Oh, an opportunity to chime in first.

I'm pretty sure this thread may get anti Yankee with the release of the details of this labour agreement.

However, I think folks have to keep in mind that it is a deal made between two sides. The MLBPA and the owners. A deal made quietly and seemingly with no duress on either side.

I suspect that the Royals, Pirates, Brewers, A's and Jays among others, all had their say. So I think it will be pretty hard to blame this all on Steinbrenner and Selig.

With that said if I'm a low to mid-market fan I'm not a happy camper today.

Period of time before a Player must be protected from the Rule 5 Draft is changed from three or four years from first minor league season to four or five years from year of signing.

So Dustin McGowan is under the Jays control for one more year? (or the chances of that happening are much more likely?)

The new CBA was officially announced today.  It's a great CBA for Yankee fans because luxury tax thresholds are going up, not down.

The draft system still doesn't address the Scott Boras factor. Basically some of his clients will continue to slide in the draft because of bonus demands. Of course these players usually get selected by big market/payroll teams.

From a Jays perspective, the most interesting nugget is this "Commissioner's Discretionary Fund will continue at $10 million per year, with cap of $3 million per Club per year."

The Jays recieve 5 million each season from Uncle Bud but this will no longer be the case. There is a new cap set at 3 million so the Jays will lose at least 2 million next season compared to this season.

If the Jays bump their payroll up to around 90 million next season, I wonder if the Jays will recieve any money at all. Although I guess they could tell Bud "We lost over 25 million dollars last season according to our accountants".

I have to applaud the MLBPA and the owners for getting this quickly resolved with no public mud-slinging.  It's obvious the Players Union and the majority of owners are very happy with the current economic framework. The current CBA has allowed virtually every team that is well managed to compete for a playoff spot/World Series. As a big baseball fan, I'm happy there won't be a work stoppage in the next 5 seasons.

So Dustin McGowan is under the Jays control for one more year? (or the chances of that happening are much more likely?)

If you are looking for another option year for McGowan, this has nothing to do with that.  You don't have to be added to the 40-man roster as quickly to avoid the Rule 5 draft.   Once you are on the 40-man roster, nothing else changes.

Forget about Yankee/Non-Yankee stuff (the Yankees will be more constrained by their lagging revenues and their losses than by lowering the luxury tax).   What's important is the deal.

The fact that a deal (and for five years!) could be done without threats from either side is simply tremendous.  Nothing could point more accurately to the tremendous health of the baseball industry.

I'm interested in the changes to the draft.  It looks like there will no longer be 'draft and follow' since they can no longer draft someone and watch them over the course of the year to decide if they wish to make them an offer.  The new agreement says that they must do it by August 15 or the player goes back into the draft pool.  The flip side of it is if they don't manage to sign the player that they get a compensatory pick at the same level the following draft.

The other piece of interesting news from the agreement is the expansion of the number of years before a player is elegible for the rule 5 draft.  The addition of 1 more year is interesting as it adds further control by the clubs over their minor leaguers and of course gives them that much more opportunity to evealute them.  On the downside for the minor league players is it decreases their odds of getting around a road block such as a star player at their position at the major league level.

The Jays recently dropped their Pulaski team and the thought was they would take more draft and follows in the draft.  There goes that theory.  They still could take JuCo guys but they would only have the summer leagues to evaluate them, not a full JuCo season.

Further, with high school draftees now being ineligible for the Rule 5 draft, without being on the 40 man, for 5 years rather than 4, there is more of an incentive for teams to develop their own pitching and control the workload, rather than drafting college pitching.  If a team is planning to go this route, they certainly need a rookie league affiliate. Perhaps there will be some sharing of teams...

Well, now the Jays have another year to think about Yates, Cannon, Thigpen, Purcey and Klosterman... I'm not sure if there are many, if any, prospects that now need to be protected. It should be a fairly quiet Rule 5 draft.

A good summary of the CBA at BA as it impacts the draft & minor leaguers.

The BA article points out that the tweaking of the type A and type B standards takes effect next year.  For this year, type A remains top 30% and type B remains 31-50%. 

I think this is a great deal for baseball in general.  I'm  less sanguine about this agreement   for teams stuck in the A.L. East with the Yankees, who primarily through their prolifigate spending ways, have made the post season the last 12 years in a row.

Now I think "lagging Yankee revenues" will only be short term. Once the new stadium is complete, with all its potential for luxury box revenue, the Yankees should be fine depending on how much help they get in  paying for  this new facility.

I think their reaction to the luxury tax cap is a tantamount concern to their division rivals. The cap is set at $148 million for 2007. If the Yankees pick up the options on Mussina, Sheff,  Riveria and Posada they'll be at $173 million with only 14 players under contract. Every dollar they spend over $148 million will cost them in effect $4, so if there' s a revenue crunch maybe this will slow them down( e.g.signing Zito at $15 million actually will cost them $ 21  million/year ).  The big question is, can the Yanks  write-off the cost of the new stadium against their revenue sharing, as has been mentioned in the prior labor agreement?

At the very least, the generous revenue sharing elements of this deal, while not quite as good as those in the N.F.L. , means that even if the Jays fall on hard times, they won't follow the Expos  south.