Major League Baseball on October 8th issued a statement regarding their latest proposal in collective bargaining talks, which involved a shortened 154-game season (down from 162), extending the Division Series round to a seven-game series (instead of five), as well as allowing highest-seeded team in each respective league to choose their first opponent in the playoffs.
It is pretty easy, depending on who and where you are getting your information, to decipher which side of the political isle — insofar as it relates to the publicity battle between players and owners — they are on. As one example: Yahoo! Sports published an article by Adam Martin where he writes, ‘I like MLB’s ideas, and I hope the MLBPA does, too, because based on what I’ve seen, the fans think this is a good proposal from the league.’
On the other hand you take an article from CBS Sports, written by Matt Snyder, where he writes: ‘[The] owners know a salary cap is a non-starter for the players as things currently stand. So they can keep their offer on the table and float a bunch of new ideas that the general public and baseball fandom might like. And then it looks like, ‘”hey, the owners are playing ball, but those damn greedy players aren’t!”‘
We can never forget that the owners are absolute beasts (as in they are top-tier) when it comes to public relations. They know how to leverage the media for the betterment of their interests. They know not only what to say but how to say it, and when to say it. The MLB Postseason is the perfect time for them to introduce fresh ideas — such as a shortened schedule, or an extended Division Series — because players are just a little busy right now. The real negotiations won’t start until after the World Series.
And I’m not even opposed to a shorter season; there isn’t a player in the sport who would turn down a scheduled off-day every week. I am a more leery on stretching out the Division Series from five games to seven, but not because it isn’t a good idea, in theory. It is more to do with MLB’s rationale that the extra two games would somehow benefit the players, or be a better way of proving who the better team is. Far be it for me to lift my nose at more postseason baseball. I just don’t want MLB to piss on my back and tell me that it’s raining.
MLB’s playoff system is, and has been — particularly since it expanded to five teams per league, and then seven teams — exceptionally flawed. In spirit, anyway. Here you have a sport with an incredibly long 162-game season and when it comes to the postseason teams are forced to win two out of three, and then three out of five, and then four out of seven. Baseball is built on huge sample sizes, and then it boils itself down to these series’ that are far too short.
It may make me sound like a dinosaur, but to me the regular season ought to mean something. A smaller collection of playoff participants inherently adds stress, and conflict, to actually winning during an elongated sample size such as 162 games represents. The more teams granted entry into the postseason, the lesser the regular season matters. That’s all it is.
So when MLB proposes something like an additional couple games during the Division Round — which is, in fact, just one round, where eight teams remain — it doesn’t really do anything for me insofar as moving the needle is concerned. Again: I’m not the asshole who would be on the side of rejecting more playoff baseball. I’m just the asshole who doesn’t consider it that big of a deal in collective bargaining.
Especially given that MLB is undeniably pussy for rolling out this statement during the postseason, at a time when the Players Association is not in a position to respond. It is all a nonstarter, anyway, given that these changes are contingent on a salary cap (which players are publicly unwilling to accept). To that end, any idea(s) MLB produces that are dependent on the one item not up for discussion — i.e. a salary cap — is the same as negotiating in bad faith.
That’s the silliest aspect of MLB’s trotting out of these new ideas: The fact that they are so gentle, and so lacking in what the Players Association might deem reasonable concessions vis-a-vis agreeing to a salary cap. Shortening the season from 162 games to 154 is obviously a tangible carrot for the owners to dangle, for it would allow players a noticeable amount of additional off-days over the course of a given regular season.
But potentially two extra games (at most) during the Division Series round of the playoffs? If anything, that is to the owners’ benefit — not the players. Considering the up-charges for ticket prices (tied into the expectation of a sellout crowd), parking costs, concession costs, merchandise sales, etc. Knowing the butts will be in the seats, owners are (rightfully so, as businessmen) going to take advantage and extract as many dollars as they can.
The ability for the top-seeded team to choose their Divisional opponent is an added inducement for clubs to finish with the best record in either the National League or American League — which I do like — but the idea itself is corny. In the NFL the top seed in each conference gets a first-round bye (a week off). That’s the reward. They do not get the added luxury of deciding which team they play whenever all the chips fall during Wild Card Weekend. This potential rule change does not feel like baseball, nor the professional sports thing to do.
Anyway, these are not real concessions. That’s all I am saying. If the next collective bargaining agreement was the solar system, the salary cap would be the sun. It revolves around every issue, and every issue revolves around it. To compensate for implementing a salary cap, owners have to propose serious ideas that will act to supplement the lost wages if they were to agree on a cap. (Which, of course, they would be foolish to.)
