MLB cancels opening day as league, players fail to reach agreement to end lockout

Major League Baseball has cancelled opening day, with Commissioner Rob Manfred announcing Tuesday the sport will lose regular-season games over a labour dispute for the first time in 27 years after acrimonious lockout talks collapsed in the hours before management's deadline.

Manfred said he is cancelling the first two series of the season that was set to begin March 31, dropping the schedule from 162 games to likely 156 games at most. Manfred said the league and union have not made plans for future negotiations. Players won't be paid for missed games.

"My deepest hope is we get an agreement quickly," Manfred said. "I'm really disappointed we didn't make an agreement."

After the sides made progress during 13 negotiating sessions over 16-½ hours Monday, the league send the players' association a "best and final offer" Tuesday on the ninth straight day of negotiations.

Players rejected that offer, setting the stage for MLB to follow through on its threat to cancel opening day.

"Today is a sad day," union leader Tony Clark said. "The reason we are not playing is simple: a lockout is the ultimate economic weapon."

At 5:10 p.m., Manfred issued a statement that many fans had been dreading: Nothing to look forward to on opening day, normally a spring standard of renewal for fans across Canada and the U.S. The Toronto Blue Jays will miss their season-opening series in Baltimore as well as their home opener against Tampa Bay.

The ninth work stoppage in baseball history will be the fourth that causes regular season games to be cancelled, leaving Fenway Park and Dodger Stadium as quiet in next month as Joker Marchant Stadium and Camelback Park have been during the third straight disrupted spring training.

"The concerns of our fans are at the very top of our consideration list," Manfred said.

Sides argue over money

The union said later Tuesday that it will push for cancelled games to be rescheduled when talks resume.

"To say they won't reschedule games if games are cancelled or they won't pay players for those games that are cancelled is solely their position," union chief negotiator Bruce Meyer said of the league. "They're not legally required to take those positions. ... We would have a different position."

The lockout, in its 90th day, will plunge a sport staggered by the coronavirus pandemic and afflicted by numerous on-field issues into a self-inflicted hiatus over the inability of players and owners to divide a $10 billion US industry.

By losing regular-season games, scrutiny will fall even more intensely on Manfred, the commissioner since January 2015, and Tony Clark, the former all-star first baseman who became union leader when Michael Weiner died in November 2013.

"Manfred gotta go," tweeted Chicago Cubs pitcher Marcus Stroman.

The bulk of fan ire on social media was aimed at Manfred, who was spotted practicing his golf swing between bargaining sessions by an Associated Press photographer Tuesday. Others were upset that Manfred was laughing and jovial with reporters at his news conference announcing the cancellation.

"Have no clue how he has the ability to laugh about anything right now," Los Angeles Angels pitcher Michael Lorenzen tweeted. "Mind is blown."

Past stoppages were based on issues such as a salary cap, free-agent compensation and pensions. This one is pretty much solely over money.

This fight was years in the making, with players angered that payrolls decreased by 4 per cent from 2015 through last year, many teams jettisoned a portion of high-priced veteran journeymen in favour of lower-priced youth, and some clubs gave up on competing in the short term to better position themselves for future years.

"This is not just about shifting pieces of the pie around," pitcher Andrew Miller said. "This is about getting the game that we love to work and operate effectively and perform and let us focus on what we like to do."

3rd straight season without full Blue Jays home schedule

The sport will be upended by its second shortened season in three years. The 2020 schedule was cut from 162 games to 60 because of the pandemic, a decision players filed a grievance over and still are litigating. The Blue Jays haven't played a full home schedule since 2019.

The disruption will create another issue if 15 days of the season are wiped out: stars such as Shohei Ohtani, Pete Alonso, Jake Cronenworth and Jonathan India would be delayed an extra year from free agency.

Players would lose $20.5 million in salary for each day of the season that is cancelled, according to a study by The Associated Press, and the 30 teams would lose large sums that are harder to pin down. Members of the union's executive subcommittee stand to lose the most, with Max Scherzer forfeited $232,975 for each regular-season day lost, and Gerrit Cole $193,548.

Scherzer and free-agent reliever Andrew Miller were present for talks. Both stopped to sign autographs for fans as they left Roger Dean Stadium, the vacant spring training home of the St. Louis Cardinals and Miami Marlins where negotiations have been held since the start of last week.

The first 86 games of the 1973 season were cancelled by a strike over pension negotiations, the 1981 season was fractured by a 50-day mid-season strike over free agency compensation rules that cancelled 713 games, and a strike that started in August 1994 over management's attempt to gain a salary cap cancelled the final 669 games and led to a three-week delay of the 1995 season, when schedules were cut from 162 games to 144.

"We're prepared," Miller said. "We've seen this coming in a sense. It's unfortunate, but this isn't new. This is not shocking."

Far apart on key issues

Players and owners entered deadline day far apart on many key issues and unresolved on others. The most contentious proposals involve luxury tax thresholds and rates, the size of a new bonus pool for pre-arbitration players, minimum salaries, salary arbitration eligibility and the union's desire to change the club revenue-sharing formula.

MLB proposed raising the luxury tax threshold from $210 million to $220 million in each of the next three seasons, $224 million in 2025 and $230 in 2026. Players asked for $238 million this year, $244 million in 2023, $250 million in 2024, $256 million in 2025 and $263 in 2026.

MLB proposed $25 million annually for a new bonus pool for pre-arbitration players, and the union dropped from $115 million to $85 million for this year, with $5 million yearly increases.

MLB proposed raising the minimum salary from $570,500 to $675,000 this year, with increases of $10,000 annually, and the union asked for $725,000 this year, $745,000 in 2023, $765,000 in 2024 and increases for 2025 and 2026 based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners.