The Major League Baseball Players Association has announced that Bruce Meyer has been unanimously elected the interim executive director of the union. Previously the deputy director, Meyer will take over for Tony Clark, who surprisingly resigned yesterday as news emerged that he had an “inappropriate” relationship with his sister-in-law, who was working for the MLBPA. Matt Nussbaum is now the interim deputy director. Jeff Passan of ESPN reported Meyer’s election prior to the official announcement.
Meyer will continue to act as the MLBPA’s chief negotiator through the upcoming collective bargaining agreement talks, with the current CBA set to expire December 1st. Another lockout is widely expected and the last one dragged into March, so it seems Meyer is positioned to potentially lead the union for a year or more, despite the interim tag.
Ever since the Clark scandal emerged yesterday, it seemed likely that the union would pivot to Meyer. He has been the MLBPA’s clear #2 and top negotiator for years. With the season about to begin and the big CBA deadline less than a year away, maintaining stability seemed like an easier path than undergoing a lengthy search for a replacement. Left-hander Brent Suter, a member of the union’s eight-player executive subcommittee, framed it that way yesterday. “We’re going to have an interim [director] and keep everything as stable as we can this year,” Suter said.
Clark took over the job in December of 2013 after the death of Michael Weiner. Clark was the first former player to hold the job, as the previous executive directors had been career union officials or attorneys.
The 2017-2021 CBA, the first under Clark, was generally viewed as poor for the players. The base threshold of the competitive balance tax barely moved, going from $189MM in 2016 to $195MM in 2017. That number would creep up over the course of the CBA but two extra tiers of increased taxation were added at $20MM increments above the base threshold. The 2016 minimum salary of $507.5K nudged up to $535K in 2017.
Meyer was hired in 2018 to serve as the union’s lead negotiator, with Clark staying on as executive director. At that time, Meyer had three decades of experience working with the player unions of the NBA, NHL and NFL. The next round of MLB CBA negotiations proved to be more contentious. The league instituted a lockout in December of 2021, the first work stoppage since the 1994-95 strike. That lockout lasted 99 days and was resolved in March, just in time to still play a 162-game schedule in 2022.
That CBA was viewed by some as better than the previous agreement. The base CBT threshold jumped from $210MM in 2021 to $230MM in 2022, though a fourth tier of the tax was added, another $20MM over the previous high. The minimum salary went from $555K in 2021 to $700K in 2022, with $20K increases in each year. It also added a new feature, a $50MM bonus pool paid for by all teams and to be distributed annually to pre-arbitration players based upon a version of wins above replacement agreed upon by both MLB and the MLBPA.
The agreement didn’t lead to perfect harmony within the union, however. In March of 2024, an attempt was made to replace Meyer, an event often referred to as an attempted coup. Some players tried to pressure Clark to replace Meyer with Harry Marino. The latter was previously the head of Advocates For Minor Leaguers and helped unionize minor leaguers under the MLBPA umbrella. A minor league CBA was negotiated with the league in 2023. Meyer and Marino both worked for the MLBPA at that time and reportedly had a strained relationship.
The attempted coup eventually flamed out, with Clark and Meyer staying in their positions. The players reportedly connected to the coup were voted off the executive subcommittee in December of 2024.
More trouble emerged this year with Clark coming under the microscope of federal investigations that alleged he had given himself equity in organizations funded by MLBPA licensing money. The union hired a law firm to conduct an internal investigation in response to those allegations. That internal probe reportedly uncovered messages between Clark and his sister-in-law, which led the union to seek his resignation.
Meyer will now take the reins and try to keep the players united at a significant time. Financial imbalances in the game have led to owners and many fans calling for the league to implement a salary cap. The union has long been opposed to such a measure, with Clark and Meyer both frequently speaking out against it. As mentioned, the CBA expires December 1st and another lockout is likely. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred spoke positively about the effect of lockouts about this time last year.
With the interim tag on Meyer, it’s unknown how things will proceed after the upcoming CBA negotiations. Presumably, his interest in staying in the job more permanently will depend upon how things develop in the coming year, as would the players’ interest in keeping him in the gig.
Nussbaum has worked for the MLBPA since 2011. He was promoted to deputy general counsel in 2017 and then general counsel in 2023. Prior to joining the MLBPA, he had worked for the NHLPA.
Photo courtesy of Greg Lovett, Imagn Images
BRUUUUUUUUUCEEE!!
There are also rumors that Tony Clark cheated with Bruce Meyer’s brother, Oscar. But those rumors are simply bologna.
Yeah I always heard Clark liked Oscar Meyer’s wiener…
Take meat out to the ballgame.
