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Collective Bargaining Agreement

Manfred Comments On Revenue Split, Offseason Pace

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The current collective bargaining agreement expires in less than 18 months. It’s widely expected there’ll be another offseason lockout and contentious round of labor negotiations after the CBA wraps on December 1, 2026. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred provided some hints at potential talking points in comments at an Investor Day event for the Braves last month (as covered by Mike Mazzeo of Sports Business Journal).

Manfred said he’s making an effort to pitch the league’s message directly to individual players. “I don’t think the leadership of (the MLBPA) is anxious to lead the way to change,” he stated. “So we need to energize the workforce in order to get them familiar with or supportive of the idea that maybe changing the system could be good for everybody.”

The commissioner suggested he’s seeking out players who find themselves at the lower end of the earning spectrum to stress the discrepancy in player salaries. “10% of our players earn 72% of the money,” he said, though he did not provide specifics at that event as to how the salary distribution was calculated. “So I usually try to avoid the high-earning guy at this point, and find a younger player and say ’if you’re one of the 10%, it’s a great deal. But if you’re the other 90, it ain’t so good.'”

Manfred went on to suggest that players have lost a significant chunk of revenue over the past handful of bargaining agreements. “My first deal where I was the chief negotiator in 2002, we were spending 63% of revenue on players,” he said. “Today, we spend about 47% on players. The math means you the players are getting a smaller and smaller percentage of each dollar, and, in fact, if we had a made a deal 10 years ago to share 50-50, you would’ve made $2.5 billion more than you made.”

Unsurprisingly, his comments were met with a sharp rebuke from the MLB Players Association. The union argued that Manfred is trying to weaken solidarity by pitting players against one another. MLBPA executive director Tony Clark told Evan Drellich of The Athletic that the commissioner’s quotes contained “misleading or downright false statements.” Clark added within his statement that MLB’s “stated plan is once again to try to divide players from each other and their union in service of a system that would add to the owners’ profits and franchise values.”

There’s a general expectation that the league will again try to get the Players Association to move off their longstanding firm refusal to entertain a salary cap. Some individual owners have publicly expressed a desire for a hard spending limit. Manfred did not specifically mention a desire for a cap at the mid-June investor event (though he alluded to it in his reference to a 50-50 revenue split). Earlier in the month, he told reporters at the owners meetings that MLB had made “no decisions” on what they’d propose when CBA talks begin (additional Sports Business Journal link).

It’s easy to see how the commissioner’s comments could lay the groundwork for a salary cap push. A cap system would almost certainly involve a corresponding salary floor. That’d limit top-end contracts while arguably increasing spending on lower-tier players, closing the gap in salary discrepancy which Manfred referenced.

The commissioner also opined that MLB free agency progresses too slowly. “Other sports, they have free agency, it’s about a month. There’s lots of bidders. It’s a great marketing opportunity for the sport,” he argued. “Players have their choice of where to go. All positive. Our free agency is like the Bataan Death March. It starts the day after the World Series and in February really, really good players are still wandering around the landscape.”

There’s certainly a case that there’d be greater entertainment value and fan interest in an early-offseason free agent bonanza. There’d be little to nothing of note in the second half of the winter, but leagues like the NFL, NBA and NHL all have a frenetic few days at the beginning of their offseasons that make for an exhilarating time for fans. MLB only approximated that in the lead-up to the 2022 lockout. Its free agency is otherwise much more drawn out — save for a few fairly hectic days at the early December Winter Meetings — and arguably less satisfying.

That said, the appeal for MLB in a quick-moving free agency goes beyond fan engagement. Other leagues’ offseason activity is compressed because they all operate with a cap/floor system. Teams have a much narrower budgetary range that they’re required to hit. There’s often a firm limit on a player’s contract length and salary. There’s limited opportunity for a bidding war for the top-tier free agents, so they’re less incentivized to wait out the market than they are under the MLB system.

Many of the entertainment benefits of a quicker offseason are the results of what would be a more favorable economic system for MLB. It’s unsurprising that the league would therefore place an emphasis on them while the MLBPA diminishes their importance. Manfred has spoken repeatedly about his interest in imposing an offseason free agent signing deadline that’d hopefully lead to a flood of activity not dissimilar from the in-season trade deadline. The union has been adamantly opposed, arguing that players would lose negotiating leverage with a ticking clock and would be squeezed into accepting lesser deals. Both the SBJ and Athletic columns are worth a full read for those interested in CBA issues.

Rob Manfred Discusses Broadcasting Situation, ABS, Pitcher Health

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MLB commissioner Rob Manfred recently conducted an interview with Michael S. Schmidt of the New York Times where he discussed a variety of topics that have made headlines around the league of late, including the league’s plans for the future of MLB broadcasting, the future of the automated ball-strike system that was tested during Spring Training this year, and the ongoing conversation around the league regarding the rise in pitcher injuries over the past few years.

Regarding the broadcasting situation, Manfred once again acknowledged that any overarching changes to the status quo for broadcasting around the league will likely need to wait until after the 2028 season, when MLB’s national TV deals with FOX and TBS expire. The same was true of ESPN, though both the network and MLB decided to opt out of the final three years of that agreement earlier this year, leaving ESPN to stop broadcasting MLB games following the 2025 campaign. It has long seemed likely that the commissioner’s office has its sights set on a more all-encompassing streaming package that MLB.tv currently offers, and Manfred reiterated his desire to “get out of the business of blackouts” going forward.

None of that is exactly new information, but one thing Manfred did note is that fans in Japan may see a change in how they access MLB games when the league’s broadcasting deals expire after 2028. Manfred suggested to Schmidt that while the league has previously sold its broadcasting rights in Japan to Japanese broadcasting companies, that may no longer be the case in 2029 and beyond. Instead, Manfred suggested that the league’s international broadcasting rights, including those for Japan, could be sold to an international streaming company.

“I think [Japan] is vitally important from a business perspective,” Manfred told Schmidt. “When you can say to a streaming company, “I have the ability to deliver an audience of 25 million people in Japan for a game,” they’re interested.”

