MLB Regular Season Start Date in Peril as CBA Squabble Continues

Major League Baseball's owners and the MLB Players Union met again on Thursday.

For 15 minutes.

And that was it.

Nothing substantial was accomplished in the meeting, as both sides remain far apart on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.  Already the start of Spring Training, which was supposed to start earlier this week, has come and gone, and there is no telling right now when Spring Training will begin. Once a new CBA is agreed up, the off-season will have to be completed as there are number of prominent players who didn't sign contracts before the CBA expired in December, who remain free agents.

After another unproductive session, MLB warned the players union that it would need to agree to a new CBA by February 28 were it to save the start of the regular season, scheduled for March 31.

According to reports, the Players Union is upset at MLB for slow negotiations.

According to USA Today, there is a belief the lockout could bleed into mid-March, which would guarantee that the season will be shorter than 162 games.

The  latest proposal from the Players Union calls for salary arbitration for the top 80 percent of players with two years of MLB service time, rather than arbitration for all players with at least two years of service time.  In exchange, the union increased their bonus pool proposal for pre-arbitration eligible players from $100 million to $115 million, covering about 150 players.

There were no other modifications on minimum salary, luxury tax, draft lottery or mechanisms to curb service time according to USA Today.