According to an article by Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal in the Athletic, recently MLB's player's union made a second proposal to MLB owners in an effort to have a new Collective Bargaining Agreement in place before the expiration of the current agreement on December 1.

In the article, Drellich and Rosenthal report that the offer was made on October 29, 2021, during the World Series. Some points that were discussed in this proposal were issues such as the Competitive Balance Tax, Free Agency, "Tanking" and Arbitration.

Related Article: The Nats Report MLB 2022 Free Agency Tracker

Here is a breakdown of some of the key issues:

Arbitration

According to the Athletic, in the Union's first proposal, it would allow players to become eligible for arbitration after two years of MLB service from currently three years. The owners want to eliminate arbitration entirely, and instead create a pool from the game's revenues that would be allocated among players not yet eligible for free agency.

Free Agency

Probably one of the most important issues that the owners and the player union are going to have to work out. In the recent proposal, the union wants to keep eligibility at six years of service for most players, however, the owners want to free agency to begin at a player's age such as 29 1/2 years of age, as opposed to having free agency be determined by playing time.

Tanking & the Draft

Another important discussion point that needs to be addressed is the concept of Tanking. As many observers of baseball and other leagues have noticed, that if a team wants to re-build or is in the process of re-building a team would "tank," so that they could keep payroll down and accumulate as many draft picks as possible.

Tanking has led to fans of teams not getting quality product on the field and fans are left paying high ticket and concession prices for an inferior product, which has led to fans being upset and tunning out. To combat this Major League Baseball has offered that they would impose a rule that teams could not draft in the top five slots three years in a row. Additionally, the MLBPA does want to change how the draft order works while also altering the revenue sharing model that is currently in place as a way to encourage teams to spend more on players' salaries.

Whatever, the issues are and where the players and the league stand on them, both sides need to iron out over the next three weeks so baseball can avoid a lockout if there is no deal at midnight on December 1.

Don't worry, we will have all the latest twists and turns over the next couple of weeks until there is a deal!