MLB Gives MLBPA Updated Deadline for CBA Agreement to Start 2022 Season on Time

Major League Baseball told the MLB Players Association that the two sides need to come to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement by Monday, February 28, in order for the season to begin on time.

Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported that news Thursday, and Evan Drellich of The Athletic confirmed the date.

According to ESPN's Jeff Passan, the sides "intend to hold multiple bargaining sessions" next week in advance of the Feb. 28 deadline. 

Pitchers and catchers were supposed to start reporting Tuesday, but that did not happen with MLB locking the players out sans a new agreement. The lockout began on Dec. 2, 2021, after the previous CBA expired without a new one in place.

Spring training is currently scheduled to begin February 26, but as Nightengale wrote, that appears "all but impossible" at this point.

Drellich added that it's "unclear" if MLBPA agrees that Feb. 28 is the right cut-off date, but he also noted that "there cannot be much wiggle room, a few days at most." Drellich further wrote that four weeks of spring training are needed to ramp up for the season.

Opening Day is currently scheduled for Thursday, March 31. All 30 teams are slated to play that day.

Both sides met Thursday in New York for a 15-minute session. Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post provided some context behind the meeting's brevity in addition to more details.

As far as the issues are concerned, James Wagner of the New York Times summarized some of them in a Dec. 4 article.

"Although star players are setting contract records in a system without a hard salary cap—a mechanism present in the other major North American professional sports leagues—players feel owners aren’t struggling as much as they say they are; that too many teams are receiving tens of millions in revenue sharing from their counterparts yet purposefully aren’t competing for playoff spots; that the industry has grown but the average major-league salary (roughly $4 million) has remained flat or dropped; that younger, cheaper players are being relied on more than ever and having their service time manipulated."

"Owners, though, believe baseball players have the best deal in professional sports and point to this off-season’s free-agent spending, which was on pace to set a record, as one point in that argument."

For more information, ESPN's Jeff Passan also did a Q-and-A with readers on Twitter Thursday that divulged some insight about where things currently stand.

This marks the ninth work stoppage in MLB history and first since the 1994-95 strike that ultimately canceled the final month-and-a-half of the 1994 regular season, the entire 1994 postseason and the beginning of the 1995 regular season.

This is also the first lockout since 1990 and fourth overall. None of the lockouts have resulted in canceled games as of now.

If the two sides do end up coming to an agreement at a moment that would enable the season to begin on time, then the St. Louis Cardinals will visit the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park to begin the season on March 31 at 1:05 p.m. ET.