2021 Major League Baseball lockout

Collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) between Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), the labor union, business, and charitable foundation of MLB players, are typically ratified on a five-year basis, with the most recent CBA ratified on December 1, 2016.[1] MLB and the Players Association then had until 11:59 p.m. EST on December 1, 2021, to ratify the next five-year CBA.[2] The CBA affects all of the economic aspects of an MLB season, including the length of the season, the per diem that players may receive on a road trip, and the semantics of both free agency and salary arbitration.[3] The most recent prior MLB work stoppage was a strike that lasted from 1994 to 1995 and resulted in the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.[4] The last time the owners had initiated a lockout of the players was 1990.[5] The most recent prior dispute between MLB and the players' union was in 2020, as players and teams debated how to restructure a season affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.[6]

Player demands

Tony Clark (left), executive director of the players' union, with Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend (center) and Rob Manfred (right), the Commissioner of Baseball, in 2016

In a November meeting, the MLBPA drafted a proposal for the upcoming CBA with a number of demands that would expand player control over the terms of their contract, particularly for younger players, who are under control of the team that drafts them for the first six years of their professional baseball career.[7] Of particular concern to the players' union was the ongoing trend of tanking, in which teams intentionally choose not to sign talented players in the hopes that they will finish with a losing season and receive higher compensation in future MLB drafts. The union has argued that tanking reduces competitive integrity within MLB and incentivizes teams with no intention of winning games.[8] MLBPA executive director Tony Clark has also voiced a desire to create new systems that would increase compensation for talented young players, and the union has been vocally disapproving of a salary cap.[9]

Rob Manfred, the Commissioner of Baseball

Many MLB teams, fearing the freeze in contract signings that would arise in a lockout, scrambled to sign prominent free agents at the end of November. More than $1.9 billion in new contracts were signed during the free agency period before the lockout, including a one-day record of $1.4 billion in contracts signed on December 1.[13]

At 10:00 a.m. CST on November 30, 2021, one day before the CBA was set to expire, the MLBPA made its economic proposal to MLB at the Four Seasons hotel in Irving, Texas. MLB owners and negotiators then discussed the proposal independently, and both sides reconvened at 3:00 p.m. for additional negotiations.[11] Talks resumed for seven minutes on the afternoon of December 1 before ending abruptly. The union rejected the league's proposal to drop certain demands, including alterations to the free agency process. Negotiations came to a halt when league representatives Dan Halem and Richard Monfort left the hotel.[14] That evening, MLB owners voted unanimously to enact a lockout upon the expiration of the 2016 CBA.[15]

The lockout officially began at 12:01 a.m. EST on December 2, 2021, announced via a press release from Rob Manfred, the Commissioner of Baseball.[16][17] It instituted a transaction freeze, including the postponement of the major league portion of the Rule 5 draft. It would be the first year since 1920 to not have a major league phase of the Rule 5 draft, though the minor league phase went ahead as scheduled.[18][19]

As to not use their likenesses for commercial purposes absent a CBA, all official Major League Baseball properties removed imagery of active players, including player headshots, from their content upon its expiration. MLB.com (which had not yet launched at the time of the last lockout) is primarily publishing retrospective-based articles, while MLB Network eventually suspended all regular offseason studio programming in favor of only carrying documentaries and classic game broadcasts. As a show of solidarity, some players changed their avatars on social media accounts to the generic silhouette image being used on MLB.com.[20][21]