That would be a major change in the status quo for fans in Japan but could also result in a substantial windfall for the league, allowing them to leverage the league’s rapidly growing fanbase in Japan financially in a more impactful way. Manfred said as much during the interview, suggesting to Schmidt that the value of those broadcasting rights in the streaming market is “way more significant” than the value the league would be able to extract by continuing to sell to traditional broadcasters in Japan.

It’s against that backdrop of upcoming potential streaming deals, both domestic and international, that the next round of collective bargaining between the league and the MLB Players Association will occur. The current collective bargaining agreement is set to expire in December of 2026, and while that’s still more than 18 months away the possibility of another lockout after one disrupted the 2021-22 offseason during the most recent CBA negotiations has been widely discussed. Just last month, MLBPA chief Tony Clark indicated that the players’ association expects a lockout following the 2025 season, and recent discontent among fans regarding the disparity in spending between the league’s top teams and those at the bottom has teed up a potential fight over the club’s economic system.

The league has frequently pushed for a salary cap over the years, even as the MLBPA has always considered the idea a complete non-starter. While Manfred did not discuss the idea of a cap directly in his interview with Schmidt, he did make clear that he is “cognizant” of and “sympathetic” to fan frustrations regarding the disparity in spending among MLB clubs. He went on to note that teams that are outspent by the top teams can overcome that disparity, as seen in the past successes of smaller-market clubs like the Brewers and Guardians, though he suggested that the perception of inevitability surrounding top spenders like the Dodgers and Mets can impact ticket sales for smaller clubs.

“The outcome result is not perfectly correlated with the spending,” Manfred told Schmidt, “But the fact of the matter is the inability or the constant failure to spend affects the business in a way that’s bad for it.”

Manfred went on to agree “one hundred percent” with Schmidt when asked if the disparity in spending “is a massive problem” that the league needs to address. MLBTR readership clearly agrees, as a poll from MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes back in January found that two-thirds of respondents want a salary cap to be instituted in the next round of CBA negotiations, while just over half of respondents went as far as to suggest they would be willing to lose the entirety of the 2027 campaign if it meant that a salary cap would be put into place.

It should be noted that while a salary cap is the most often discussed way to reduce payroll disparity, it’s far from the only method. Many smaller market clubs do not spend in a way that’s commensurate with the revenue sharing dollars they receive. The MLBPA has filed grievances against the Pirates, Rays, Athletics, and Marlins in the past over just that issue, and the A’s needed to spend aggressively this winter in order to get in line and avoid an additional grievance. The Marlins, meanwhile, are risking a grievances by going into the 2025 season with a projected payroll of just under $70MM according to RosterResource, and that’s a figure that could drop further if a pricey veteran like Sandy Alcantara gets dealt at some point this season.

The possibility of a salary cap won’t be the only thing discussed during this next round of CBA negotiations, however, and Manfred’s comments to Schmidt could give the public a window into some other issues that could be discussed. Expansion has been covered in past agreements and remains something Manfred has an eye toward, as the commissioner told Schmidt that he hopes to have the cities selected by the time his final term as commissioner ends in 2029. Aside from that, a major topic of discussion in recent years has been how to mitigate pitcher injuries. As Manfred noted to Schmidt, the incentives for both players and teams as things stand are for both to pursue velocity and spin rate over effectiveness.

That analytics have shown premium stuff to be extremely valuable cannot be debated, and it’s true that teams have increasingly rewarded players with big strikeout numbers, high velocity, and impressive spin rates that all could correlate with an increased risk of injury. A notable point Manfred made in his interview with Schmidt, however, was that the guaranteed contracts offered in baseball skew player incentives away towards maximizing effectiveness rather than staying healthy.

“From a competitive perspective, it’s absolutely clear to young people that we pay for velocity and spin rate,” Manfred told Schmidt. “…So you get injured and they fix you up and you go right back and you do it again. Under our system, because it’s basically all guaranteed money, you get paid. So the incentives there that apply on the athlete are really misdirected. They actually encourage behavior that increases injuries.”

While Manfred did not outright suggest that the guaranteed nature of free agent contracts in MLB could be up for debate during this next round of CBA negotiations, that the commissioner brought it up when discussing the need to “alter incentives” for players and clubs in order to keep pitchers healthy is very notable. Some sports leagues such as the NFL allow contracts that aren’t fully guaranteed, meaning the club may not necessarily have to pay the player in event of injury, but that’s not the case in MLB and would of course need to be collectively bargained with the MLBPA. Much like a salary cap, that seems very likely to be a nonstarter with the union.

One other notable item that Manfred suggested more directly could be part of the next round of CBA negotiations is the automated ball-strike system. ABS was introduced to big league Spring Training games this year as a challenge system, which was mostly viewed as a success around the league. That’s led to plenty of interest in ABS being adopted in regular season games, and Manfred suggested to Schmidt that its arrival could come as soon as 2026. With that being said, Manfred noted he was “uncertain” of that because the union would have to approve it for the 2026 season and suggested that “it would not be shocking” if the union pushed for the specifics of ABS to be resolved during the next round of CBA negotiations after the 2026 season.

On the topic of ABS, Manfred noted that the Umpires’ union (with which the possible implementation of ABS has already been collectively bargained) actually preferred fully automated ball-strike calls as opposed the challenge system used in Spring Training. Manfred noted that players have expressed a preference for the challenge system, in part to protect players who have made a career out of elite pitch-framing abilities from having their skills devalued. It seems as though the league is satisfied with the compromise of a challenge system given that it’s what was used in Spring Training this year, but if either the players decide they’re against the challenge system or the league decides to push for full ABS that could theoretically become an issue discussed in the upcoming round of CBA negotiations even if the challenge system were to get implemented for the 2026 campaign.

2025 Trade Deadline To Be On July 31

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The 2025 trade deadline will be on Thursday, July 31st at 6pm Eastern/5pm Central. Joel Sherman of The New York Post was among those to relay the decision. That’s a slight change from last year’s deadline, which was July 30.

