to the precipice of a labor conflict that at far too many points seemed certain to break the sport.
From the beginning, almost everyone was primed for a fight. The prior two basic agreements, in 2011 and 2016, tilted in favor of the league, and players vowed to win back at least some of what they lost -- to get players paid more at younger ages, to fix blatant manipulation of service time, to address the tanking that goes against the very nature of competitive sport. Owners were prepared to dig in. If they couldn't break the union, at very least they'd bend it to their will -- and get an expanded postseason, the right to implement new rules aimed to fix the on-field product and an international draft. With so many changes desired, a work stoppage was an inevitability. For more than a year, front-office and league sources said, a lockout was openly discussed among MLB personnel.
After it became official on Dec. 2, a dark winter began for the sport -- but had player leadership not agreed to MLB's best and final offer on March 10, the fallout could have been even more catastrophic. The league, which already had postponed two weeks' worth of games, warned that it was serious about permanently canceling them. Union leadership had said that without 162 games of pay, players would not agree to expanded playoffs, a vital element of any potential deal. Without a 12-team postseason, the framework of the deal would fall apart. The season was on the brink.
In the 26 days since the deal that saved the 2022 season was struck, ESPN has spoken with dozens of people involved in the negotiations: officials from the league and the union, major league players, general managers, agents and other key figures. This is the story of what happened in between -- of the hawks who were prepared to give up on the 2022 season to get their way and the doves who salvaged it; of the negotiations that went nowhere and somewhere and nowhere and finally to the place that guaranteed 162 games; of the power players, the ups and downs, and the moments that mattered.
In the end, what emerged was a tale of a powerful league, a resolute union and a new collective bargaining agreement that guarantees baseball for the next five years but did little to overhaul the economic system that made the negotiations so challenging from the beginning.
TO UNDERSTAND HOW a nine-day negotiating session in Jupiter set the stage for baseball's return, it's best to start six days into it: On Feb. 26, the day a cocktail of aggravation, fatigue and weariness erupted into a screaming match.
Over the previous five days of the summit, proposals pingponged between the sides. On Day 6, the union made one at around 3 p.m. The league came back around 90 minutes later with a counter. And that's when the tone shifted from frustration to anger and burbled over.
In its proposal, MLB had barely moved on the competitive balance tax (CBT) threshold, a piece of the negotiations that ultimately proved vital. The union had significantly reduced its ask on the expansion of salary arbitration earlier in the day -- a move that enraged some high-profile players, who believed the MLB Players Association already had relented on too many of its initial asks. The league, which from the beginning of the talks called arbitration expansion a nonstarter, wasn't impressed. MLB responded with a $1 million CBT bump in only one year of agreement. Players seethed. Inside the conference room at Roger Dean Stadium where they had spent the week, Max Scherzer, Andrew Miller and Paul Goldschmidt were among the group of players whose barbs targeted Dan Halem, MLB's lead negotiator, and Morgan Sword, an executive vice president at the league and a vital cog in the labor machine that had turned the commissioner's office from a perennial punching bag into a force.
This, players said, was a "f--- you proposal," according to people in the room. It felt, one player said, "like a bloodletting" -- a necessary moment for the players to let the league know that with MLB's Feb. 28 deadline to play a full complement of 162 games approaching, they were not going to cave and accept what they considered to be a mediocre offer. Halem and Sword wore the fury and argued back. And by the end of the jeremiad, the sides parted for the day with an unspoken understanding: All of the incrementalism that had defined the talks to that point was no longer acceptable. Not with the game's future at stake.
Since the two sides arrived in Florida, the league had been steadfast in its offer on the CBT: $214 million, a position from which it had not moved since bumping it from the 2021 level ($210 million) on Nov. 23, 2021. Colorado Rockies owner Dick Monfort, the chairman of the league's influential labor policy committee, argued it needed to be that low because of teams like his division rival, the Los Angeles Dodgers, even though the Dodgers had stayed under the threshold in three of the previous four years. The union was unwavering in its position: the CBT needed to jump into the high $230 million range, a never-before-seen leap since its implementation following the player strike of 1994, which was the standard for devastating baseball work stoppages.
