MLB, union announce new labor deal

The owners and union have peacefully agreed to a new deal that will last until December 11, 2001! Here are some of the highlights:

• Revenue sharing remains very much the same. As was the case this year, next year larger-revenue clubs will transfer $325 million in local revenue to the smaller revenue-generating franchises. Because the industry is generating more money, the straight pool of 34 percent will decrease to 31 percent in the new deal, but actually transfer more funds from top to bottom.
• The competitive balance tax levels remain the same: 22.5 percent the first time a team exceeds the threshold, 30 percent the second time and 40 percent the third time. But if a team exceeded the threshold under the previous contract, it will continue to pay at the higher rate. The Yankees, for example, were over the threshold for all four years of the expiring agreement and will remain paying at a 40 percent rate for the five-year length of the new agreement unless they stay below the threshold in any given year. Then it would revert to 30 percent the next year. The threshold will increase from $136.5 million this year to $148 million next year and then continue to grow at approximately 4.7 percent a year from there until 2011.
• After Major League players file for free agency in the one-week period that begins at midnight the day after the World Series, all subsequent deadline dates are eliminated: Dec. 7 (for club to offer arbitration), Dec. 19 (for players to accept), Jan. 8 (last day the old club could re-sign its own free agent) and May 1 (first day a club's former player could re-sign with its former club if he went past Jan. 8 date). Also, the tender date for clubs to offer contracts to all players has been moved up from Dec. 20 to Dec. 12. And players traded in the middle of a multi-year contract can no longer demand a trade.
• The debt/service rule, in which clubs cannot borrow to pay existing debt, remains the same.
• As far as the June First-Year Draft is concerned, teams will now get same-slot compensation if they don't sign their draft picks, meaning if a team fails to sign it's No. 3 pick in one draft, it will get the 3(a) pick in the next year's draft. More important, teams will no longer have until the next draft to sign their picks, but must do so by the following Aug. 15 or the player goes back into the pool. Minor League players that fall under the Rule 5 Draft can now be protected from an extra year. Currently players with four to five years of experience can be selected. It will increase to five to six years.
  
• Type C Major League free agents will no longer carry draft pick compensation for the club that loses the player, beginning this year, while Type A and Type B free agents will continue to carry compensation. Next year the Type A and Type B pools shrink. Right now, Pool A is the top 30 percent at their position, but in succeeding with decrease to 20 percent. Pool B is the top 50 percent, but it will decrease from 21 percent to 40 percent.
• The MLB minimum salary increases from $327,000, plus cost of living this year, to $380,000 next year. After that it goes to $390,000 for 2008, $400,000 for 2009 and 2010, and $400,000 plus cost of living adjustments for 2011.
• The, "This Time it Counts," formula stipulating that the league, which wins the All-Star Game gets home-field advantage in the World Series, will continue under the new agreement.
• The Commissioner's discretionary fund remains at $10 million a year.
  

Good to hear we'll be getting something back for losing Zito to free agency!