Traditionally, the trade deadline had always been on July 31. Under the current collective bargaining agreement, the commissioner can choose a date between July 28 and August 3 for the deadline. This is mostly so that the league can avoid having the deadline occur when games are going on and players have to be removed in a “hug watch” scenario. If the deadline were to fall on a weekend, when there are many games all throughout the day, the chances of a player being dealt during an ongoing game would be higher.

The league has usually opted for a weekday with a lighter schedule. It was on August 1st in 2023 and July 30 last year, both of those dates being Tuesdays. This year, as mentioned, July 31st is a Thursday. There are only three games on the schedule for that date.

Clark: MLBPA Expects Lockout After 2026 Season

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Tony Clark, executive director of the MLB Players Association, expects the league to implement a lockout after the 2026 season. “Unless I am mistaken, the league has come out and said there’s going to be a work stoppage,” Clark said, per Barry M. Bloom of Sportico. “So, I don’t think I’m speaking out of school in that regard.” The current collective bargaining agreement is set to expire on December 1 of 2026.

That quote is in response to some previous comments made by Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred about a month ago. “In a bizarre way, it’s actually a positive,” Manfred said to Evan Drellich of The Athletic last month. “There is leverage associated with an offseason lockout and the process of collective bargaining under the [National Labor Relations Act] works based on leverage. The great thing about offseason lockouts is the leverage that exists gets applied between the bargaining parties.” He also praised a lockout as being preferable to in-season negotiations, saying that it’s “like using a .22 (caliber firearm), as opposed to a shotgun or a nuclear weapon.”

Clark disagreed in response at that time. “Players know from first-hand experience that a lockout is neither routine nor positive,” Clark said. “It’s a weapon, plain and simple, implemented to pressure players and their families by taking away a player’s ability to work.”

Relations between the league and the union have been combative in recent years and the current collective bargaining agreement was agreed to after a lockout which lasted several months. The previous CBA expired on December 1 of 2021 and the league instituted a lockout that very night. The negotiations continued into the spring, with a new agreement getting done on March 10 of 2022. That led to a rushed ramp-up to the 2022 season, though a full 162-game schedule was still completed via some scheduled doubleheaders.

Given that the relations between the two sides haven’t markedly improved, many in the baseball world expect another lockout to follow the expiration of the current CBA. Manfred’s comments only added to that suspicion and it seems Clark and the union are operating under that assumption.

There are many issues that will need to be discussed between now and then. There will be the ever-present topics of player compensation and revenue sharing, as well as more complex issues such as an international draft. The two sides are free to discuss these issues at any time but comments from Manfred make it seem unlikely that any progress will be made well in advance.

“I’m one that likes to bargain early, but we’re still two years away, even if you’re thinking you want to bargain early,” Manfred said about a month ago. “We got time on that front. And I think the time is particularly important right now, because we do have things going on in terms of the economics of the game — local media being the principal one — that the longer we wait, the more it evolves, the better decisions we’re going to make.”

From the players’ side, they seem to be assuming that Manfred is trying to generate leverage through the press. “I know that a lot of what Rob Manfred says in the media is posturing,” Giants third baseman Matt Chapman said recently to John Shea of the San Francisco Standard. “They’re all negotiating tactics. He tries to create his narrative.”

One topic that usually comes up in CBA discussions is a salary cap, though the MLBPA has always considered that a nonstarter. Evan Drellich of The Athletic recently reported that the owners are mulling a push for a cap when the next round of CBA talks gets going in earnest. David Rubenstein, principal owner of the Orioles, spoke publicly in favor of a cap in January. Clark, however, reiterated that the union has no desire to agree to such a measure.

“We remain of the mind, as we have over the last 50 or 60 years, that the industry does not need it,” Clark said today to Matt Weyrich of The Baltimore Sun. “It is not necessary. Whether it’s from a ‘competitive balance’ standpoint, or whether it’s from the ability of the industry to continue to grow and move forward, all of those things have happened in the absence of [a salary cap] and our game has thrived as a result.”

Many fans view a salary cap as the simplest way to combat certain inequities in baseball. That’s despite the fact that the sport hasn’t had recent dynastic runs like other leagues. MLB hasn’t seen a repeat champion since the 1998-2000 Yankees. There are huge gaps in terms of spending, with the Dodgers projected by RosterResource to have a $390MM payroll this year with some other clubs like the Marlins are down near $70MM. But despite that massive gap, those two clubs have the same number of World Series trophies over the past 35 years.

Still, there are fans of small-market clubs who feel overpowered when it comes to competitive balance. “There are ways of addressing the system that aren’t salary or cap related or require the restrictions of player salaries as the answer to every one of these questions,” Clark said, per Bloom. Presumably, Clark was referring to things like the fact that smaller-market clubs get extra picks in the draft via the competitive balance round as well as larger pools of bonus money to spend on international players, or perhaps the revenue-sharing agreements which could always be altered.  Those measures have helped clubs like the Rays, Guardians and Brewers stay consistently competitive despite far less spending capacity than some of their fellow clubs.

The larger point is that MLB is in fairly healthy shape overall. Maury Brown of Forbes recently reported that the league’s revenues hit a record $12.1 billion in 2024, without even accounting for alternate revenue streams such as from commercial real estate projects connected to ballparks. Various metrics have suggested the implementation of the pitch clock has helped baseball’s popularity more generally, in terms of ticket sales and TV ratings. Clark seemed to reference that situation in comments relayed by Weyrich today, suggesting that the proposed cap is less about competitive balance and more about increasing profits for owners.

“At this point in time, despite the fact that there was an announcement that the industry itself is doing better than it ever has, despite the fact that there was an announcement that there’s more viewership and more attendance than it has been in the last 10 or so years, you’re hearing the rhetoric around a salary cap because there’s an interest in moving more of that revenue from one side of the equation to the other.”