Intransigence had taken the parties to this point, and for every step forward, it seemed, another went in reverse. On Feb. 22, there had been, for the first time in months, some sense of considerable gains. By Feb. 23, the league was talking about calling off games, with a MLB spokesman saying: "A deadline is a deadline. Missed games are missed games. Salary will not be paid for those games." On Feb. 25, the sides seemed to agree on the outline of a draft lottery. By Feb. 26, they went full longshoremen. On Feb. 27, commissioner Rob Manfred joined the talks, and the sense was he wanted to make a deal. In a meeting with Tony Clark, the union's executive director, Manfred struck a conciliatory tone, harkening back to his days as the league's lead negotiator, and enthusiasm at MLB grew, according to league sources.
By Feb. 28, the sources said, the league believed it was on the verge of a breakthrough. Optimism about the prospect of a deal was so high, according to sources, officials had started drafting documents they hoped would be the basis of a memorandum of understanding that would underpin a new collective bargaining agreement.
"My owner told me to get ready for spring training in three days," one general manager said. "I thought it was done."
In hindsight, the league's sanguinity spoke to the divide between the sides. MLB considered its latest proposal a breakthrough: It had bumped its CBT threshold offer from $214 million to $220 million, lowered the tax rates and penalties on offenders to the previous status quo, and offered more in minimum salary and a newly created bonus pool for players with zero to three years of service who had yet to reach salary arbitration.
MLB was certain the move to $220 million, which was made over the objection of four owners (the Arizona Diamondbacks' Ken Kendrick, the Cincinnati Reds' Bob Castellini, the Detroit Tigers' Chris Ilitch and the Los Angeles Angels' Arte Moreno, none of whom sat on the labor policy committee), represented a big enough jump for players to hammer out the deal's other elements.
Upon seeing the proposal, player leadership decided unanimously: This wasn't anywhere close to a deal it would accept.
"That's still something I look back at and don't understand," one player rep said. "I think it speaks to the fact that they weren't ever listening to us."
The talks nonetheless stretched into the early hours of March 1, the league's deadline blown, the players relying on cold pizza for fuel, the league determined to finish a deal if it took until sunrise. Around 2:30 a.m., bargaining ended with an agreement to return in the morning. By the time the talks reopened, MLB, league sources said, began to recognize the state of play: The union wasn't going to accept the proposal.
The 16½ hours spent bargaining that day weren't for naught -- not entirely. The league regards the time spent negotiating in Jupiter as an excavator, helping clear the path to a deal. And yet March 1 was perhaps the darkest day of the 99 in the lockout, with Manfred standing in front of a microphone that afternoon and canceling Opening Day. Over the previous year, his public statements -- from saying the work stoppage was a "defensive lockout" to claiming the stock market is a better investment than an MLB team -- had prompted ridicule from players. This time, three weeks after saying that missing games would be a "disastrous outcome," Manfred's self-fulfilling prophecy was coming true in real time.
WITH GAMES PULLED from the schedule, finding a solution to baseball's two-pronged problem became that much more acute. Ultimately, the heart of every labor relations problem in sports is the same issue that had these two sides at odds: the proper divvying of billions of dollars in revenue. Because baseball is the only major North American men's sport without a salary cap, it's far more difficult than figuring out what percentage goes to the players. The second issue was the calendar: Players and owners understood time wasn't on their side, not if they wanted to play 162 games, which, for all of the league's rhetoric, remained possible.
Which made the first week of March seem so odd. While the parties met, there didn't appear to be much traction. MLB was preparing to cancel more games, and the exigency, on a scale of 1 to 10, registered publicly as a 0.
Behind the scenes, though, the league and the union were preparing for a frenzied push to save baseball. The MLBPA tightened ranks. While it still included the player reps from each of the 30 teams on Zoom calls, most of the talking was done by chief union negotiator Bruce Meyer, director of player services Kevin Slowey, general counsel Ian Penny, deputy general counsel Matt Nussbaum and the eight-man executive subcommittee: Miller, Scherzer, Gerrit Cole, Zack Britton, Marcus Semien, Francisco Lindor, James Paxton and Jason Castro.
