ATLANTA — Within the first few minutes of his opening statement to a gathering of baseball writers Tuesday morning, Major League Baseball Players Association Executive Director Tony Clark referenced the power pitching matchup for that evening’s All-Star Game and the level of generational talent throughout the game.
“The game is in a good place,” he said.
The clock is ticking on for how long.
The owners and the players union are already gerrymandering their messages 17 months in advance of what could be baseball’s next labor grapple and second work stoppage in five years. The current collective bargaining agreement, forged at the end of a 99-day lockout in 2021-22, expires on Dec. 1, 2026, and both sides are bracing for another lockout. A core clash was on display Tuesday as MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and Clark held separate conversations with members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Manfred stressed a “fan-driven” concern about payroll disparities and competitive balance.
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Clark hears rhetoric that’s a Trojan horse for salary cap.
“In this instance, when they’re highlighting for you what they’re interested in, then you should believe them,” Clark said. “And if we find ourselves coming to 12:01 on Dec. 1 and they look to lock you out, well, they told us they were going to do that. So prepare accordingly.”
Owners, who have the power to lock out players without a new deal in place, have pursued a salary cap in previous CBA negotiations — never successfully. In 1994, it was the pursuit of a cap structure that contributed to a player strike that cost the World Series.
A former All-Star, Clark described himself as a “pup” during the longest work stoppage in the sport’s history and how it was “over the same issue.”
He drew a line Tuesday on what historically has been a non-starter for the union.
“That is why it’s not about competitive balance. It’s not about fair vs. not. This is institutionalized collusion,” Clark said. “That is what a salary cap is.
“Let’s be very clear, though: A cap is not about a partnership,” he added. “A cap is not about growing the game. That is not what a cap is about. A cap is about franchise value and profits. That is what a cap is about. If there are ways that we need to improve the existing system to polish some rough edges that otherwise exist, we have proposals to do that. A salary cap has historically limited contract guarantees associated with it. It literally pits one player against another, and ... is what the definition of a noncompetitive system. It doesn’t reward excellence. It undermines it.”
Clark and his staff have started their in-season meetings with all 30 teams, and work stoppage preparation is part of the conversation. The union voted to withhold its dispersal of licensing revenue to begin building a chest for a work stoppage.
Manfred has circulated through clubhouse and conversations with players, too.
He insisted he has not used the same term some owners have: salary cap.
He introduces a problem “that we need to work together on, and that is: There are fans in a lot of markets who feel like we have a competitive balance problem,” Manfred said Tuesday. “I never used the word salary within one of cap. What I do say to them in addressing this competitive issue that is real is we should think about this system. Is it the perfect system from a player’s perspective? And my goal there is not to convince them of one system or another but it is to convince that everybody go to the table with an open mind to try to address a problem that is fan-driven. (That) leads to a better collective bargaining process and better outcome.”
The gravitation of star players to tycoon teams has defined the past three years of the current CBA, with Shohei Ohtani setting a contract record to sign with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Juan Soto rewriting that record as he signed with the New York Mets. Payrolls for some of the larger markets dwarf smaller markets. That comes at a time when a revenue stream relied on by teams like the Cardinals has been clogged by the ongoing regional sports network disruption.
The Cardinals saw a cut in their rights fee for this season and upcoming seasons, and they trimmed payroll in response to that and reduced ticket sales.
Manfred said there has been progress toward a stronger, unified broadcast deal for Major League Baseball, with the goal to have it ready for 2028.
He acknowledged that revenue turbulence is only part of the equation.
Franchise value, which Clark mentioned, is inviting questions from owners.
“What about our economic system has put us in a position where our franchise values have not grown as quickly as some other sports?” Manfred said. “And try to figure out how we might fix that.”
Other professional sports leagues, from the NHL to MLB, NBA to NFL, have salary caps. Doing so can require the two sides agreeing on a definition of revenue before carving it up — and that can be combative. The NHL lost an entire season due to a work stoppage when the owners pursued and got a salary-cap system 20 years ago. This past month, the NHL and its players association announced an extension to 2030 of the current CBA months in advance of its expiration.
Past negotiations between MLB owners and the MLBPA have yielded revenue sharing and a luxury tax as soft caps or penalties for spending.
The union has previous proposed a spending floor.
“Let me be clear on this one,” Clark said. “We’ve never been opposed to a floor. Not opposed to a floor. Opposed to what comes with it — or historically has.”
Clark was asked by the Post-Dispatch if the union prefers the open market to grow salaries, and if that can happen with only a handful of teams bidding on players, where does he see an overlap with the union’s goals and competitive balance. Smaller markets incentivized to spend more is one area the union has pursued, sources previous described.
“We have a lot of confidential financial information that I recognize most don’t have,” Clark said. “When we say that all teams can compete and they’re choosing not to, it’s based on the information that we have. And based on the information that we have and the proposals that we’ve made — most particularly in the revenue-sharing area — we believe there are ways to incentivize and provide support to those who are in a different market than an L.A. or New York. There is an opportunity to do that and do so to the benefit of the group that doesn’t require a restriction on player salaries to do so.”
This past October, Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III told the Post-Dispatch when asked that the Cardinals did not need a salary cap to contend in the National League.
“We’re going to compete whether there is a new framework, the same framework or whatever it is,” he said.
This winter will feature negotiations on the next CBA.
By then, there will be one season remaining before the uncertainty of a season at all.
“We don’t know what they’re going to propose,” Clark said. “We know that it is they’re saying they’re interested in. We’ll get in the room, and we’ll see what it is that they propose. The history (of salary caps) is more lockouts, more work stoppages as a result of that system being in place.”
During their annual meetings with BBWAA, the two baseball officials touched on other topics:
- On major league players participating in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles: Players are interested, and the new CBA could carve out a way to do that, plus officials from L.A.’s Olympic coordinator met this week in Atlanta with both MLB and the players union to explore ways to make the best players available.
“It’s doable,” Manfred said. “Let me define ‘possible.’ It is possible to take it, play the All-Star Game in its normal spot, have a single break that would be longer, obviously but still play 162 games without bleeding into the middle of November. That is possible. It would require significant accommodations, but it’s possible.”
Said Clark: “We’re hopeful we can figure out a way.”
On the automated ball-strike (ABS) system used in Tuesday’s All-Star Game and questions about its 1/2-inch margin for error: Clark called ABS in regular-season games “more inevitable than not.”
He called concerns “tangible” and added, “What are going to be the rules around how the ABS system is going to be navigated? Are we looking to get the half inch? Does there need to be some kind of buffer zone consideration? Or do we want to find ourselves in the world where it’s the most egregious misses that we focus on?”
- On ongoing changes to immigration policy and enforcement from the Trump administration, MLB and the union are working together with players who are on work visas. The union has instructed players to carry their documents with them.
“It is a concern,” Clark said.
“I worry about anything that could be disruptive to the very best players in the world being out on the field,” Manfred said. “The prospect of that disruption given that all our players have visas — it’s speculation at this point. We see no evidence of it.”
On the gambling’s increased presence in advertising at the ballpark and an instance already this season of a player being investigated for possible violations of league rules regarding participation in gambling: “We tell players do not (make a) play on baseball, you cannot bet on baseball, stay away from baseball, be cognizant of any bet whether it’s at the professional level, college level, amateur level – you name it,” Clark said. “I think we even talked about winter league. Don’t bet on baseball. That’s what players hear from us.”