Manfred: Dodgers Aren’t Ruining Baseball

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Major League Baseball’s 30 owners and commissioner Rob Manfred are having some scheduled meetings in Florida this week. One item on the agenda was approving John Seidler as the Padres’ control person, which MLBTR covered earlier. There are plenty of other issues going on around baseball, which Manfred discussed with Evan Drellich of The Athletic and Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times.

This winter has seen a lot of talk around the overlapping issues of competitive balance, a salary cap and player retention. Most of that talk is related to the Dodgers. That club spent heavily last winter on star players, including Shohei Ohtani, then went on to win the 2024 World Series. They followed that up by adding even more star power this winter, signing Blake Snell, Roki Sasaki and others. In the wake of the Sasaki signing, MLBTR polled its readers about a salary cap with roughly two thirds of the votes being in favor.

“No,” Manfred said, when asked if the Dodgers are ruining baseball. “I don’t agree with that. The Dodgers are a really well-run, successful organization. Everything that they do and have done is consistent with our rules. They’re trying to give their fans the best possible product.” However, he did make it clear he’s aware of the frustration coming from other fanbases. “I recognize, however, and my email certainly reflects it: There are fans in other markets who are concerned about their teams’ ability to compete, and we always have to be concerned when our fans are concerned about something. But pinning it on the Dodgers, not in that camp.”

As mentioned, the idea of competitive balance or parity has come up a lot in baseball circles lately. Those who believe baseball doesn’t have a parity problem will point to the fact that baseball has been fairly dynasty-proof lately. No club has won consecutive World Series since the 1998-2000 Yankees. The Dodgers, for all their might in the regular season, just won a title in a full season for the first time since 1988. Smaller clubs like the Rays, Guardians and Brewers have stayed steadily competitive in recent years.

There are various counter arguments. Per Shaikin, it was discussed at the owners’ meetings that only two clubs outside the top ten markets have managed to win a World Series in the past 20 years: the Cardinals and the Royals. The inability for lesser-spending clubs to retain star players is also a frequent bone of contention in certain fanbases. Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns, who formerly had the same job with the Brewers, addressed that issue with Mike Mazzeo of Sports Business Journal, vaguely supporting measures to improve player retention without specifics. That was another issue Manfred touched on today.

“Continuity in terms of players in particular markets is an issue that’s relevant to the marketing game,” he said. “Obviously, fans get attached to players, and that’s a great thing. We love that. That’s part of fandom, it’s a good part of fandom. We always try to keep the desire for player continuity in our minds when we’re talking about building a system. By the same token, I’m kind of a free market guy — players at some point in their careers, have to have a right to — I mean they have to — have a right to decide where they want to play.”

The hope of salary cap proponents is that it would help in many of these areas, the idea being that reining in clubs like the Dodgers would increase the chances of smaller clubs keeping fan favorites, as well as helping their prospects of winning on the field.

Getting a salary cap in place, however, would be another matter. It would have to be collectively bargained with the MLB Players Association and the union has long been opposed to a salary cap. The owners made a serious attempt to get a salary cap in place 30 years ago, which led to the 1994-95 strike, during which there was no World Series played for the ’94 season.

In a separate piece at The Athletic, Drellich writes that the owners have been discussing whether or not to push for a salary cap. The current collective bargaining agreement runs until December of 2026, so a cap could potentially come up in negotiations going into the 2027 season.

Whether the owners will be intent on pushing for a cap is a big unknown. Different clubs will naturally have different priorities for CBA talks, depending on their respective financial situations. A club like the Dodgers will be less interested in a salary cap than some of the lower-spending clubs. Drellich reports that the “opinions among owners are mixed.”

Last month, Dodgers president Stan Kasten and Orioles owner David Rubenstein gave different opinions of baseball’s economic landscape. Kasten opined that the Dodgers’ spending is good for baseball while Rubenstein voiced support for a cap. Manfred admitted today that the cap is not the only way to address baseball issues. “I am a huge believer in the idea that there are always multiple solutions to a particular set of concerns,” he said.

The position of the players is more clear. As mentioned, they have long been opposed to a cap, as it would have a negative effect on players’ earning power. Tony Clark, executive director of the MLBPA, attempted to shift the focus to the other end of the spending spectrum. “The league, and the owners it represents, have been predicting doom for decades to justify more restrictions on salaries,” Clark said, “but the game is healthier than it’s ever been. The real question is: Why aren’t all teams, across all markets, using the resources we know they have to put their best foot forward in an effort to be the last team standing?”

Discussions of salary caps often lead to discussions of salary floors, since there are several clubs that are not aggressive at all in terms of spending on players, compared to the Dodgers. The Pirates, for instance, haven’t given a multi-year deal to a free agent in almost a decade. Their three-year deal for Iván Nova in December of 2016 was their most recent such pact.

Overall, the league is indeed healthy, as Clark alluded to. Since the introduction of the pitch clock, MLB itself has flaunted the increases in fan attendance and TV ratings.  Last month, Maury Brown of Forbes reported that league revenues hit $12.1 billion in 2024, a record high. That doesn’t even include “ancillary revenues attached to the clubs such as mixed-use development in and around ballparks, such as The Battery around Truist Park, home to the Atlanta Braves, club-owned RSNs, or companies such as Legends Hospitality, which is co-owned by the Yankees.”

That league-wide economic health naturally benefits some clubs more than others, particularly when it comes to broadcast revenue. Certain popular clubs such as the Dodgers, Cubs and Yankees have at least partial ownership of their respective regional sports networks (RSNs). Smaller clubs like the Padres, Diamondbacks, Guardians and Twins have had their RSN deals collapse and now have the league handling things, a model that is widely believed to bring in significantly less revenue.

Per Drellich, changing the revenue sharing model is another point of discussion among owners. There are currently 14 clubs* that receive revenue-sharing but the owners could always agree to increase how much money is flowing downhill. Mark Walter, controlling owner of the Dodgers, gave his perspective on that matter to Shaikin. “I don’t think we’re there,” he said. “We’re probably trying to find something that’s in the best interest of everybody.”