Dang Tony been watching too many videos.
Nothing to see here
Oh sheet, it’s Officer Barbrady?
MLBPA went from sister-in-law to attorney in sports law
Good. Keep some continuity in leadership. Making a completely new plan for the lockout would have backfired
Couldn’t make a plan in a year?
No.
A win for Scott Boras.
Scott Boras and 4% of the MLB players always “win”. It’s the other 96% of baseball players that lose, because the Borass led MLBPA always undermines the majority of players, in favor of the highly paid Boras clients that have outsized influence over the “player’s union.”
Mlb fan
🎯
I am not sure you understand the fact that the more the top 4% get paid, the more the other 96% get paid. Do you really think the bottom 96% are underpaid right now? Based on what data?
No I don’t think the bottom 96% are underpaid for playing a game. I do think the 4% are drastically over paid
Of course the 96% are underpaid.
The players don’t receive 50% of revenue or even close to it, so as a whole, players are underpaid.
Compared to the top 4 percent they are underpaid.
Who sells more tickets, Juan Soto or Luisangel Acuna?
You earn money according to the value you provide. In an entertainment business like baseball that is quantified by how big of a draw you are at the ticket office. In baseball to be a big draw you have to perform on the field, put up the big stats. Soto has done that at an extremely high level for years. Soto deserves more money.
That said, pre-arb and arb eligible players that perform at a high level should make more money. Minor League players should make more money, In the last CBA Meyer negotiated the largest increases percentagewise for those players ever.
No one is underpaid, if the price isn’t right then go get more for your services? Oh you can’t? Then you’re not underpaid, you’re paid correctly.
Problem is younger guys dream of those huge contracts so go along with it.
What an idiotic thing to say. In the last CBA pre-arb and arb players won big as well as minor league players.
Trying to curse by misspelling his name is a juvenile thing to do. Are you 10 years old?
Guess what? Be a better elite ballplayer if you want to be in your arbitrary 4%. The average of the top 125 salaries influence the Q.O. figure every year. Fans don’t pay to see utility backups and third-string catchers.
The average MLB salary is between $4.7M to $5M. I’m not sure those guys being paid that much per season would consider themselves as losing out.
Baseball is entertainment and compared to other entertainers, the top 4% of guys in MLB aren’t close. Sting makes something like $210M per year. Tyler Perry makes $175M per, and the Southpark guys make $160M each year. Dwayne Johnson pulls in over $270M every year.
There is an unfair disparity in the distribution of wealth in this country, look at CEO salaries, but that’s across our entire society. Not sure it’s fair to expect MLB to be different.
The vast majority of professional baseball players are not major leaguers.
It’s the degree. To be the Dodgers fifth best hitter, Kyle Tuckers aav is at least 30% of 13 other teams total payroll bill. Crazy.
While true a 780K minimum salary is very nice . Don’t cha think mate?
Everyone is going to lose — big time — if the lockout costs MLB a year or more.
Boras clients will be like everyone else in the Players Association — making zero income.
My hunch: after this year’s World Series, the next baseball you’ll see is during the 2028 Olympics. At least all the MLB stars will be available to participate.
Why they will play baseball at some point. You can own forever. Playing baseball has a short shelf life. Owners will lose $ but what do companies do when they lose $ they get it back from the employees and consumers although I think they are already charging the consumer as much as they can already. You can only get so high before I think I am going to pass on buying a beer and a dog.
This comment is nonsense
For those that want baseball in 2027 like me, we better hope the owners are bluffing about wanting a salary cap because Meyer will not agree to one. Nor should he IMO. A cap just helps the richest owners justify less spending.
I’d be okay with a cap if there were a solid floor to go with it, say $120 million.
That is not a solid floor. Not even close. The average revenue per team in 2025 was about $433-434 million. To give the players 50% of that would mean a floor of around $216-217 million.
Web, when you factor a great deal of that average revenue is skewed greatly because the large markets are included, like the Dodgers local TV income paying their whole payroll while others get about 30 million, it is obvious not every team is bringing that kind of cash in.
This is why Manfred is pushing toward an MLB produced national local TV solution with the proceeds split evenly. The disparity is ridiculous and killing the game in flyover country. Also why there will be a long shutdown as a a cap, floor, disparity, no deferral, no local TV empire solution is hammered out.
Reds, I agree. To have any kind of cap or floor there would have to be 100% revenue sharing between the teams themselves. It’s not just in flyover country that the revenue disparity effects the max spending as the Mariners, Marlins, Rays, A’s, Orioles, and Nationals are in the same boat.
