Elephant Rumblings: MLB bumps deadline as CBA talks nearly complete

It’s Tuesday, Athletics Nation!

We don’t have a CBA deal yet, but it’s close.

Yesterday was a long, long day for negotiations. Starting in the morning and continuing past midnight, MLB and MLBPA met a total of thirteen times over sixteen hours before coming to today’s negotiation overtime.

While things seemed like the season’s postponement was inevitable through yesterday morning, the mood shifted in the afternoon as details creeped out and headway was made. One of the initial breaks was actual discussion of the Competitive Balance Tax and some rapid trading of figures. As the evening took over the scuttlebutt shifted to a holdup between the players not wanting to expand playoffs past 12 teams, while the owners were looking for 14 teams in an expanded postseason.

Night grew closer and there was a general optimism growing that the league’s (fairly arbitrary) pre-March deadline could be met. Every time negotiators made a trip across the stadium for another meeting, baseball writers would light up with hope, as well as photos of polo shirt-clad executives.

Just before midnight Florida time, the biggest break of the day seemed to happen, as USA TODAY’s Bob Nightengale tweeted out a series of compromises made during the eleventh meeting: a 12 team expanded postseason, a CBT similar in structure to the last CBA’s, and a little free verse to top it all off.

From there things quieted down a bit, it seemed like a deal was close, but not a sure thing. As midnight approached the west coast, and after a couple more meetings, both sides agreed to call it a night. MLB bumped their deadline for cancelling games to 5pm ET today, so things look like a finalized deal will very likely come together soon.

A’s Coverage

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• Foucek: Looking back at Oakland A’s legend Vida Blue

MLB News & Interest

• Drellich: MLB, MLBPA make progress, but deal is not certain as league pushes deadline to Tuesday ($)
• Passan: Inside the self-inflicted crisis boiling over a MLB’s lockout deadline arrives
• Franco: MLB, NBC Sports Have Discussed Potential Broadcasting Partnership
• Jaffe: MLB’s Deadline Day has arrived - Without A New CBA Deal, Of Course
• Adams: Derek Jeter to step down as Marlins’ CEO
• Today in Baseball History

Best of Twitter

Here’s a breakdown of where a lot of the numbers sit after last night

Looking at what’s left to talk about

How CBT breaks down compared to the past

A late night homage

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