Uncertainties in the broadcast model will also have to be a consideration for the owners as they weigh the pros and cons of pushing for a cap. Even if something like a year-long lockout could hypothetically get the players to agree to such a thing, there would likely be significant negative consequences for the league-wide health that was referenced earlier. Broadcast ratings and attendance would surely drop after such a stoppage, as they did after the 1994-95 strike. It has been reported that 2028 will be a big year for the league, as they look to market a large package or packages of games to various broadcasters and/or streamers. A lengthy period of canceled games would likely be hurting the overall attractiveness of the product just before that pivotal moment.

Manfred has said in the past that he is proud of the relative labor peace of his tenure, with no games having been lost due to a strike or lockout. He is not planning to seek another term as commissioner and is therefore slated to be gone by January of 2029. Unless that changes, he would have to be willing to change that track record on his way out the door in order to lead the owners through a significant stoppage.

There are many moving parts and various different ways of looking at all these issues. Players and owners will often have opposing viewpoints. Large-market clubs and smaller clubs will have different priorities, as will star players compared to fringe players. Baseball fans will be sprinkled all over those different camps to varying degrees.

Many in the baseball world believe another lockout is inevitable. The 2021-22 lockout lasted from December to March of that offseason, though the two sides eventually got a deal done just in time to avoid losing games. Given the apparent strife between the owners and players, many believe that a lockout will become rote with future negotiations. That’s a sentiment that Manfred seems to share.

“In a bizarre way, it’s actually a positive,” Manfred said to The Athletic last month. “There is leverage associated with an offseason lockout and the process of collective bargaining under the [National Labor Relations Act] works based on leverage. The great thing about offseason lockouts is the leverage that exists gets applied between the bargaining parties.”

The union sees it differently. “Players know from first-hand experience that a lockout is neither routine nor positive,” Clark said. “It’s a weapon, plain and simple, implemented to pressure players and their families by taking away a player’s ability to work.”

The two sides could always start talks well in advance of the end of the current CBA, though Manfred downplayed the possibility. “I’m one that likes to bargain early, but we’re still two years away, even if you’re thinking you want to bargain early,” Manfred said. “We got time on that front. And I think the time is particularly important right now, because we do have things going on in terms of the economics of the game — local media being the principal one — that the longer we wait, the more it evolves, the better decisions we’re going to make.”

Drellich also relayed another formality of this week’s meetings, noting that Athletics owner John Fisher and Mets owner Steve Cohen have been added to the owners’ executive council. Those two replace John Middleton of the Phillies and John Sherman of the Royals. The six continuing members of the eight-member council are Paul Dolan of the Guardians, John Henry of the Red Sox, Greg Johnson of the Giants, Ken Kendrick of the Diamondbacks, Arte Moreno of the Angels and Bruce Sherman of the Marlins.

* (Diamondbacks, Rockies, Reds, Brewers, Pirates, Marlins, Athletics, Mariners, Tigers, Royals, Twins, Guardians, Orioles, Rays)

MLB Passes Two Small Rule Changes

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Major League Baseball’s competition committee has unanimously passed two minor on-field rule changes for the 2025 season, reports Evan Drellich of The Athletic. The first involves defensive positioning, while the other relates to an infrequent baserunning scenario.

Regarding the defense, the rule change now allows a hitting team to accept an awarded base if a defensive player violates the shift ban and is the first player to field a batted ball. Teams are required to keep two infielders on either side of the second base bag. Previously, if a fielder violated the shift ban — likely a middle infielder starting on the opposite side of the base — the hitting team could either take an automatic ball or accept the result of the play. They’ll now be able to take the free base or the play result. If they accept the free base, any runners would move up one base. The fielder will be charged with an error, while the hitter will not be credited with an at-bat.

The change is designed to increase the penalty for teams violating the shift ban. The league felt that teams could push fielders slightly beyond the bag in hopes of getting away with a violation. The rationale would be that if the violation went unnoticed by umpires and opposing teams, the shift could result in an out. If the violation were detected, the automatic ball was unlikely to be that costly. Drellich notes that there were two shift violations that resulted in an automatic ball last season. Those would be errors under the new rule.

The baserunning rule only comes into play in very specific circumstances. If a player deliberately overruns the second or third base bag to beat out a force play, a longstanding rule is that the runner is to be called out for abandonment. Players are only really incentivized to do this if they’re the trail runner when there was a runner on third base with two outs. If they feel they’d be forced out if they slow down or slide, they may instead run through the bag. While they’d likely be tagged out a second or two later, negating the force play would allow the runner who’d been on third base to score.

Now, the replay official can determine whether the runner from third base touched home plate before the trail runner officially abandoned the bag. That’s defined as having both feet on the ground beyond the base. If the lead runner had not scored by then, the run will not count. The rule also includes an adjustment to replay review. Previously, if the umpire had incorrectly called the trail runner out on the initial force play, a successful challenge by the hitting team would call the runner safe even if the runner had gone through the bag. In that scenario, the replay official can now call the runner out by abandonment.

MLB’s competition committee is composed of six owners, four player representatives, and one umpire. The owner majority essentially gives the league unilateral power to make on-field rule adjustments. That has been to the players’ consternation in the past, though these changes are so marginal that they didn’t encounter opposition.

Marlins Notes: Payroll, Alcantara

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The rebuilding Marlins have continued to subtract from their big league roster this winter, trading Jake Burger to the Rangers and Jesus Luzardo to the Phillies.  Since Burger wasn’t yet arbitration-eligible and Luzardo was projected for a modest $6MM in his second arb year, the trades were more about adding young talent than cutting payroll, yet losing even Luzardo’s estimated $6MM salary has an additional impact on a bigger-picture question facing Miami’s finances.

As observed by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (using estimates from RosterResource), the Marlins have a luxury tax number of roughly $82.8MM.  This leaves the Fish some ground to cover before they reach the $105MM threshold estimated as the figure representing 150 percent of the club’s reported $70MM or so in revenue-sharing funds.  As stipulated by the league’s collective bargaining agreement, teams who receive revenue-sharing funds must spend at least 150 percent of those funds on player payroll, at the risk of facing a grievance from the players’ union.

