The new CBA ratified by Major League Baseball (MLB) and the MLBPA on December 14, 2016 ensures that the MLB will avoid a work stoppage from 1995 to 2021, the longest such period in major American professional sports history. There were some major and minor changes to the new CBA.
One of the major changes involved the highly controversial provision involving home field advantage in the World Series. The old CBA awarded home field to the team representing the league who won the All-Star Game that season. The new CBA changes this provision to the team that held the better record at the end of the regular season. Another change lengthens the regular season to give players four extra days off, which addresses another popular topic: player safety. The MLB and the MLBPA also showed a desire to continue to eliminate performance enhancing drugs as they increased the random drug testing by 50%. Two other major changes is an increase in international play (including Cuba, Mexico, Asia, Dominican Republic, and London) and a ban on smokeless tobacco except for players who were on played in the MLB in 2016 or were earlier grandfathered in.
One of the minor changes modestly increases the minimum salary annually by $27,500. Additionally, the CBA increases the penalty for teams that our $20 million and $40 million over the salary cap. The CBA forbids a team to make more than one qualifying offer to the same player and the time period for designating a player for assignment was decreased from 10 days to seven days.
See more details about the changes in the new CBA here.
The most interesting provision from my standpoint as a former professional athlete is the addition of an “anti-bullying” and “anti-hazing” policy. The anti-bullying policy reads: “Players may not engage in a pattern of verbal or physical conduct that is designed to demean, disgrace or cause mental or physical harm to a member of his club.” The anti-hazing policy includes language that bans forcing rookies to drink alcohol or take drugs, encouraging taunting or excessive exercise, and coercing rookies to do things that are illegal or dangerous. It also forbids “dressing up as women or wearing costumes that may be offensive to individuals based on their race, sex, nationality, age, sexual orientation, gender identify or other characteristic.”
These policies certainly have the potential to cause rifts in locker rooms amongst teammates, and they call many of the rookie “hazing” practices into question. Some of these include forcing rookies to: pay for certain dinners; dress up in costumes while they travel through an airport; and clean up the clubhouse or do certain chores for the veterans. However, the anti-hazing provision also includes the following: The purpose of this policy is not to prohibit all traditions regarding rookies or players, but rather to prohibit conduct that may cause players physical anguish or harm, may be offensive to some players, club staff or fans, or are distracting to the operation of the club or MLB. The problem with this qualifying language is, of course, its ambiguity. The reality is that what is “offensive” is completely subjective in that something may be offensive to one player while not being offensive to another player. It will be interesting to see how the MLB and neutral arbitrators regulate this policy and the analysis they use to determine was what is “offensive” or not.
See more details on the anti-hazing and anti-bullying provisions here.
*The views expressed herein are those solely of the author.