The ways the owners can accomplish such compensation obviously have nothing to do with shortening the regular season schedule, adding a couple extra playoff games, or allowing the top seed in each league to pick their Division Series opponent. That is, simply, cosmetic bullshit. It is a virtue signal to fans that says We’re Trying Here, even though they aren’t.
Since the most recent meaningful work stoppage, in 1994 — due unironically to the owners’ desire for a salary cap — the pendulum has swung almost entirely in the direction of ownership. It was 1997 when the luxury tax (later rebranded as the Competitive Balance Tax) was introduced. It was 2012 when the Qualifying Offer system was introduced, where a free agent who was issued a QO would require the team who signed him to surrender their first-round pick the following year. It was 2022 when the draft pool system rewarded the worst teams and punished the best teams with the amount of money they are able to spend on both domestic and international talent alike.
During labor peace in any industry, which one could argue that MLB has been enjoying since 1994, the needle only moves in one direction — the direction of the owners. It is oftentimes difficult for the common observer to notice because the move is too slight. It was clearly too difficult for the Players Association to realize under the leadership of former player (and MLBPA Director) Tony Clark. It wasn’t miles or even yards that the grip of power tilted. It was mere inches. One at a time.
And all the while the owners complained that they weren’t making enough money. That their franchises were not profitable, or profitable enough. Each and all they played caricatures of Bill Gates when he promised to donate 99 percent of his net worth, yet became wealthier year-over-year. It is, after all, the most billionaire thing in the whole wide world to do: Complain about everything as it relates to money, and every day and week and month and year grow richer than the one before.
These are the individuals that the Players Association are dealing with. The owners may not have ascertained their illustrious goal of a salary cap during the last work stoppage in 1994, but they never forgave the players and they certainly have never forgotten. It is evident that they, the owners, have taken back as much as they possibly could have in the meantime.
This current CBA negotiation is about precedent looking to the future. Because the players are aware that once they cede this particular ground — that of a salary cap — there is no turning back. Forever, it will be a capped labor system. The owners would happily withdraw on all the progress they have gained on the Players Association, from the 1997 luxury tax (which would no longer exist under a hard cap), to the 2012 Qualifying Offer system, to the 2022 draft pool system, because the salary cap is the sun and the moon and the stars. It is the alpha and the omega. It is everything, everywhere, all at once.
The fact that the Players Union has been in existence for as long as it has, some 60 years, without the implementation of a hard salary cap is a minor miracle of the legitimate power that workers have over their bosses. Neither the NFL nor the NBA, which undoubtedly were able to surpass in popularity America’s so-called pastime over the last couple decades, had unions that were able to thwart the will of ownership. The MLBPA, for whatever reason, through both its high times and its follies, kept the faith and maintained their collective dignity.
This current year of our lord, 2026, is unmistakably The One insofar as labor negotiations are concerned in Major League Baseball. It truly does feel like one of those moments in time. Where if the Players Association agree to a salary cap, then the owners will rule once and always. And where if the Players Association digs deep, and rejects the cap, then it will be at least as long as it has been since 1994 — 32 years — before we revisit this topic. We may never have to revisit it again. Those are the stakes.
This is why I believe the impasse between owners and players is so stark. The only thing that the owners want also happens to be the only thing that the Players Association is unwilling to give them. I cannot imagine of the concessions ownership could offer to create a scenario the Players would accept, because there are only so many things for the owners to give up, and even if you put all of them together they would not make up for the anvil-sized millstone that a salary cap serves as.
Because there isn’t a cap, Major League Baseball is the only major professional sport where players earn wages commensurate to their abilities. For example, Patrick Mahomes — objectively the most decorated current NFL player, occupying the most important position in the sport — earns an average annual salary of $63 million. Directly following him are Cowboys QB Dak Prescott ($60 million), Bills QB Josh Allen ($55 million), Bengals QB Joe Burrow ($55 million), Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence ($55 million) and Bucs QB Baker Mayfield ($55 million).
In any given year, however, Mahomes may only be the seventh- or eighth-highest paid quarterback in the league. It is only by coincidence that he and the Chiefs agreed to restructuring his contract prior to the 2026 season that he is currently at the top of the economic pyramid. Even though Mahomes has three Super Bowl titles and five Super Bowl appearances under his belt, he earns only a handful of millions of dollars per year more than the group of quarterbacks behind him — who combine collectively for zero Super Bowl wins and just one Super Bowl appearance.
The largest contract in Major League Baseball, on the other hand, belongs to Mets outfielder Juan Soto, who in 2025 agreed to a 15-year, $765 million contract. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who owns the second-largest contract in MLB, signed for 14 years and $500 million with the Blue Jays. The 10th-largest deal belongs to Rangers shortstop Corey Seager at 10 years and $325 million. Etc.