It wouldn’t be the first time that the Marlins faced this consequence, as the MLBPA filed a grievance against the Marlins, Rays, Pirates, and Athletics in February 2018 based on the union’s stance that the clubs were simply pocketing a good deal of their revenue-sharing money, rather than reinvesting those funds towards player payroll.  Rosenthal and his Athletic colleague Evan Drellich recently noted that that grievance was still pending in an adjusted form, though the most recent CBA saw the minimum spend rise from 125 percent to its current 150 percent figure.

The revenue-sharing minimum drew more of a spotlight this winter when the A’s started to increase their payroll, which was viewed as the team trying to hit that $105MM tax number and avoid any heat from the players’ union.  The Athletics’ situation is a little different since their revenue-sharing status was reduced in the earlier years of the CBA while the team was looking for a new ballpark, and they are now back to receiving a full-fledged share of revenue-sharing funds in 2025.

The Marlins have generally been among the lowest-spending teams in baseball for most of their history, and spanning multiple ownership groups.  Bruce Sherman’s purchase of the Marlins in 2017 was initially viewed as a possible light at the end of the payroll tunnel, though the sudden departure of CEO Derek Jeter prior to the 2022 season threw a wrench into that perception, especially since payroll expenditures were reportedly one of several sources of disagreement between Sherman and Jeter.

Miami did elevate spending a bit under GM Kim Ng and the team made the playoffs in 2023, but Sherman’s desire for a better farm system led to Ng’s departure after that season, and the hiring of Peter Bendix as the Marlins’ new president of baseball operations.  Taking a page from Bendix’s former team in Tampa Bay, the Marlins seem to be moving towards a Rays-esque model of relying on a strong minor league pipeline to build their rosters, while only modestly spending on payrolls.  Bendix’s arrival kickstarted yet another rebuild, as the Marlins have dealt several of their more experienced and higher-priced players over the last year.

As much as the Athletics’ winter moves were made with the revenue-sharing number in mind, acquiring Luis Severino, Jeffrey Springs, and Gio Urshela are also sensible from an on-field standpoint, given the club’s needs in the rotation and at third base.  Considering that the A’s played solid baseball over the last three months of the 2024 season, the West Sacramento team might even have some darkhorse potential as a wild card contender if everything breaks right and the Athletics get another breakout or two from younger players.

The Marlins are in a different situation.  While there is some interesting talent on the roster, it is very hard to imagine Miami contending in 2025, nor does contending seem to be in the front office’s plans within the near future as Bendix focused on overhauling the player development system.

Spending $22.2MM to get up to the $105MM threshold likely won’t translate, therefore, in any additions that will help Miami win ballgames in 2025.  The Marlins could add a couple of lower-cost veterans on one-year deals, with an eye towards potentially trading those players at the deadline once the majority of their salaries have been officially tallied onto the team’s tax bill.  With a nod towards the Marlins’ goal of restocking the farm system, Bendix could potentially look into trading for a bad contract or two from another team, with that other team adding some prospects as a sweetener to further entice Miami into absorbing most or all of the money owed.

Unsurprisingly, Bendix didn’t provide many details on the Marlins’ spending plans, telling the Miami Herald’s Barry Jackson and other reporters this week that “I’m not going to comment on what we might or might not do.  Bruce continues to give us all the resources we need to build this franchise for sustainable success.”

Bendix also didn’t entirely close the door on the possibility that Sandy Alcantara could be traded, saying that “We never rule out anything.  We listen to everything.”  That said, Alcantara was told back in August that he probably wasn’t getting dealt this offseason, and Bendix noted that “Sandy is a really important piece for our organization.  I’m really excited to see him pitch on Opening Day.”

Alcantara is the highest-paid player on Miami’s roster, as the 2022 NL Cy Young Award winner is owed $17MM in each of the next two seasons, plus there is a $21MM club option ($2MM buyout) on his services for 2027.  This salary has naturally made Alcantara the subject of continued trade rumors, even though Alcantara didn’t pitch in 2024 due to Tommy John surgery.

Obviously the Marlins wouldn’t be trading the right-hander for a maximum return in the wake of this injury, which is why a deal this winter remains unlikely.  If Bendix was to sell low on Alcantara now only to see him rebound to ace form in the early part of the 2025 season, that’ll count as a missed opportunity to gain the biggest possible trade package for the Marlins’ biggest remaining trade chip.  Miami’s payroll might also factor into the equation here, as Rosenthal notes that trading Alcantara would leave the Marlins even further away from the $105MM revenue-sharing threshold.

Just as Bendix isn’t likely to openly state that Alcantara is available in trade talks, the PBO also isn’t likely to entirely shut down any offers because of basic due diligence.  Bendix surely doesn’t want to limit options just in case a pitching-needy team actually is willing to part with a premium return for a pitcher coming off a lost season.

Details On MLB’s Future Broadcasting Plans

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Back in February, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said that he wanted to be able to market a blackout-free streaming bundle including roughly half the league. That plan was largely tied to the collapse of Diamond Sports Group, though that company is now emerging from bankruptcy and will continue to operate for the time being. That seems to have kicked Manfred’s plans down the road a little bit, with Evan Drellich of The Athletic doing a deep dive this week on the current state of things.

Manfred still has his sights set on getting rid of local blackouts as part of TV/streaming packages, though it might now have to wait a few years. While some clubs that lost their broadcast deals are now letting MLB handle things, others have re-upped with Diamond. The Braves, Cardinals, Marlins, Angels, Tigers, and Rays are back with Diamond while the Royals might also join them, depending on the outcome of ongoing negotiations. But Drellich notes that none of those deals go beyond 2028.

