Changes in CBA include All-Star rules
You can put a price on victory: $20,000.
That’s the bonus each player on the winning AllStar team will earn starting next season, one of a host of details unveiled when Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association confirmed a new collective-bargaining agreement through the 2021 season.
The league will use cash, rather than the lure of home-field advantage in the World Series, to try to motivate players to give it their all for their league in an exhibition game.
The average major league salary on opening day last season was $4.4 million, or about $24,000 per day for the 183-day season.
The league also announced that All-Star rosters would be made up of 32 players, 20 position players and 12 pitchers, with the commissioner’s office rather than the All-Star managers making the final few selections for rosters.
The amount teams can spend on players without paying luxury taxes rises each year, from $195 million in 2017 to $210 million in 2021. The maximum penalty remains a 50 percent tax on the amount over the threshold. The Los Angeles Dodgers are expected to pay about $30.5 million on a $250-million payroll for 2016; they would pay $36.65 million next season.
Players given qualifying offers have 10 days to accept or reject them, not seven days. No player can be given a qualifying offer more than once. Teams no longer give up a first-round draft choice to sign a free agent who had received a qualifying offer.
Teams will be limited to from $4.75 million to $5.75 million per year on total bonuses for international amateurs, weighted in favor of small-revenue teams, though those pools “will grow with industry revenue.”
The number of random drug tests will increase from 3,200 to 4,800 during the season and from 350 to 1,550 during the winter, the latter ensuring that each player will be subject to at least one random off-season test.
Others details of the new CBA include a smokeless tobacco ban and other details.
Athletics
Oakland will be phased out of revenue sharing in the coming years as part of baseball’s new labor deal, and that puts even more urgency on the small-budget franchise’s plan to find the right spot soon to build a new, privately funded ballpark. The A’s revenue-sharing funds will be cut to 75 percent next year, 50 percent in 2018, 25 percent in 2019 and then phased out as part of the five-year agreement.
Angels
Albert Pujols had surgery on his right foot, possibly sidelining him past opening day. Pujols had a procedure to release his plantar fascia, the ligament connecting the heel to the toes.
Elsewhere
Tyson Ross was among 35 players who became free agents when their teams declined to offer 2017 contracts. Washington outfielder Ben Revere and Philadelphia outfielder Cody Asche also were among those cut loose