Under a capped system, much like the NFL, there would be very little to differentiate the best players from those a tier (or more) below them. When it is your turn to get paid, you will get paid the number relative to your age and talent. It is a healthy living, to be sure. But in many ways it strips away one’s agency and ability to maximize earning power.
The NFL ties its salary cap into yearly revenue, and because the NFL is not only America’s most popular sport but also its most profitable, the cap increases annually at a rate of about 6.3 percent. Just ten years ago the cap was a humble $167 million; this year it is a whopping $301.2 million.
But there is no guarantee that baseball will enjoy the fruits of such a lucrative escalation in annual revenue over the course of the next CBA. Many would argue that baseball is a dying sport; even through aesthetically-pleasing advancements such as a pitch clock, or the ABS challenge system, the sport itself fails to capture the imaginations of children — who are, always, the future — and does not stimulate the ever-dwindling attention spans of American sports fans in the way that football and basketball do. More kids gravitate towards basketball and football, in other words, depleting the talent pool of professional baseball domestically.
Every sport longs for the parity that the NFL enjoys, where a new coach here, a couple draft picks there, and a few quality free agents to sprinkle on top, can turn a franchise around in a single offseason. The economics of the sport work out perfectly: The good teams can’t pay everybody, and the bad teams have the highest draft picks and generally more money to spend. Neither baseball, nor anything else, can replicate that formula.
Instead, MLB teams basically have two options to succeed. They can either tank — punting on multiple seasons (if you will forgive the cross-sport reference) — thus ensuring them the best draft picks and more money to spend on draft picks. It takes years to draft and develop talent, and even at that rate there is no guarantee of winning because those draft picks have to actually pan out.
The other avenue to success is what the Texas Rangers did en route to winning their first World Series in franchise history: They simply bought a bunch of good players. They invested a half-billion dollars into the aforementioned Corey Seager and second baseman Marcus Semien, and then the following year they invested another boatload into starting pitchers Nathan Eovaldi and Jacob deGrom (who was injured for their postseason run). But because the Rangers are one of the worst teams in MLB at drafting and developing, their championship window was ultimately unsustainable and they are likely in for a long, dark road until their next playoff appearance — let alone championship.
In an ironic twist, the two teams remaining in the MLB postseason (at time of post) — the National League Champion Milwaukee Brewers and the American League Champion Tampa Bay Rays — rank 19th, 26th, respectively, in team payroll. I do not believe in conspiracies, but one could not draw up a better scenario for the Players Association to argue in collective bargaining negotiations that the most expensive rosters do not always win.
Which is obviously the notion MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is pounding the table for in hopes of ushering in a salary cap. In a recent ESPN article by Jeff Passan, he quotes Manfred in saying: “The data in our sport is stark. Your opportunity to make the playoffs if you are a larger-market team is dramatically higher and your opportunity to proceed to the subsequent rounds — that advantage grows with each round.”
Current small-market playoff teams notwithstanding, nobody denies that spending money equates to a better chance of winning. It just feels rich that for the last three decades the owners have pushed, through various methods in collective bargaining, all of the benefits towards the teams who do not spend money, and do not try to win, while simultaneously punishing the teams who do. To turn around and effectively say that the teams who are spending money, and trying to win, are creating an imbalance within the sport, isn’t only ridiculous but it’s off-putting. Is it not the objective in professional sports to, like, win?
Peasants like me believe winning to be the ultimate goal. Outsiders like me believe winning is all that matters. Ultra-competitive Little League all-stars, like me, who were never talented enough to play varsity baseball, or who had a sweet stroke but were never tall enough to play high school basketball, like me, have lived out our meaningless, insignificant lives, trying to win in every other aspect of existence because sports were the one thing that didn’t give me that choice. Sports told me, rather than me telling sports, when it was time stop playing competitively.
Major League Baseball’s owners do not feel the same way. If given the choice between winning a World Series and adding another few hundred million dollars to their already exorbitant bank accounts, they would choose the latter every time. The beauty is: All the owners have to do is collect on their sport’s revenue sharing, and collect on their regional television contracts, and they don’t have to worry about spending money to compete. They can just let their team lose, because at the end of the day they always win.
It is for that reason, specifically, that I don’t give a shit if the Players Association are ‘greedy,’ or however the boot-licking propagandists describe them. I don’t care if the players dig truly deep and not only deny the owners a salary cap but deny them whatever else they and the commissioner want. I don’t care if there is no baseball next year. I don’t care if the lockout goes on for long enough that the United States Supreme Court gets involved. Because fuck ’em.
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