That is significant because that is also the year that MLB’s national broadcast deals with Fox, ESPN* and Turner expire. (*As a side note, Drellich notes that MLB and ESPN have a mutual opt-out after this season but talks about that are ongoing.) The league’s hope is to have as much on the table as possible when negotiating new national deals. “Most important from my perspective is that all the deals for the Diamond clubs end no later than 2028,” Manfred says in the piece. “My interest in local rights in large part is to have them available when we do national renewals.”

The bidding could include more than those three companies that MLB currently has national deals with, as Drellich notes that executives from Apple, Amazon, CBS, Disney/ESPN, DirecTV, Fox, Netflix, NBC/Peacock, Roku, YouTube and Warner Bros.-Discovery were present at the World Series. MLB already has a deal with Roku for Sunday games, a slot previously held by Peacock. Apple has Friday Night Baseball while the Diamond clubs will be available on Amazon Prime next year. YouTube had a previous deal with MLB that ran from 2019 to 2022.

The regional sports network (RSN) model has been a huge source of revenue for all teams in the past but cord cutting has chipped away at that model. The Padres, Diamondbacks and Rockies all operated without an RSN partner in 2024, with the league handling their broadcasts both for TV/cable/satellite and direct-to-consumer streaming. The Twins, Guardians, Brewers and Reds will go down that path in 2025.

Simplistically, this is bad for teams but good for fans. The clubs are losing that passive revenue, as many people previously signed up for cable/satellite bundles that included sports RSNs even if they weren’t much interested in baseball. The streaming model cuts out the middleman but requires more active uptake from fans and leads to lower revenues, at least in the short term. But for fans, this allows them to finally get around the blackouts that have been an annoying part of the RSN paradigm for decades.

Though the revenue streams aren’t as strong, the league seems to recognize that this is the way of the future and is trying to lean into it. Though as detailed by Drellich, actually following through will be complicated.

“I’d like to have all the rights available,” Manfred said. “I’d like to talk to the people who are buyers. I’d like to cut them up into packages and sell them, as many of them as possible, nationally, and then have a plan to deal with what’s left over.”

As mentioned, the league already has seven clubs on its ledger, though Drellich adds that it’s technically eight. The Mariners took control of ROOT Sports Northwest a year ago but Drellich relays that the league is involved to some degree as well. If the six or seven clubs with Diamond eventually link up with the league a few years down the line, that would be roughly half the league. The Rangers are sort of a wild card at present, as they don’t plan to continue their relationship with Diamond but haven’t yet outlined a plan for 2025, reportedly exploring the creation of their own RSN. Drellich says close to two thirds of the league could have their rights available by 2028, presumably due to other non-Diamond RSN deals expiring. Some clubs still have relationships with NBC affiliates or other broadcasters.

The issue in MLB getting the other clubs on board is that they are in very different financial positions. Broadly speaking, the larger-market clubs are in better shape, both because of stronger viewership bases and because the club and its broadcaster are often the same company. If all the clubs were cobbled together as part of some bundle which spread the profits around, that would benefit the smaller clubs while harming the larger ones.

That would naturally be unappealing to the larger clubs, though Drellich notes that a compromise could perhaps be reached by changing the overall revenue sharing. Currently, each clubs shares 48% of their local revenues (local media, ticket sales, concessions, merchandise and sponsorships). The Drellich piece suggests that greater sharing of broadcast money could be accompanied by less sharing of the other streams.

“I do think there are a combination of things that for even the very biggest teams,” Manfred says, “we can demonstrate that for the good of the game over the long haul, it’s better for everybody and better for them.”

Another complication is that the MLB Players Association would have to be involved. They don’t need to be consulted when it comes to broadcast decisions but all revenue-sharing plans need to be collectively bargained. The current collective bargaining agreement runs until December of 2026, so these matters will likely need to be hammered out in the next CBA, ahead of the aforementioned key pivot point in 2028.

“If the model changes, we will be involved in negotiating how those changes might affect the system and will ensure that the interests and priorities of the players are protected,” says Tony Clark, the head of the MLBPA. The relationship between the league and the union hasn’t been great lately, with the most recent CBA talks resulting in a lockout of more than three months that almost resulted in the 2022 season being canceled or shortened. A deal did get done and the season was spared, but some key issues went unaddressed and will likely come up again, such as an international draft. Then there’s the ever-present CBA issues like salaries, the competitive balance tax and so on.

Presumably, Manfred won’t want another work stoppage just ahead of his big pitch to potential broadcasters. Anything that hurts fan interest in the game would naturally make those rights less appealing, but the league’s motivation to get a deal done will obviously be contingent on how effectively they can negotiate all CBA issues with the players. The two sides agreed in July of this year to have CBT money redirected to those clubs who lost broadcast revenue, so perhaps some of this could be accomplished outside of full CBA talks.

There are many balls in the air here and a few years for them to bounce around, but Manfred will need to find a path forward that satisfies the owners as well as the players. If he succeeds, it could be good for growing the game by improving fan access to the product. An entrenchment of the current paradigm, on the other hand, could perhaps increase fan dissatisfaction with the inequalities that impact competitive balance.

How it all plays out will lead to ripple effects that impact the on-field product. The Padres and Twins have already scaled back their payrolls in response to the shifting landscape. This seemed to have an impact on last winter’s market, with several free agents settling for deals that fell well below initial projections. Clubs like the Cardinals and Rangers are also planning to dial things back next year.

MLB Considering Rules To Keep Starting Pitchers In Games Longer

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One of the biggest differences between modern baseball and past versions of the game is declining starting pitcher usage. Many fans and people in the baseball world want to reverse this trend and the league is considering some rule changes that could help in that regard, per Jesse Rogers of ESPN. The most drastic change on the table is a rule that would dictate starting pitchers have to complete six innings before being removed from a game.

Such a rule would have to come with exceptions for injuries, blowouts or other extreme scenarios. Rogers reports that the league has discussed criteria where a pitcher could leave before competing six innings, such as throwing 100 pitches, allowing four or more earned runs or suffering an injury. The last one would require an IL stint in order to avoid shenanigans.

