The two sides are sparring over issues.
The Commissioner of Major League Baseball Rob Manfred is not yet engaged in serious collective bargaining negotiations with the Major League Baseball Players Association as the present CBA ending in December 2026. Manfred did say that players salaries are an issue but he did not use the words salary cap in his assessment of the state of baseball’s economic climate. “We do hear a lot about it from fans, particularly in smaller markets,” said Manfred. “But the reality is we’re two years away from the end of the agreement. We’re just not in a position where we are talking about or have made decisions about what’s ahead in the next round of bargaining. I think that a lot of water is going to go over the dam before we need to deal with that issue.” Owners are speaking out about the need for some mechanism to control players’ salaries. The owner of the Houston Astros franchise, Jim Crane said he is not pushing for a salary cap, but something needs to be done.
Crane’s comments follow those of the owner of the Colorado Rockies’ franchise Dick Monfort who joined the chorus led by Baltimore Orioles owner David Rubenstein and New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner that something has to be done. There seems to be a concentrated effort from Major League Baseball’s ownership side that the business must rein in spending by the Los Angeles Dodgers ownership. There seems to be three camps here in what has become the first volleys fired in negotiations between the owners and players. The owners are annoyed at the Dodgers ownership, so there is not a united ownership message, it’s the Dodgers owners against the other 29 owners and then the owners versus the players. Manfred may be slowly laying the groundwork for a lockout.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