If there is a long lockout, the owners are the ones that lose. The players are even more prepared than they were the last time. The owners are the ones that need to hammer out the revenue sharing issue between themselves and not rely on the players to fix the problem they caused.
People forget that the teams have to pay a hell of a lot more people than those on the field.
Most people on here only say “Players good, owners bad.” They tend to use Revenue for everything regarding the money involved without realizing that revenue is pre-expenses,. The Braves latest books showed that they Brought in Some ~$660M in revenue, but their expenses cost ~$620M, meaning that the Braves (who are a top 10 team in valuation) couldn’t afford to pay Kyle Tucker what the Dodgers paid him.while remaining profitable. Everyone is screaming to raise player salaries to ~50% of revenue, but the margins are slim.
Yes teams like the Pirates need to try to win more, but things aren’t as simple as “Teams need to spend more”
The Braves latest books showed nothing of the sort. Why make up figures when we can all go look them up?
Just go to Braves … Holdings… .com then click on Investors and then Financial Information.
Their 2025 Annual Report is not available yet, so the newest information is from 2024.
The $663 million figure you are quoting included The Battery Atlanta. That was not just for the baseball team. So did the expenses.
The expenses in 2024 also included compensation for the executives of Liberty Media including Gregory Maffei from which Atlanta Braves Holdings was split off from in fiscal year 2023. It also included “administrative and management services” paid to Liberty Media. All told there were $44.6 million in expenses related to the split that would not be carried forward into 2025. There were also bonuses for McGuirk and other execs that will not be repeated beyond 2024. McGuirk also makes $4,315,786 in salary as the CEO.
Even with all the expenses related to split and bonuses given to the new executives the Braves OIBDA including the Battery was $39,683 million. That is a healthy profit.
A solid floor with a cap is around 170M.
They already have a soft floor of 105M with teams that collect revenue sharing. The problem is it needs more teeth.
Raise the sharing amount to 90M and put a hard floor in of 135M.
As has already been pointed out, that is not close to a solid floor.
At this point I think there are a fair number of fans who would be perfectly okay taking a break from baseball in order to have a cap and a floor in place.
Not anyone that is a fan of the baseball players. Only people that are fans of the owners would be okay with that happening.
So, you are OK with the disparity in spending by teams? Hell, in 5 years, the Dodgers will have more deferred payments going out for players that don’t even play for them than 10 MLB teams’ total annual payroll on players that are on the roster. That is ridiculous.
Just agree on a salary cap and a floor. Its not like the players will be hurting by any stretch. Make the floor $187 million and the cap $300 million. Based on 2025 numbers, the top team payroll of $323 million was 5 times higher than the lowest ($67 million) Total MLB payroll was $5.089 billion, for an average of $169.6 million per team. If this average is raised by 10% for a floor of $187 million per team and capping at $300 million, the total payroll increases to $6.236 billion, for an average of $207.9 million per team. Now the disparity from highest to lowest payroll is only 1.6 times as much. 2 teams would have spent $44 million less combined with a $300 million cap and 17 teams would have spent $1.191 billion more in order to hit the $187 million floor.11 teams would be assumed to spend the same under this scenario. A total of $2.457 billion of the $6.236 billion overall spending.
This would undoubtedly be a more level playing field and more teams would have a chance to sign free agents and there would be more parity, while increasing payroll spending, which would make the agents and the MLBPA happy. This is not that difficult and shouldn’t cause the loss of the 2027 season. Get off your butts and get an agreement done. You will have to compromise a little bit on each side, but both sides will win in this scenario. Or risk another alienation of baseball fans and be prepared to feel it financially.
That’s not true. I want it to be fairly even across the board for all teams. Will it be easy to come to the appropriate floor and ceilings where players are happy? Maybe not. But the alternative to having a league where it’s simply the rich, large markets have a massive advantage over the smaller markets is not good. Just because people support baseball reform does not mean we are not fans of the players. I don’t like the way the league is heading with super teams. And I cheer for a team that seemingly doesn’t have a cap right now.
It took years for baseball to recover from the 1994 strike. That is what I was referring to. Im not trying to sound like a big bad boss man, just trying to show it is not that hard. Hell, use my figures as a starting point and go from there with adjustments and compromises. My back of the napkin numbers brought the floor to 10% more than the current average payroll in 2025. And a $300 million cap still allows the Dodgers and Mets to spend more than everyone else, but they will have to.make decisions and cant have everyone they want. And when was the last time the Marlins had a payroll that was more than half of the Dodgers’ payroll? This would make the product on the field and the games inherently better and more competitive, all while increasing overall spending on payroll, which should satisfy agents and players because it is not limiting their earnings. More teams will end up spending more than teams spending less.
