TORONTO — At the 11th hour Wednesday night, Major League Baseball and the MLB Player’s Association tentatively settled on a new five-year collective bargaining agreement, avoiding a potential lockout and preserving baseball’s decades-long run of labour harmony.
From his office at Rogers Centre, Blue Jays President and CEO Mark Shapiro watched the process closely. The last thing he and his front office wanted to see was a lockout.
"We’re extremely relieved—we’re happy," Shapiro said Thursday morning after the agreement was reached. "Above anything else, we’re people that love the game of baseball. Our interest is in continuing to work and continuing to build upon the incredible momentum that we’ve all witnessed here the past couple of years. It felt like any interruption of that would have been a real shame and a real disappointment.
"Now, we’ll be able to turn to the more concrete business at hand, which is how this will impact both this offseason and our strategy going forward."
Shapiro was expecting to be briefed about the particulars of the new agreement on a conference call Thursday afternoon. But considering the Blue Jays don’t spend near the luxury tax threshold and don’t qualify for revenue sharing, he didn’t expect to learn anything that would drastically alter his club’s plans this winter or in future years.
"It doesn’t look like anything that is going to happen is going to dramatically impact our off-season," Shapiro said. "I don’t think there’s anything as it pertains to revenue sharing, luxury tax—there was nothing that would have impacted our situation specifically."
Perhaps the only real concern for Shapiro’s Blue Jays was whether changes to the qualifying offer system would affect Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, the two free agent sluggers who declined qualifying offers from Toronto last month. But Shapiro was confident that, while qualifying offers will look vastly different in the coming years, this off-season’s offers will still fall under the old system, meaning the Blue Jays will receive a first round pick if either player signs elsewhere.
Of course, the possibility of Encarnacion and Bautista’s qualifying offer compensation being affected was always far-fetched. With many MLB clubs having already conducted significant off-season business under the parameters of the previous CBA, it would have been nearly impossible to turn that clock back. Shapiro said he was certain player’s union head Tony Clark and MLB’s lead negotiator Dan Halem were cognizant of that at the bargaining table.
"My underlying belief is that Dan Halem is a really, really bright person and has really smart people around him that understand the implication of every single decision being made there and how it would impact people trying to operate clubs," Shapiro said. "There is not any detail that they’re overlooking."
As negotiations between players and owners continued throughout November and right up until Wednesday night’s deadline, many speculated about the possibility of a lockout. That scenario would have essentially cancelled next week’s Winter Meetings in Washington and brought the off-season to a halt. Some suggested the threat of a lockout was more bluster than substance, and that neither side would risk bringing a $10 billion industry to a standstill. Shapiro says it’s all part of the process.
"I don’t think it was a red herring. I think it’s a natural part of a negotiation process. Everybody has different levers they can pull in a negotiation," Shapiro said. "The questions had to be asked. There’s unease in everybody’s stomach when you ask them. How important are these issues to us and our business? How important are these to what we feel is in the best interests of the game? What are we willing to endure in order to push things forward?
"I think, ultimately, you’re arming a team of negotiators—four owners and a lot of officials from MLB—to operate in a vacuum where you’re getting a phone call once or twice a day and that’s about it. But they’re negotiating. They need to have a good understanding of where everybody is. And one of the questions they’re trying to get a feel for are: is there anything that is being discussed that is worth the consideration of a lockout?"
Some MLB executives—including Boston Red Sox President Dave Dombrowski, whose club spent nearly $200 million on payroll last season— ruminated publicly about putting off any significant offseason moves until they understood the parameters of the new CBA. While his club has already made a significant transaction this winter, signing designated hitter Kendrys Morales to a three-year deal, Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins admitted the labour tension was a factor in discussions with free agents. He expects the certainty of a new CBA to help expedite activity at next week’s Winter Meetings.
"I’m sure that there was some impact just given how much everyone was talking about [the new CBA.] If nothing else, it was a distraction," Atkins said. "It came up in many discussions that we had. So, I’m sure it had some effect. I would expect things to pick up a bit."