MLB Lockout: Another Deadline Set for Canceling Games

Seven days after Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred canceled a week of regular season games because the league didn’t have a labor agreement with players in place to start the 2022 season, M.L.B. gave the players’ union a new deadline, with a slightly different position than before.

During talks on Monday, league officials told their union counterparts that Tuesday was the new target by which to strike a collective bargaining agreement to squeeze in a 162-game season, which would come with full pay and service time for players, said two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitive nature of the negotiations.

But if no pact was reached on Tuesday night, M.L.B. had been expected to do what it did last week: Cancel regular season games. If that were to happen — an extra week of cancellations was on the table — the sides would have a much harder road ahead: It is unlikely that there would be enough time to reschedule two weeks’ worth of games while keeping the same dates for the World Series in October. In M.L.B.’s eyes, lost games equals less revenue for their clubs, and thus they do not believe they would have to compensate players for those missed contests.

So for the third time in roughly a week, the sides — which have been at odds for months — were on the clock. Each hunkered down at their respective offices in Manhattan, and they continued negotiating deep into the night, building enough momentum to keep talking into the wee hours of Wednesday morning. A little after 3 a.m. Eastern time, a league official said that the union requested time to speak to its board in the morning regarding M.L.B.’s latest proposal and would get back to the league later Wednesday morning.

M.L.B. brought the league to a standstill on Dec. 2 by locking out the players upon the expiration of the previous five-year labor agreement. Manfred said then that he was doing so as a defensive move to protect the 2022 season. And early last month, he said losing regular season games would be “disastrous” for the industry.

Neither outcome has been avoided. This season was scheduled to begin on March 31. Sensing urgency to strike a deal in time to accommodate M.L.B.’s timeline for the season, the sides met in Florida starting Feb. 21 for what turned into nine straight days of negotiating.

When a little momentum was made over 16 ½ hours of talks on Feb. 28 — the final day of negotiations ahead of an ultimatum — M.L.B. extended its self-imposed deadline until 5 p.m. the next day. But players rejected the league’s so-called best and final offer ahead of the deadline, believing it still didn’t sufficiently address their concerns. Soon after 5 p.m., Manfred called off the first two series of the season for all 30 teams — roughly 75 games through April 6.

Since returning to New York, where both organizations are headquartered, M.L.B. and the union have met and exchanged proposals, including multiple times on Tuesday.

On Sunday, after hearing the players’ latest offer, which had modest tweaks, M.L.B. said it had been hoping to see more movement in its direction to get…