Yes, I would feel better if they took this approach seriously.
The disparity in spending has nothing to do with the players. It is strictly a question of revenue sharing between the owners. Once the owners of the teams fix the problem they caused, then they can come back and talk to the players about other issues. That one is 100% on the owners.
As it is the players are not getting close to 50% in salaries and benefits of the revenue generated by the sport even adding in all of the minor league players.
Putting in a floor without having all the teams on the same financial footing makes no sense. It would be impossible to come up with a number that is fair to the players. Same goes for a cap.
The problem in revenue and spending disparity is on the owners, not the players.
JD, its not the players problem. The owners have to fix the revenue disparity between teams. That is on them to do. Only on them.
Before there can be any kind of floor or cap, there has to be better revenue sharing. It is impossible to set a floor and a cap when some teams have more than $700 million in revenue and others have less than $300 million.
The OWNERS need to fix the revenue distribution problem first. THEN they can talk to the players about the other relatively minor problems facing the sport. But it has to start there with the owners.
Central, it’s not hard at all. 100% revenue sharing between the teams like there is in every other major sport in the US and Canada and the problem is solved.
Then they can effectively set a floor and a cap that guarantees the players something close to 50% of revenue like there is in every other major sport in the US while keeping any team from spending like a drunken sailor like the Dodgers, Yankees, and Mets are right now.
With the current level of revenue that Manfred disclosed this winter and assuming that it doesn’t continue to rise as it has in every season other than 2020 and 2021 during COVID, the floor including salaries and benefits would have to be around $210-220 million to guarantee the players close to 50% of revenue, The method used to calculate CBT payroll would be a good way to measure spending because it takes into account both salaries and benefits.
See, this is not difficult. Most people are just looking at the entirely wrong area for the problem and solution. It has to start with the owners fixing THEIR revenue distribution issue.
Yeah, there’s always been a disparity in spending in MLB between the haves and the have-nots. What’s new? There’s way more competitive balance now than there was during the great Yankee dynasty of the 20th century.
Web.
No. You don’t have to take a side. You don’t have to like one better than the other. That is a childish perspective.
Many would be happy to sit it out for the result of a cap and a floor creating greater parity in FA and therefore greater competitiveness. Not because they are cheering for the owners over the players, but because they want to see a better competition.
I didn’t watch baseball again until 2002. Another lockout, I’m done
What part of ‘owner’ don’t you get?
They take the risk, they reap the rewards.
Problem #1-there are 10 teams right now that would never agree to a floor payroll above 130M.
It’s less risky to have the advantages they have now with draft picks and spend money on player development than have money tied up in mandatory payroll minimums.
Frankly, I agree with them. Paying long contracts to 30 yo+ players is risky; just to satisfy fans biased need for keeping stars beyond their sell by date.
100% correct. This is an owner vs owner problem. More specifically a Dodger problem where they have 5 times the revenue of the Marlins and Reds and they can keep more of it than the Yankees do.. Who also have 5 times the revenue of the smallest markets.
Yes! except the Dodgers have a billion a year in revenue and keep more of a % of those profits than any of the other high revenue teams.
What risk?
I think you are wrong.
But if you are right, you should be complaining about the owners who are refusing to completely open their books.
Why should they open their books? This is seriously the craziest idea out there. If they’re not public….no obligation. Period.
@stollcm No, they’re not public (except the Braves), but they do have a special antitrust exemption. In return, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for them to open the books.
That, and to get Congress to rescind that special exemption it granted so many years ago that the sport was considered “a pastime, not a business.”
The Braves and Blue Jays are owned by publicly traded companies. You can see both of their annual reports for shareholders.
Stoll
There are two reasonably owners should open their books.
One, because it is a government-sanctioned pseudo-monopoly.
Two, because owners seek to eliminate a free market and create a salary cap so the burden is on them to justify it.
@Lloyd Emerson
We hear that in every thread – “Yadda… yadda… I’m done with baseball!” And they’re still here. Yet total attendance numbers and revenue keeps rising. Go figure…
The rich are absolutely killing it and masking the plight of the poor ?
Not sure. Would require research.
Lloyd, Disagree. MLB lost 20M fans in attendance when MLB came back in 1995, after the 1994 stoppage. They lost another 20M the next year as well. Then lost 7M the year after that. And 1998 was only able to equal what the attendance was in 1993.
Fans stayed away in droves, because they were pissed at not having baseball, Most fans care more about being able to see baseball, than they care about the squabble over a salary cap.
Overall attendance was down in 1994 because they did not play a full season. 114 games I believe. Average attendance that season was 31,632. The highest ever to that point in history.
