MLB Union's Proposal Doesn't Include Salary Cap

The Major League Baseball Players Association opened a new round of labor talks on Wednesday with a sweeping economic plan that sidesteps team owners' push for a hard salary cap. In its first formal proposal to MLB, the Major League Baseball Players Association called for higher minimum salaries, changes to revenue sharing, and a new penalty on low-spending teams, while preserving the existing luxury-tax-based framework, ESPN reports. The plan seeks to raise the minimum salary from $780,000 to $1.5 million by 2027, lift the first Competitive Balance Tax threshold from $244 million to $300 million, and eliminate the qualifying-offer system.

Baseball's response to the players was not encouraging for anyone hoping to avert a lockout when the current contract expires on Dec.1. "We understand their proposals are designed to benefit players," MLB spokesman Glen Caplin said in a statement, per CBS Sports. "Unfortunately, they do not address and in fact exacerbate the competitive balance problem our fans are telling us we must address," he added. The union presented its proposal during a bargaining session at its office in Manhattan, per the AP. The owners expect to propose a salary cap on Thursday, their first hard-cap plan since negotiations that led to the 1994-95 strike and the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.

The union's plan would create a "competitive integrity tax" on clubs with payrolls under $150 million and shift revenue sharing toward local media income and away from stadium-related revenue, per ESPN. "Attendance, viewership, interest—by any measure you want to use, our game is moving in a positive direction," Baltimore pitcher Chris Bassitt, one of the negotiators, said in a statement. "We've put forward proposals designed to continue that trend."