Some less-extreme suggestions have also been thrown around, such as a five-batter minimum for relievers, which could give managers more hesitation about making a move. There’s also the possibility of lowering the sizes of pitching staffs or the double-hook designated hitter system. The latter, which has been in consideration for a while, would see a team lose its DH once they remove their starting pitcher. It’s also suggested in the ESPN piece that draft pick compensation could be offered to the team with the most innings pitched by its starting staff.

It’s worth emphasizing that no changes are imminent and MLB has shown that it will experiment with potential changes in independent ball and/or the minors before bringing it to the majors. They have also tried out many changes that never made it to the big leagues, so even getting to the experimental stage is no guarantee that a new rule will eventually be implemented in the majors. If any momentum builds towards making this change a reality, teams would have plenty of warning so that they could alter how they target and develop pitchers for this new reality.

All that said, it’s not a huge secret that this shift has been happening over the years, with most baseball fans keenly aware of the trend lines when it comes to pitcher usage. Even putting aside things like bullpen games and openers, starters have just been throwing less. Just about any volume stat can illustrate this by looking at a recent season compared to one further in the past. Last year, there were five pitchers who hit the 200-inning plateau and five who threw more than one complete game. Just 20 years prior, in 2003, there were 44 hurlers who got to 200 innings and 43 who pitched at least two complete games. Go back another 20 years to 1983 and those numbers are 50 and 82.

This is due to various factors, including the fact that pitchers are less effective a third time through the order. This year, for example, hitters are slashing .238/.311/.388 the first time they see a pitcher. That jumps to .250/.311/.416 the second time and .263/.327/.437 the third time through. Bringing in a high-octane reliever is simply just a better strategy than letting the starter stay out there. This has led to the pejorative term “five-and-dive” to describe modern pitchers only concerned with throwing five innings, compared to old school pitchers who aimed to go a full nine.

Batters and teams are also more focused on power these days. Last year, there were only ten players who qualified for the batting title but finished with less than ten home runs. In 2003, there were 30 such players. In 1983, there were 46. That makes it harder for a pitch-to-contact strategy to yield positive results.

It has also been learned that a pitcher has little control over what happens once a ball is put in play, so teams have been focusing more on strikeouts. The Athletic recently ran a five-part series looking pitchers emphasizing punchouts as opposed to pitch-to-contact strategies. This has led pitchers and teams to look to maximize velocity and spin, which is thought to have had an impact on the abundance of significant injuries and surgeries for pitchers these days.

The hope is that all or many of these factors could be mitigated by the six-inning minimum. Theoretically, a pitcher would have to dial back on velocity a bit in an attempt to stay in the game longer, going back to the old school focus on getting contact with fewer strikeouts.

Along with the pitch clock and the rules to incentivize base stealing, the league is hoping for a more action-oriented game and better entertainment product. It’s also hoped that this will lead to fewer pitchers undergoing Tommy John surgery or other significant operations that require lengthy rehabilitation periods.

Whether it’s possible to actually succeed in this mission and whether this is the best way to go about it is a something that can, and surely will, be debated at length. Many fans despise the constant tinkering that has gone on during the era of commissioner Rob Manfred, while those who yearn for the prominence of the starting pitcher to return would likely be more excited about these potential developments.

MLB, MLBPA Agree To Redirect CBT Money To Teams Losing TV Revenue

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MLB and the Players Association have agreed to a change to the collective bargaining agreement that’ll help teams whose television rights situations are uncertain. Evan Drellich of The Athletic reports that the league is now permitted to redirect its portion of competitive balance tax money to clubs that have lost TV revenue. Those teams can receive a maximum of $15MM or the necessary amount to compensate for their revenue drop.

Teams that exceed the competitive balance tax threshold are required to pay fees at the end of each season. The league and union split the money. The MLBPA’s portion funds its retirement accounts. That is unaffected by today’s agreement. The league now has the discretion to allocate some of its half of the money to clubs that have seen their TV revenues drop in either of the last two seasons. According to Drellich, the MLBPA projects the league’s half of the CBT payments to total around $150MM this year. Today’s agreement permits the commissioner’s office to distribute half that money to the teams affected by TV problems.

It’s a sensible arrangement for both parties. MLB gets more flexibility to support organizations that have lost some or all of a key revenue source in recent seasons. The union expects that’ll lead to a trickle-down benefit on player salaries. Last offseason, roughly a third of teams pointed to concerns about the long-term viability of their TV contracts as justification for limiting payroll raises or outright payroll cuts. Most of those organizations had contracts with Diamond Sports Group, which is trying to survive as it concludes a lengthy bankruptcy proceeding.

Diamond dropped its contracts with the Padres and Diamondbacks midway through last season. This spring, it renegotiated its deals with the Guardians, Twins and Rangers at lesser fees after threatening to abandon those contracts. Texas had a quieter offseason than expected for a defending World Series champion. Minnesota sliced payroll over the winter and its ownership is reportedly still reluctant to take on money via deadline deals. AT&T Sports dropped its local TV deals with the Rockies, Pirates, Mariners and Astros last offseason. Pittsburgh, Seattle and Houston found alternate broadcasting arrangements (likely with reduced revenues), while MLB stepped in to handle Rockies broadcasts within market.

A good number of teams remain skeptical about the long-term future of their regional sports networks. Diamond is carrying 12 teams on its networks at least through the end of this season. MLB has made no secret of its wariness about the broadcaster’s viability for ’25 and beyond.

Diamond’s ongoing conflict with Xfinity hasn’t done it any favors in that regard. A contract dispute between the broadcaster and the carrier has kept Xfinity customers from watching any games on Diamond networks since May. Blackout restrictions prevent MLB from stepping in to handle in-market broadcasts, leaving a subset of fans without the ability to watch their teams for a couple months.

There was a positive development on that front this morning. An attorney for Diamond said at today’s bankruptcy hearing that DSG and Xfinity had made progress in negotiations and expected to finalize a new contract “in the very near term” (link via Alden González of ESPN).

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