Not Much Hope That Owners, Players Will Avoid Lockout
Jeff Passan had some words on the 2027 MLB season Thursday morning, adding to some of his previous ideas on the subject. Passan seems to think a lockout is inevitable and that ownership is willing to sacrifice the early part of the season, or even all of it, in pursuit of their goal. The NLRB and the courts are pro-management at this time, which is no surprise given the current political climate.
@iamtrevormay Why players think there be a lockout in 2027 #MLB #Baseball #Lockout
“Get ready to see a bunch of schoolteachers and whatnot out there, because we’re not playing if there’s a cap,” an NL infielder on a lucrative contract said.
The owners group would like to de-certify the MLBPA. They plan to keep the antitrust clause, which hasn’t been worthwhile since before its inception. We’ll have more words about that another time, if you like.
Passan doesn’t think the sport needs some kind of seismic change to get with the times. But that will be outweighed by management’s desires, it seems. The whole deal has been hastened by the Dodgers’ $340 million payroll — the luxury tax level on this is more than 15 MLB teams’ payrolls. Clearly unsustainable. Passan has tried to get any of the owners to talk to him, to no avail. They ain’t into it.
“We’re not missing games. I’m holding onto that hope,” a reliever in a union leadership role said. “We’re gonna put that out there and see what happens.”
I also watched more video by former MLB pitcher Trevor May, who I can recommend as an interesting watch. May’s piece is more solution-oriented, as he tries to figure out how to make things work without a salary cap and the opening of the books that would be necessary to get that to happen.
I did a feature last year about the Ricketts family being among the ownership drivers of the salary cap notion, but Passan has been sounding the alarm for even longer. So has Ken Rosenthal from his Foul Territory pulpit. Hell, both of them have been pounding the point home since the last round of negotiations in 2022.
Finally, MLBPA’s Bruce Meyer said a few syllables. This isn’t good. Meyer isn’t Marvin Miller, and Tony Clark et al may have buried the union too deep for them to dig out. Sonia Sotomayor has a new job and won’t be available to sort this one out herself.
I could summarize these videos, but it would be unseemly to put my words in these people’s mouths. I abjure thee to watch and learn, in your own good time. Manfred hates baseball. So did Bud Selig. The Brewers have pushed for a cap since 2008, when Mark Attanasio opined that a cap would be necessary to maintain balance. Surely that dripped from the fangs of the previous occupant of his office.
There’s already heavy betting on the outcome of this next round of negotiations. MLB has proposed a hard salary cap of $245.3 million and a salary floor of $171.2 million for 2027, but the union has repeatedly opposed a salary-cap system. The league argues that the system would address the enormous payroll disparity between teams.
That’s it in a nuthouse, I mean nutshell.