The league, meanwhile, reconsidered its missed-games-are-missed-games stance, with Sword and chief operations and strategy officer Chris Marinak mapping out a schedule that could make 162 games work if players reported to spring camps by March 11. MLB set a new deadline: March 8. It was Manfred's idea to create a second cliff, according to those involved in the discussions. By opening the door back up to play 162 -- and get paid for it -- the league was hopeful a deal could once again be reached.
By that day, new elements had joined the discussions. The league asked for the ability to unilaterally implement new rules within a 45-day window -- and the union acceded, aware that MLB already could do so with a year's advance notice. MLB agreed to increase the CBT threshold to $230 million in 2022 and up to $240 million by 2026 -- but it needed a fourth penalty tier, beyond the ones at $250 million and $270 million that came with increased tax rates for teams with massive payrolls. It was quickly nicknamed the "Steve Cohen Tax," for the New York Mets owner whose substantial wealth and willingness to spend made him a threat to the more parsimonious owners throughout the game.
Players weren't sold. Some already believed the union had ceded too much. They had relented completely on some of their earliest fundamental proposals: an age-based backstop for free agency, expanded arbitration, changes to revenue sharing intended to hold accountable teams that tank. A pocket of hard-liners -- the executive subcommittee and player reps such as Jack Flaherty, Lucas Giolito and Nick Pivetta -- still wanted to fight, to push, to extract every last dollar they could. And at 6 p.m. on March 8, when the league sent its latest proposal, a new group of aggrieved players emerged: ones from Latin America.
The league was insisting that any deal needed to include an international draft, a hot-button issue for players from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Cuba -- almost none of whom had been intimately involved in negotiations to that point. Only one team representative, Miami Marlins shortstop Miguel Rojas, had come into organized baseball through the international structure. That night, the union scrambled a Zoom call to survey its Latino players.
The early returns were almost universally bad, and another deadline by the league -- this one midnight -- passed. Around 2 a.m., after another 16-hour bargaining session, the union said it needed more time to discuss the proposal. MLB again extended its deadline, this time to 6 p.m. on March 9.
Bleary-eyed and exhausted, the two sides reconvened March 9, and the union reaffirmed its deep-seated opposition to an international draft. At 3 p.m., the players made a full counterproposal that did not include a draft. The league responded with three options: The union could accept its last proposal, which included an international draft and got rid of draft-pick compensation for teams signing high-dollar free agents; accept the proposal without an international draft and with direct draft-pick compensation; or accept the proposal and postpone the draft decision to Nov. 15, 2022 -- though with that decision, the union also would allow the owners to reopen the basic agreement following the 2024 season.
At 6 p.m., without a formal response from the union, Manfred postponed a second batch of games. While the league received an email from the union with an alternative solution on how to handle the international draft and draft-pick compensation around 6:25 p.m., the damage of the league's announcement was harrowing.
"I thought we were going to be out months," one official directly involved in negotiations said.
Another official characterized the climate similarly: "I would've bet 90% we were missing a month at the very least."
ULTIMATELY, PRAGMATISM TOOK over. Within an hour of the league pulling down more games, officials from both sides acknowledged that they were close -- 162 didn't have to be dead entirely. But the clock, enduringly an issue in these talks, was ticking louder than ever.
On the morning of March 10, Nussbaum, the union's deputy general counsel, emailed a proposal to solve the international draft issue. The idea: Punt for the time being. After about 30 minutes of back-and-forth, the union and league came to terms: If they can agree to an international draft structure by July 25, direct draft-pick compensation will vanish; should they not find a mutually amenable solution, they'll revert to the old international system and the old qualifying-offer system will remain.
This wasn't just progress. It was a bellwether. After nearly a year of arguing, of yelling, of hysteria, MLB and the MLBPA were dealing. After the compromise on the international draft, Halem told Meyer that the league would soon send its best and final offer. This was it. Patrick Houlihan, a core member of the league's labor relations team, started drafting the document. Around noon, the league sent it to the union. The deadline to accept was 3 p.m.
On a Zoom call, the union gathered its 38 voting members -- the eight executive subcommittee members and 30 team reps -- and read out the details. The CBT threshold would start at $230 million and grow to $244 million. The bonus pool was at $50 million. Minimums would go from $700,000 this year to $780,000 in 2026. Playoffs would expand to 12 teams. Clubs would be encouraged to promote top prospects through draft-pick incentivization and the ability to earn service time for those who don't start the season in the major leagues. The draft lottery would have six teams. Players could be optioned to the minor leagues a maximum of five times in one season. The National League would adopt the designated hitter. The union would drop its half-billion-dollar COVID-19 grievance.
While those were the main issues, collective bargaining agreements are massive documents that govern everything from core economics to minutiae, like the league agreeing to waive $300,000 in fines for not wearing masks. One player, a source said, voted yes specifically because of the mask provision.
"It was tense," one player said. "When it came time to share opinions on the final offer, the [Zoom] room actually got quiet."
The will of the union's rank and file was about to be put to the test. Having gone over the details of MLB's offer, the union asked player reps to survey their teammates before the final vote. MLBPA leadership didn't make a recommendation. The message was simpler: This is the best deal we can get right now; if we don't take it, there is risk. Ensure your teammates are informed.
On team text chains and Zoom calls, individual votes started coming in. There was no formal process to take a vote among the entire player base. It would be a 38-man ballot. Before the voting started, the union, wary after the league held to its deadline less than 24 hours earlier, asked for a slight extension to ensure it didn't blow this one.
MLB didn't know how the vote would go. Manfred and Halem were in their offices at one end of the hall at 1271 Sixth Ave. in New York. Other league employees were glued to Twitter, awaiting updates from reporters. The votes started leaking publicly, almost in real time. The executive subcommittee voted first. All eight members were no. At the league office, some officials started to worry. Owners wanted to know the next step if players turned down the proposal.
Next up were the 30 who represented the will of the rank and file. They voted alphabetically by team, as they had during return-to-play negotiations in 2020.
Atlanta: Yes.
Baltimore: Yes.
Boston: Yes.
Chicago Cubs: Yes.
"My guys just kind of made up their own minds," one player rep said. "We had a majority of players who wanted to play."
Chicago White Sox: Yes.
Cincinnati: Yes.
Cleveland: Yes.
Colorado: Yes.
"It kept going," another player rep said.
In the end, only four player reps -- from the Houston Astros, the Mets, the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals -- voted no. The final tally was 26-12. Baseball was back. And at 3:16 p.m. on March 10, when the news hit Twitter, cheers coursed through the commissioner's office.
Fans were overjoyed. GMs eagerly awaited reopening of the transaction market. Agents readied for the frenzy of free agency. The rank and file prepared to report to spring camps in the next 72 hours. The official report date was March 13, two days later than the original date attached to the March 8 deadline. Owners ratified the deal that night, and what was a foregone conclusion now was official. MLB had a season to plan.
Not everybody loved the deal. Plenty of players didn't even like it, believing that to affect real change, they needed to miss games and paychecks and put owners on the defensive. One player deemed the agreement "a crap deal."
Which is no surprise, not with a union the size of the MLBPA. For the many who appreciate what the new CBA does -- the Opening Day rostering of top prospects Bobby Witt Jr., Julio Rodriguez, Spencer Torkelson and Hunter Greene likely would not have happened without it -- there are plenty just as eager to point out that little was done to solve tanking, as displayed by the fact that the Oakland Athletics and the Reds (teams that would have been in or near the playoffs in 2021 had it been a 12-team system) decimated their rosters after the lockout.
From a financial perspective, leaders on both sides agree it was a good deal for the players. For all they gave up -- the expanded playoffs, rules changes, advertising on uniforms -- the minimum salary jumped more than $130,000, they gained a bonus pool that enriches younger players and the CBT threshold spiked. Whatever else they could have gained from a prolonged lockout was too big of a gamble for what could have been lost.
The best deals are the ones that leave all parties not happy but not dissatisfied. No deal is perfect. This one was never going to be. There is good, there is bad and there is baseball, and in the end, saving the third won the day.