MLB Says Regular-Season Games Will Be Canceled If New CBA Isn't Reached by Feb. 28

Major League Baseball reiterated Wednesday that the Feb. 28 deadline for CBA talks will be a hard deadline, as regular-season games will be canceled if a deal is not reached by then.

That statement comes on the same day that MLB reportedly made a counteroffer to the Players Association's minimum salary proposal.

According to The Athletic's Evan Drellich, the league offered the players a $10,000 increase from $630,000 to $640,000. Drellich stated that the salary would then grow by $10,000 each year.

On Tuesday, the MLBPA proposed a minimum salary that began at $775,000 for 2022 with an annual increase of $30,000, up from its previous proposal of $25,000 per year.

Drellich added that the league withdrew an alternative proposal Wednesday that offered tiered minimum salaries based on how many years of service time a player had. Teams wouldn't have been allowed to pay players more than the minimum under that proposal, but those restrictions were removed in the new offer.

Per Drellich, minimum salary was the only updated proposal from the league to the players Wednesday, though meetings were still ongoing. This continues a trend of slow-moving negotiations, as ESPN's Jesse Rogers reported that Tuesday's meetings yielded "little progress toward a new collective bargaining agreement while the league actually viewed the negotiations as a step back."

According to Rogers, the MLBPA dismissed an idea from the league to involve a federal mediator in their negotiations. It was the second time in two weeks that the union shot down that proposal.

Pitchers and catchers were slated to report Feb. 15, but that obviously didn't happen. With spring training already pushed back from its original Feb. 26 start date, Opening Day is in danger of being delayed.

Rogers stated that there's a belief that the players need at least four weeks of spring training to be properly ready for the regular season, which is scheduled to begin March 31.