In 1995 overall attendance was down partially because again they did not play a full season. 144 or 145 games. Average attendance in 1995 was 25.260. Only 2100 less than the pre-1993 peak. Look at attendance figures for the Rockies, Orioles, Blue Jays, and Indians that season. They drew exceptionally well even though not all of them had good seasons. I attended games in LA that year that had attendance of over 50k
Pre-strike in 1993 average attendance was 31.337. 1993 and 1994 were outliers because the highest it had ever been before 1993 was 27,327 in 1991.
Not including the games played outside the US and with 2 teams playing in minor league parks that held less than 14k, MLB attendance in 2025 was 71,409,421, the 3rd straight season over 70 million. Attendance as a percentage of capacity was the 3rd highest in history, surpassed only by 2007 and 2008.
In the 162 games played in 1993 the total attendance was 70,257,938.
In the 112 to 115 games played in 1994 the total attendance was 50,010,016.
In the 144 games played in 1995 the total attendance was 50,469,236.
In the 162 games played in 1996 the total attendance was 60,097,381.
In the 162 games played in 1997 the total attendance was 70,601,147.
In the 162 games played in 1998 the total attendance was 70,139,380.
In the 162 games played in 1999 the total attendance was 71,358,907.
The 70,257,938 number in 1993 was an all-time attendance record. If the 1994 season had been 162 games, the projected total would have been 71,442,880, a new attendance record.
As you can see, it wasn’t until 1997 that the 1993 number was exceeded. And then it dropped slightly in 1998. Clearly fans stayed away once games resumed, some stayed away for several years, and some never came back, since they would have added new fans.
Why would there be a cap and not a floor? That sounds awful and every cap league has a floor. The teams paying the bills would want the $ to go into making them more $ not other owners pockets.
Meyer is irrelevant. Battle is between the owners. Once they fight it things will move forward. Then it’s up to the players to decide. Meyer will do what they want or be replaced.
Exactly. The cap has ruined the nba and nhl. Boring boring boring
Which owners have said they want a cap? This seems to be more a fans rumor. My understanding is that small markets don’t want the floor that would come with the cap. The Big markets don’t want to give up their advantage. I see the difficulty in negotiations is the owners don’t agree on their position.
“Drellich will just be an interim director…”
I think that’s meant to say “Meyer will just be…” ?
“Drellich will just be…” reporting on any updates.
I think what we all really want to know is whether Tony was banging his Brother’s wife or his wife’s sister!? Where is the pertinent info when you need it?
Why such a small thinking comment, why not BOTH!
Thanksgiving is going to be awkward this year.
There may be divorce proceedings before then.
Well at least they will always have Valentine’s day 2026 to remind them of his infidelity.
Could even be his sister’s wife.
I was tempted to include that. Not sure he has a sister.
Google says he has one or two brothers and no sister.
USA Today has reported it is the Wife’s sister. Some other sports site said brother’s wife but it has since been edited.
Looking like he was banging his wife’s sister boys and girls!
Now that that’s settled, what’s worse? Wife will hate that it’s her sister, but she’s already plenty mad. Is the additional hate for gettin’ wit’ her sister worse then the hate from your brother? Could be time for a poll…
Definitely need a poll! We should all at least ask for one in the next chat.
Brother’s sister is worse. Lose your brother and your wife.
Poll or pole?
What does Dick Pole think?
I think you know.
That may well be true, but nothing rivals sisterly sibling rivalry. You are touching a whole lifetime of jealousy, mistrust and resentment. There is a reason that the sister’s wife hookup manoeuvre is so rarely completed.
I thought wife’s sister. My co-workers were thinking brother’s wife.
He got caught putting his wick into the wrong hole either that or he got caught with his hands in the cookie jar way too many times the greedy SOB maybe he was banging his brother’s wife and her sister while also banging his wife’s sister as well what a loser he will end up paying for this down the road karma’s a b***h
Not really. Karma doesn’t exist.
Hammerin’Hank in one aspect you are correct but think of it this way what comes around goes around I would compare karma to the common cold somebody gives it to you and you give it to me and I give it to someone else do you see where I’m going with this
Has anyone seen pics of the SIL? Yeeaa, that’d be a hard pass for me but you go Tony! 🤣
“Ah hahahahahaha”
🙄
Where did you find a photo? There’s supposedly no publicly available photos. If you saw a photo of some platinum blonde with a weird grimace in a red top, that’s the whistleblower.
I think that’s his wife Frances
Frances Clark is Tony’s wife and she is a blonde. Several photos of them together from the Players Party event are circulating. I might be wrong, but her younger sister probably looks a lot like her. Her sister used to be listed on the MLBPA site under MLBPA staff, but its been taken down.
