Major League Baseball canceled two more regular season series Wednesday as its lockout neared Day 100, and players, teams and fans were left to ponder a 2022 season minus at least a dozen games on their schedules. 
Although significant progress was made in four days of bargaining in New York between MLB teams and the players union, the two sides couldn’t reach a deal after MLB’s insistence that an international draft be included in the collective bargaining agreement – or that the CBA be reopened after the 2024 season.
That brought to a halt negotiations that saw the sides pull maddeningly close on key issues such as the luxury tax ceiling and minimum salary. MLB insisted that the international draft was included in every previous proposal – while the MLBPA noted it had been rejected every time.
“In a last-ditch effort to preserve a 162-game season, this week we have made good-faith proposals that address the specific concerns voiced by the MLBPA and would have allowed the players to return to the field immediately,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “The Clubs went to extraordinary lengths to meet the substantial demands of the MLBPA.  On the key economic issues that have posed stumbling blocks, the Clubs proposed ways to bridge gaps to preserve a full schedule.  Regrettably, after our second late-night bargaining session in a week, we remain without a deal.
“Because of the logistical realities of the calendar, another two series are being removed from the schedule, meaning that Opening Day is postponed until April 14th. We have the utmost respect for our players and hope they will ultimately choose to accept the fair agreement they have been offered.”
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The MLBPA, in its own statement, called the cancelling of additional games “completely unnecessary” and that players still had not heard back from the league after making what it termed “a set of comprehensive proposals to the league” earlier Wednesday.
For now, the nearly 200 total games wiped off the slate represent the third-largest number of games lost to a work stoppage – surpassed only by the 713 cancellations in the 1981 strike and the 948 lost in the 1994-95 strike/lockout. 
Now, just two years after the pandemic kicked season openers from March to July, MLB faces a delay of its own making: Opening Day, barring a quick settlement and rescheduling, will likely be pushed back to April 14. 
This time, yet another MLB-created deadline sparked discourse among owners and the MLB Players’ Association, but could not spark a deal.
The league intimated Monday evening that it would come up from its apparently entrenched $220 million luxury tax ceiling – easily the biggest sticking point in these talks – to $228 million and rising to $238 million in the fifth year, matching the players’ first-year ask that culminates in a proposed $263 million ceiling in 2026. 
Yet union officials struck a cautious tone Monday on the luxury-tax upgrade until seeing what more it was tied to in an overall MLB proposal. 
On Wednesday, MLB moved further on the luxury tax, bumping its 2022 offer to $230 million – a $20 million increase from 2021 and $16 million over its original $214 million offer. That closed the gap between the sides to a point realistic enough that a deal seemed plausible – the union seeking $232 million and topping out at $250 million in year five, with MLB at $230 million and $242 million, respectively.
Yet MLB’s insistence that an international draft – which would likely suppress the earning power of top teenage prospects in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela who sign as young as 16 years old – was enough to kill all that momentum.
As part of the bargaining, MLB insisted it reattach draft-pick compensation to free agents unless the union agreed to the international draft. That was the deal-altering provision the union feared earlier in the week.
According to a baseball official with direct knowledge of the negotiations, the union offered a middle lane that could have paved the way to a deal: Remove draft pick compensation, while giving both parties until Nov. 15 to agree to an international draft.
If the parties could not reach agreement, then draft pick compensation comes back after the 2022-23 offseason – giving players just one year with no compensation attached to free agency – and the current international amateur system remains.
The official spoke to USA TODAY Sports on condition of anonymity to candidly discuss negotiations.
Now? Back to the bargaining table again, with players facing another uphill climb to restore a full schedule, full pay and full service time.
After the league’s previous CBA expired, MLB locked players out on Dec. 2, calling it a “defensive” maneuver that aimed to spark negotiations. Instead, the sides did not exchange proposals for 43 days and movement was minimal until an eight-day run of negotiations in Jupiter, Florida at the end of last month. 
Yet while those sessions produced at least a temporary agreement on expanded playoffs, MLB’s luxury tax offers did not move the union sufficiently to strike a deal, and Manfred on March 1 announced the first slate of cancellations. 
Meanwhile, hundreds of free agents remain unsigned and the more than 700 players who are MLBPA members continue working out on their own or at an MLBPA camp in Arizona, awaiting a spring training that will be delayed at least one month, with exhibitions wiped out until at least March 18.
And a 162-game regular season is rapidly fading from view.
Contributing: Bob Nightengale

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