With the collective bargaining agreement set to expire at the end of this season, Major League Baseball has tossed its opening pitch, and not surprisingly, the Major League Baseball Players Association doesn’t like it.
In case you missed it, MLB has proposed a salary cap-and-floor system, with the floor at $171.2 million and the cap at $245.3 million in 2027. Teams would share local revenue equally. (The proposal also includes a complicated escrow system and 50-50 split of revenue between MLB and the MLBPA based on MLB meeting its revenue projections, discussion of which is beyond the scope of this article.) The purpose behind all of this, of course, is to improve competitive balance. Not mentioned is what to do about teams like the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets, who are obligated under several high-priced, long-term contracts. These would have to be grandfathered in somehow, delaying the impact of the cap-and-floor system by a few years.
Before we get into it, let’s dispense with the notion that the MLBPA is a real “union.” Yes, in a sense, it’s a union, but it’s one that crossed the Major League Umpires Association’s picket lines in 1979 and one that I witnessed crossing picket lines of ushers and vendors at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh many times, hardly what Samuel Gompers and John L. Lewis had in mind. OK, now that that’s off my chest…
MLBPA Says
MLB’s proposal is close to the cap-and-floor, revenue-sharing system in place with the National Football League. MLBPA sees no need for MLB to imitate the NFL. Now that MLB has six divisions, six wild cards, interleague play, and instant replay review, that ship sailed long ago, but I digress. The MLBPA points to the dominance of the Kansas City Chiefs and New England Patriots over the Super Bowl in recent years, as opposed to the many different World Series champions over those same periods. Indeed, the last baseball dynasty was the Joe Torre New York Yankees of 1996-2003. However, that argument falls apart because the football dynasties of Kansas City and New England weren’t the result of the NFL’s economic system. Not to mention that the Dodgers, who have won half of the last six World Series and are favored to win it again this season, are on the verge of a Chiefs-like dynasty of their own. In that regard, let me make another point clear: I’m not in the camp that charges the Dodgers with “ruining” baseball. It’s the system that’s hurting baseball, at least in the many small markets that have lost a generation of fans.
MLBPA’s other argument posits that a cap-and-floor system will decrease players’ salaries. But will it? If so, for whom? MLB posits that players’ salaries would increase under its proposed system, as 12 teams would have to increase payroll, while just eight teams would have to decrease payroll. As a happily retired accountant – and, to steal a joke from the late Bob Newhart, if I say I’m an accountant, it must be true, because who would lie about that? – I know my way around a spreadsheet and have run the numbers. The following table reflects current team payrolls alongside team payrolls under the proposed system. Current figures were derived on June 3 from Spotrac.
The Numbers
As you can see, total team payrolls would increase from $6.180 billion to $6.203 billion, a difference of about $24 million. Fact-checking MLB, it’s correct that 12 teams would increase payroll, but it’s nine, not eight, teams that would decrease payroll. You don’t have to be an accountant to run these numbers, so this is something MLBPA can see for itself. What’s their objection?
This brings me to another pet peeve of mine: The MLBPA isn’t a real “union” because it seems to represent only its stars. The current system has been good, for example, for Bryce Harper, who’s been a loud voice opposed to a cap. But it’s also spawned what I call a forgotten “middle class” of role players and middle relievers whose careers end too soon because teams can replace them with younger, cheaper players. The high-salaried star players seem willing to go on strike to fight to keep the status quo, even if it means giving up a year’s salary. They say they’re fighting for other players, not themselves. Yet, oddly, they won’t play for a lower salary to help elevate this middle class of ball players.
The Silent Majority
So, why doesn’t this “silent majority” of baseball’s middle class speak up and have their voice heard? They may not have thought about it as I have. There may be peer pressure involved: Just fall in line and shut up. A more likely reason is the belief, however unreasonable, among these players that one day, they’ll be the ones making the big bucks. In Ball Four, Jim Bouton wrote that bench players almost universally believe that they’re better than the regulars. That’s easy to imagine even 56 years after that book’s publication. After all, to make it to the major leagues in any capacity requires supreme confidence and even a bit of ego to go along with the necessary talent.
Which Side Will the Public Take?
The MLBPA’s attitude toward small-market teams has been that their low payrolls aren’t due to a lack of revenue, but because they “don’t want to win.” Of course, that’s nonsense. I spent my 40-year career working with business owners and high-net-worth individuals. I can’t think of one who would lose money just to win baseball games. Don’t kid yourself.
In Doughnut Economics, author and economist Kate Raworth wrote of “intrinsic” and “extrinsic” values. Societies with intrinsic values are concerned about the well-being of others. Societies with extrinsic values, on the other hand, value success, achievement, and power. Those societies, like in America, absolve the successful of blame for any problems, including the ones they create.
Thus, in my trips through social media of fans of the various small-market teams, I see one recurring theme: Sell the team. It’s the owner who takes the blame for the lack of spending, not MLB’s economic system. In How to Do Nothing (a book that my wife said I really didn’t need to read), author Jenny Odell writes of the “attention economy” we find ourselves trapped in. There are so many talk shows, social media, and internet publications competing for our attention, and they do so by keeping us fearful, anxious, and generally worked up. In the context of small-market baseball, it’s easier to grab that attention by trashing the owner as “cheap” than it is to criticize MLB’s system as unfair. “Cheap” draws more attention than “unfair.”
Against that backdrop aptly described by Raworth and Odell, it’s hard to tell where public sentiment will fall. Another Dodgers championship may tilt that sentiment to the club owners. What’s clear to me is that a work stoppage of any length will kill the momentum that the game presently enjoys. Hopefully, the sides can come together to create a better system than what’s in place today without any interruptions to the 2027 season.
