The Athletics prints some details of the first face-to-face negotiation between MLB and the MLBPA. (Link may require a subscription.) MLB wants to trade a lower luxury tax threshold for a salary floor:

The plan included a new tax on team spending, one that would both effectively lower the first luxury-tax threshold in the sport to $180 million, and charge teams who exceed that first mark a higher percentage than they pay today. One trade-off, people briefed on the league’s proposal said, would be a salary minimum of $100 million in the sport.

TheAthletic.com

Some of the money from the tax would go toward helping teams meet the floor.

I have to believe that MLB would want something like this because the think it will make the game more competitive. If rich teams can’t spend a lot of money, and poorer teams have to spend more, one would infer that it would be more difficult to construct a super team, or tear down a team to tank.

The unintended consequence, however, might be the rich teams just spending more on player development. So they spend the money in the amateur markets, bringing in the best players they can find so they always have a super pipeline of talent. So ten years from now we’re back where we always seem to be, the big market teams being power houses.

I am still for getting rid of all these cap and floor ideas, and just make all players free agents, from amateurs, through the minor leagues, and whenever a contract runs out. No draft, no reserve clause. No system to game, no reason for clubs to cheat on what they spend on foreign players. If the sides keep making things more restrictive, nothing they’ve done so far is working that well. Clean the slate and start over.