Frances Clark is a good-looking woman for her age, so her younger sister is likely good looking too. The MLBPA took Hopkins’ photo down off the website today, so no way to get a look at what she looks like now.
Craven
It was time to upgrade 🤣
That is not a surprise.
Ok Bruce, just keep your hands off your sister-in-law and don’t embezzle and you’ll be fine
Get ready guys… if you thought there was a decent chance that there would be a loss of games before, there will be no season. This guy was almost fired last cba because he told the players they should miss games last year to get a fair deal. He was upset when they didn’t listen and only Tony Clark stepping up for him saved his job. There will be no baseball next year at all with this guy in charge of the union unless the players with huge contracts deem it too much $ to lose.
I think there will be lost games but I don’t think the new guy materially changes the outcome. Even if he tried a hard line last time, the player reps overruled the negotiating team and voted to accept despite a recommendation to reject. His job is to negotiate the best deal he can, but experience shows union leadership doesn’t have much sway over the final yes/no decision.
The players have a huge fund to fall back on if games are lost. A fund they have been building since before the 1994 strike and that they have built up to a massive amount over the past 7 years since Meyer joined the union as chief negotiator.
The owners just lose. The owners lose money even if games only have to be rescheduled like they were in the last lockout. Not only do the owners lose money, but they also have to spend money even if there are no games. About 50% of their expenses still have to be paid even though they lose close to 100% of their revenue.
The big revenue owners may still choose to take a hard line, but the small market owners will eventually cave before much of the season is lost. I am not sure that all teams could weather the loss of a full season. Some may be forced into bankruptcy.
What a bunch of BS. You have no clue what is going on and yet you feel qualified to spout that garbage.
Web’s #2 I hope your comment was not directed towards me I was replying to another message and was joking personally I don’t give a rats a** what clark does in his personal life it doesn’t affect me one bit if he wants to go bang everybody’s wife who gives a s**t that’s his business
The way the threading is it’s hard to see who we are responding too. I was definitely not responding to your post. Cheers!
Bigtimeyankeefan, You’re barking up the wrong tree. The players have, and always will oppose a salary cap, and will be willing to be locked out to fight one.
Those that will determine whether there’ll be a season or not is the owners. If they’re willing to lose the hundreds of millions in revenue for a lost season there could be, but I highly doubt it.
Manfred said that total revenue in 2025 was over $13 billion, The owners would lose pretty close to all of that,
At the same time that they are losing all that revenue, about 50% of their expenses would still have to be paid,
Excellent move. Chief negotiator. This guy is the perfect replacement. Read his biography. Long time Attorney. Sports law for years. Litigator. They’re in good hands.
So he never noticed that his boss’ relative moved into the office? And that his boss was hooking up with her? Or he did notice and kept quiet?
You’d think MLBPA could find someone with clean hands to deal the cards.
Almost all businesses have relatives of the boss working in them. Every single MLB team does. Why would that have been something that Meyer should have objected to? Why should Meyer have known that Clark was having an affair with her? How does any of that concern Meyer and his job? His job is labor negotiator, not being his boss’s morality cop.
This is awesome news for the players. Meyer was responsible for all the gains they got in the last CBA. Especially the pre-arb and arb eligible players.
This is not good news for the owners. Meyer is a tough negotiator.
More not good news for the fans. Two thirds of the owners at least are dead set.
I doubt that. Only a few ownership groups are dead set on a cap.
You don’t know any of this. You assign credit to Meyer based on no inside information.
Actually, it’s all public information. You like to argue and even make pronouncements of people’s ” clean hands” without having even looked into the subject, let alone having inside information. That says volumes about your character.
Nothing speaks of character like anonymous, cowardly insults made on a baseball comment board.
The youngest players are seriously underpaid and the veterans seriously overpaid. The minimum salary needs to at least double.
A statement like “virtually nothing” for Castellanos needs to be taken contextually. A MLB team with a $200+ million payroll paying him less than 0.5% of the team’s payroll is “virtually nothing” to that team. For one of my academies that would be like paying an experienced instructor $2.00 an hour.
Meyer has a chance to be a hero.
It’s a bummer that nearly every human put in charge of funds is corrupted to steal from that fund. RIP Tony Clark. We will never hear about you again until your obituary.
He is not even charged with that. You may want to wait until you actually know something before trying to convict him.
I have a sick feeling about a lawyer representing the players.
Salary cap is like the restrictor plate in Nascar. I don’t like either.
Elected or no other options?
