MLB Collective Bargaining Details so far

All from MLB Rumors.com

Roster Size

In one notable realm, there will be no changes. The sides decided against modifying the active roster rules, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports on Twitter. Rosters will remain at 25 players, rather than moving to 26, and September roster expansion will not be curtailed.

Luxury Tax Line

Meanwhile, the luxury tax threshold will rise from $189MM to around $195MM in the 2017 season, Sherman further reports (links to Twitter). It’ll then reach $210MM over the five-year span. ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark provides the full schedule of the luxury tax line, via Twitter (as Rosenthal had previously suggested, also on Twitter). Between the $195MM starting point and $210MM max level, the tax will kick in for the intervening years at $197MM (2018), $206MM (2019), and $208MM (2020).

Additionally, per Sherman, the CBA will impose a sixty to seventy percent penalty for teams that spend well above the luxury tax line — i.e., payrolls north of $250MM. Stark adds that teams that greatly exceed the luxury tax threshold can be penalized at up to a 90 percent tax.

Qualifying Offer

The qualifying offer system has been another area of some uncertainty, and it seems there are some final details to work through there. Here’s the latest reporting, some of which appear to be somewhat conflicting:

A source tells Rosenthal (via Twitter) that the sides are “trying to shuffle around [the] loss of [a] first[-round] pick with [a] player getting [a] deal of $50MM or more.” While it’s a bit difficult to know just what that means, it sounds as if draft compensation could be tied to the ultimate price the market puts on a player.
Alternative reports suggest more of a tweak to the current system. First-rounders won’t be sacrificed in signings of QO-declining players, Jon Morosi of MLB Network tweets. These changes will not apply until the following offseason, Morosi notes on Twitter. All teams will stand to sacrifice draft picks if they sign players who declined qualifying offers, Stark tweets, but at varying levels. Organizations that are over the luxury tax line will punt a second and a fifth-round choice, while those who are under the threshold would stand to sacrifice a third-rounder. That would represent a rather monumental change to the qualifying offer system, as only a few organizations in any given year would be at risk of sacrificing a pick. It would also come with some interesting practical impacts, as teams might conceivably seek to drop under the luxury tax line to avoid the necessity of draft compensation, though of course that won’t be of nearly as much importance if first-round picks are in fact taken off the table.

International

There will indeed be a hard bonus cap for international signings, rather than a draft, Stark reports.


Revenue Sharing

The “performance factor” element of the revenue-sharing system will be removed, per Passan (Twitter links). That had functioned as what Passan terms a “revenue-sharing multiplier,” so its removal will likely mean that large-budget clubs are required to pay less into the pool.