NEW YORK — Negotiations aimed at ending Major League Baseball’s lockout will resume Thursday.
The players’ association notified management Wednesday that it is ready to respond to the offer MLB made last weekend, proposals that were received coolly by the union.
Baseball’s ninth work stoppage, its first since 1995, enters its 78th day Thursday, one day after spring training workouts had been scheduled to start.
There is little chance exhibition games will start as scheduled on Feb. 26, and the work stoppage soon will threaten Opening Day on March 31. Given the need for 21-28 days of training and additional time to report and go through COVID-19 protocols, an agreement by the end of February or early March is needed for an on-time start.
Clubs gave the union 16 documents totaling 130 pages, encompassing all key areas in a mix of new offers and previous proposals. The one-hour session was just the fifth on core economics since the lockout began.
Players and owners remain far apart on luxury tax thresholds and rate. They have major differences on revenue-sharing and how to address players’ allegations of service time manipulation.
MLB said it remains opposed to any increase in salary arbitration eligibility or reduction in revenue sharing.
MLB has proposed the luxury-tax thresholds rise from $210 million last year to $214 million for 2022 and 2023, then increase to $216 million in 2024, $218 million in 2025 and $222 million in 2026.
Players have proposed a $245 million luxury-tax threshold for this year, which would rise to $273 million in 2026.
MLB also has proposed increasing the tax rate from 20% to 50% for a team exceeding the initial threshold, from 32% to 75% for the second threshold and from 62.5% to 100% for the third threshold.
Teams still are asking for non-monetary penalties, which the union thinks is too harsh.
While MLB has proposed a team would lose a second-round pick for going over the second threshold ($234 million this year and next) rather than dropping 10 slots and would forfeit a first-round selection for exceeding the third threshold ($254 million).
The union fears teams would refuse to go over the threshold, prizing draft picks.
Clubs proposed a team losing a free agent would receive draft-pick compensation based on revenue-sharing status and whether a club had been over the threshold.
MLB proposed raising the minimum salary from $570,500 to $630,000 or, alternatively, a tiered minimum of $615,000 for initial major leaguers, $650,000 for players with one year of service and $725,000 for those with two years – the latter an increase from $700,000 in the previous proposal. Players have asked for $775,000 this year, rising to $875,000 by 2026.
MLB as offered a pre-arbitration bonus pool of $15 million, based on WAR, appearances on an all-MLB team and recognition such as best position player, best pitcher and best rookie. The union is at $100 million under a structure that clubs said they would accept.
To address allegations of service time manipulation, over which the union has filed six grievances since 2015, MLB offered to award up to two draft picks – one amateur, one international – for a players’ accomplishments in his first three seasons. The union opposes an international draft.
MLB is at three teams in a proposed draft lottery, while players are at eight. MLB is proposing an expansion of the playoffs from 10 teams to 14, while the union is offering 12.
TRIAL: Defense attorneys rested their case Wednesday without the testimony of a former Los Angeles Angels employee accused of providing the drugs that led to the overdose death of pitcher Tyler Skaggs.
A brief and uneventful presentation from the defense came a day after federal prosecutors concluded their case with the gripping testimony of four major league players acknowledging past drug use while saying they received oxycodone pills from defendant Eric Kay.
Kay, who faces drug distribution and conspiracy charges, obtained oxycodone pills for players and was a user, according to testimony. Pitcher Blake Parker, the last of six witnesses called by the defense, testified that he received opioids from Kay in 2018, the last year Parker played for the Angels.
Closing arguments are scheduled for Thursday, the eighth day of Kay’s trial in downtown Fort Worth, Texas. The federal court is about 15 miles from where the Angels were supposed to play the Texas Rangers when Skaggs was found dead in his suburban Dallas hotel room on July 1, 2019. He was 27.
A coroner’s report said Skaggs had choked to death on his vomit, and a toxic mix of alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone was in his system.
Prosecutors contended Kay was the only one who could have provided the drugs that led to Skaggs’ death, and that the drugs were delivered after the team arrived in Texas. An expert testified for the government that Skaggs died because of the fentanyl, which is significantly more potent than oxycodone.
The defense countered that Skaggs had multiple suppliers, that Kay didn’t give him drugs after the team arrived in Texas and that there’s no way to prove fentanyl caused the death.
Kay faces a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison and maximum of life on the distribution charge resulting in death. The conspiracy count carries a maximum of 20 years.
Parker was emotional when he first took the stand, saying he considered Skaggs a friend and said, “I thought so,” when asked if Kay was a good guy. Parker said he quit asking Kay for pills when Kay said he was trying to quit using oxycodone.
Kay served as the team’s public relations contact on many trips, and the trip to Texas was his first since returning from rehab. Kay was placed on leave shortly after Skaggs’ death and never returned to the team.
Two more former Angels players, infielder Andrelton Simmons and pitcher Trevor Cahill, testified that they saw Skaggs at the hotel the night before he was found dead. Both said Skaggs had mentioned the possibility of going out but they didn’t think he left the hotel.
Garet Ramos, Skaggs’ stepbrother, was asked by the defense if he deleted any texts from Skaggs’ phone when it was given to him by police in the suburb of Southlake, where Skaggs died. Ramos said he didn’t.
The defense has said Ramos deleted a text at the request of Chris Leanos, a friend of Skaggs who acknowledged in testimony that he was a drug dealer. Leanos said he received a text from Skaggs a week or two before the pitcher died asking for oxycodone and Leanos refused, saying he warned Skaggs of the danger of those pills.
Ramos said he couldn’t remember specifics of how he might have helped wean Skaggs off Percocet, a combination of oxycodone and acetaminophen, in 2013.
Skaggs’ mother, Debbie Hetman, testified early in the trial that her son had an issue with Percocet in 2013 and that he quit “cold turkey” at the time.
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