Does anybody know who the best Left-On-Left batter is based on wRC+ and minimum 200 AB ????
fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&st…
Thanks Bob, that’s fantastic. And the two guys I was guessing would be on the list are not there: Cory Seager & Yordan. (But that’s likely because 2025 wasn’t their best showing. )
Post COVID, its Yordan Alvarez with a 166 wRC+.
I would like to know the nitty gritty behind what it takes to be successful as a left handed batter against a left handed pitcher. Why does it seem to be so rare? Righty batters vs righty pitchers don’t seem to have as many issues. Things that make ya go hmmmm.
The reality is I doubt anything has actually changed. If Meyer was already one of their top negotiators then he still is.
The owners have been waiting for their chance to really dig their heels in, for once they have public opinion on their side…. At this point the question is will all of next season be canceled or just part of it.
Side question: So one of the bigger FA question marks after next season will be Bichette and his opt out. Any thoughts on how the negotiations will affect his decision? I have to imagine if it’s looking like they’ll be forced to cave on a salary cap that he’ll stay put.
The average adult US resident has the equivalent education of a 3rd grader so it doesn’t surprise me that public opinion might be on the side of the billionaire owners. They also have a bigger media platform because they literally own their own TV station.
The entire issue is an owner created inequality in revenue distribution. A problem that doesn’t exist in any other sport in the US or Canada. The solution is simple. 100% revenue sharing like every other major sport with teams in the US.
Far too many idiots don’t understand that, so they side with the billionaire owners because they don’t like seeing someone making more money than they do for “playing a kids game”.
That’s a solution but far from an easy one. Its like asking Juan Soto to give away the majority of his earnings so every player on the Mets has an equal amount.
The difference is, a vote to have 100% revenue sharing by 23 owners can force the large market, high revenue teams to do so. The other Mets players can’t force Soto to do that.
The owners are asking the players to solve an issue that was caused by the owners. The only way it can be solved is by the owners with 100% revenue sharing. It was done in the NFL, NHL, and NBA, so we know it’s possible to have billionaires team owners agree to it.
I still tend to go with the old complaint from 1994. “Millionaires v. billionaires.” I also like the Shakespeare quote, A pox on both their houses.
Great. Let’s hire the guy who looked the other way when his boss hired a family member and embezzled funds.
You don’t cross Tony.
He might go for your sister next!
Hiring family members is not against any rules for 99.99% of businesses. Certainly not in any union in the US. Most business owners and CEO’s hire family members. Forbes magazine recently quoted a study that more than half the businesses in the US were passed down to family members that also worked in the business.
Having an extramarital affair is not a kosher activity for nearly all large companies and all unions.
Clark has not even been charged with a crime, let alone convicted. Stop acting like we live in North Korea or Russia and trying to convict someone before they have even been charged.
As long as we can all agree that we just need to hide our sisters in the closet when he comes over to visit I think we should be fine.
Ha ha. In many respects, it looks like you do live in a country like those two.
Get ready to learn salary cap Bruce.
When you hear the word “union”, you often hear about corruption. Seems to be a tradition.
So was it with his brother’s wife or his wife’s sister?
I’m not trying to take sides here, but MLB clearly needs a salary cap. Like ALL the other sports. Right now, there is a large percentage of major league quality veteran talent that can’t find a job. The only players that benefit from the lack of a cap are the extreme top of the chart players. The quality but not elite veterans suffer. There is no reality where the players should get 50% of all revenues. The competitive balance of the league is off, and the fans also suffer. A salary cap would create a better product and give every market a chance to compete if they handle their affairs wisely. It really would be a win win for everyone except the ultra elite players and their agents. Bruce Meyer is a disaster who will never agree to a salary cap, and I don’t think the owners are going to cave this time. Bring in the replacement players. I think that’s the only way we see baseball in 2027. I hope I’m wrong.
Bluff: why do you think it’s not ok to take sides? It’s only a commenting section on a baseball blog. Anyway, despite your uppercase happiness. there’s a sport called soccer that doesn’t have what most of us would call a salary cap. Rather a restriction related to percentage of revenue. Big clubs have dramatically larger revenue (think Dodgers) so they vastly outspend the smaller clubs.
BluffNuttz, You don’t want to take sides, yet clearly do. The system may benefit only the top minority of players, but the reality is that, historically, the players have been pretty much 100% against a cap. Not sure if that’s changed enough, or at all, to make a difference.
Not sure either why you call Meyer a disaster when he’s new to the top spot. And it isn’t his decision anyway whether to fight against the cap. It’s the players that have rejected one, with the union supporting what the players don’t want.
