Morning Mound Visit: MLB again balks at union’s reasonable proposal

After a four-hour meeting on Monday, the MLBPA presented a counter-proposal on Tuesday, but little progress was made toward a new CBA. The players made slight concessions regarding the draft lottery and arbitration eligibility for players with less than three years of service time. Originally, the players wanted the worst eight teams in the league to enter into the lottery for draft order, but they dropped that to seven. In addition, the union is now asking for 75 percent of players between two and three years of service time to reach arbitration eligibility. That’s down from 80 percent.

The players stood firm on increasing the minimum salary for players. The league’s proposed increase to pre-arb player pay doesn’t keep up with inflation. There was no new proposal on the competitive balance tax, which many are taking as a sign that a deal isn’t especially close.

Kris Willis | Talking Chop: When the offseason began, it was unthinkable that Freddie Freeman would leave Atlanta. Fresh off a World Series win, the face of the franchise was going to stick around, but it appears Atlanta doesn’t want to give him a sixth year. According to a report from Buster Olney, “there is a growing belief that Freeman will land somewhere outside of Atlanta.”

Zachary Hayes | Baseball Prospectus $: Rob Manfred’s existence has a lot of people asking, “Why does this guy exist?” The current MLB commissioner is a self-proclaimed employee of the owners even though the role is supposed to be more of a neutral mediator. Looking at the history of commissioners, however, we see that no commissioner has ever been neutral.