Jean, Meyer said unequivocally today that the players are still against a cap of any sort. The union has laid out its conditions to bring a cap to the table, and the owners have flatly stated that they will not even discuss those conditions. A cap will never happen until the owners fix their part of the problem, the revenue disparities between the teams, and then reveal exactly how much revenue they are making. It’s one thing for Manfred to publicly state that MLB made more than $13 billion in 2025, it’s a whole different thing to open the books so the players can see exactly what those revenue streams are and how much the teams are actually getting.
The players have been against whatever their agents and union have told them to be against.
For ages they were against testing drug cheats, until they saw the drug cheats were ruining the game that is their livelihood, and its reputation. They opposed revenue sharing, preferring to see the Yankees load up each year on mega-deals. They were against the pitch clock, and all the other rule changes that have improved the game. They were against ABS or any technology-based improvement to strike calling.
Even when the players changed lanes and wanted drug cheats tested, there was pushback from the union. Don Fehr always knew that Marvin Miller, the Patron Saint of Socialism for Baseball, would stab him in the back if the players and union agreed to drug testing. And sure enough, when they did so, Miller came running out of his nursing home lounge to give a press conference and stab Fehr in the back.
Improvements come slowly to baseball. It took years to get drug testing. It took years to get any revenue sharing over union and player objection, and it will take years to improve the game with a salary cap. But like testing drug cheats, introducing revenue sharing, and like all the improvements the owners recently made to the pace of game, a cap is the right thing to do. All these improvements overcame objections from the union, agents and players.
The salary cap in every other sport is accompanied by 100% revenue sharing, the team’s books being open to the union, and a guaranteed share of total revenue going to the players. MLB owners have not been willing to do even one of those things that are prerequisites for a salary cap. In all other major sports in the US the players are guaranteed 48-51% of the total revenue. There is no MLB without the current major and minor league players.
The competitive balance is off not because the players are being paid too much, but because the revenue of the teams is not equal or even close to equal. When multiple teams have 3+ times the revenue of the lower tier of teams there is an issue on the ownership level. Why should Cincinnati or Milwaukee be punished financially just because the city they are in didn’t grow at the same rate as say LA or Boston? That is what is happening in MLB right now.
This is a problem for the owners to solve between themselves. Once they solve the revenue inequality between the teams, then they can ask the players for a cap, but not before then.
Hey, it’s “All the Owners’ Fault!’
What a fresh and novel perspective! Reminds me of 2nd year social science option classes, where we learned that socialism and communism were good, despite the evidence before our eyes.
Day 3 and the self-proclaimed ‘baseball insiders’ have no answer for the one question that keeps Neo up at night.
Wife’s sister or brother’s wife?
Will Tony be the first man in history to stick the landing on the one manoeuvre that has resulted in the death of every man who has ever tried it? The wife’s sister hookup?
Sheena was a man you must be sure the girl is pure for the funky cold medina lol
This Meyer may not make a difference in the negotiations.
Reports are Tony Clark’s affair was an “open secret” and his multiple federal investigations were surely known by Bruce Meyer, so why the hell temporarily elect someone who is clearly dirty as well? Players only care about getting paid more. Have you ever heard one of them talk about making the game better for fans? Making it more accessible financially for the middle class? Giving fans of smaller market teams a better chance of seeing their team in the playoffs?
Nope. They are just as greedy as owners, making all their money on the backs of fans.
4theland: where do you see anybody turning their back on money? Your definition of “dirty” is pretty broad. I guess the players and owners and agents are all dirty?
I will call him.. Mini Me
So the whistleblower in this case is a lawyer for the NFLPA, that’s right the NFL players’ union. Actually she’s their ex-lawyer, because the union seems to have fired her for blowing the whistle on their alleged corruption. Hard to believe another sanctified socialist body not only engaged in alleged corruption but fired the whistleblower who reported it. Almost enough to make me lose all faith in socialism and Karl Marx.
Odd, isn’t it, that the lawyer at the NFLPA knew all about Tony Clark’s alleged corruption, his dealings with Association funds, but Meyer apparently was completely in the dark??? Strange how that works.l
One thing Meyer can be sure of is that Drelich and Rosenthal and the rest of the union-friendly baseball media will give him a complete pass.
Also, it’s his wife’s sister. Wow. Tony is going to get what he has coming in spades now. Even that appealing beard won’t be enough to save him.
I am sick and don’t have time to think about baseball’s quadrennial labor nonsense. Just let me know when the 2027 season will start, if I make it that long.
I hope that none of you are sick like me, but even if you’re all healthy as horses and in the prime of life, I submit that you, too, should not waste time picking this stuff apart. The owners and players both deserve our contemptuous disregard.