As the first full week of spring training 2025 comes to a conclusion, there has been plenty of chatter about Dec. 2, 2026.
That is the date when MLB owners are expected to enact their second straight lockout as the collective bargaining agreement expires. The CBA is a five-year contract between owners and players. The last lockout came after the 2021 season and lasted until March 10, 2022, impacting not only spring training, but the start of the regular season.
But the fear and loathing of another work stoppage affecting the 2027 season has been going on since early 2023, less than a year after the ink was dry on the current CBA. With how public their jobs are, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and MLB Players Association executive director Tony Clark have already done some verbal jockeying for positioning even before formal (or informal) discussions begin.
Rob Manfred on an international draft: "And I want to be clear about this: this is not a number of player or economic issue. It is a transparency issue”Tony Clark: "It’s great to hear that it’s not an economic issue. We’ll take that under advisement…"www.nytimes.com/athletic/615…
— Evan Drellich (@evandrellich.bsky.social) 2025-02-24T17:03:54.563Z
Negotiating publicly never goes very far. It is only when the parties are face-to-face that the real work is done. Those conversations are unlikely to get started until at least following the 2025 season, but there are already a number of issues that are front and center.
No. 1 is going to be a salary cap. Owners want it, players don’t. Clark has said that he will never accept a salary cap. But owners will want to rein in the freewheeling, deep-pocketed Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets. When the competitive balance tax was established for the current CBA, the levels and penalties put in place were thought of as the Steve Cohen tax, since he became owner of the Mets in late September 2020 and promised to spend at will to bring another World Series title to New York. Now, based on the last two offseasons, the Dodgers are in everyone’s crosshairs, following the record-setting 10-year, $700 million contract given to Shohei Ohtani (surpassed by Cohen giving Juan Soto 15 years and $765 million this offseason) and numerous other additions following L.A. winning the 2024 World Series.
The CBT for 2025 is $241 million and will increase to $244 million in 2026. With MLB revenues hitting a record $12.1 billion in 2024, the CBT discussion will likely start at $250 million, but the penalties will be the real key to negotiations. Salary deferrals could be part of that discussion.
After the owners got over on the players in the previous CBA, the players earned some important wins in the current deal, including raising the minimum salary to $700,000 in 2022 (it is $760,000 in 2024 with an increase of $20,000 annually), the pre-arbitration bonus pool and the universal DH. Owners slashed the amateur draft from 40 to 20 rounds and got control of future rules changes, which resulted in the pitch clock, larger bases and banning the shift.
The aforementioned international draft will get a lot of attention. The two sides appeared to be somewhat close to a deal for the current CBA, so much so that they agreed to resume negotiations later in 2022 with a deadline to come to a resolution in exchange for ditching the qualifying offer. That didn’t happen. The qualifying offer is likely to be on the table again, especially with some players feeling that it hindered their ability to sign.
Three other things are likely to be key to the next CBA negotiations: local TV, expansion and the 2028 Olympics.
Local TV is in so much flux at the moment. Currently, streaming rights to all 30 teams has held up ending the horrendous blackout rules that came into existence during the heyday of cable TV. But as of now, 22 teams have a package available to fans that doesn’t require a subscription to another streaming service or cable bundle. But one of the larger problems with that is five teams don’t have a contract with a regional sports network. Instead, the Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Guardians, Colorado Rockies, Minnesota Twins and San Diego Padres have their games produced by MLB Media and streamed via MLB.tv. Nine teams are still partnering with the former Diamond Sports Group, which was branded as Bally Sports and declared bankruptcy in 2024. Under a renamed Main Street, those teams will be under the FanDuel Sports Network banner in 2025. National TV packages are expected to be resolved before CBA talks begin, notably because of MLB and ESPN mutually opting out of a deal following this season. The two could move forward with a new deal, but other suitors (including Netflix, Amazon, Peacock) could step in.
A framework for expansion lines up really well with this CBA. Manfred has previously said that the stadium situations with the Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays needed to be resolved before expansion could move forward. Now that the A’s are destined for Los Vegas (although construction on the $1.75 billion stadium has yet to begin) to start the 2028 season and the Rays had a $1.3 million new stadium plan approved in December (although the Rays face a March 31 deadline to show they can pay their share), MLB can figure out where its next two teams will be located. A formal process could be initiated this summer, but the MLBPA will want a say as far as how players will be allocated to the new franchises and, if locations haven’t been chosen, a say in what cities are being targeted.
Finally, with the 2028 Olympics coming to Los Angeles, baseball will be back on the programming (also likely for 2032 in Brisbane). With the L.A. Olympics scheduled for July 14-30th, 2028, that would throw a loop into the regular-season scheduling as MLB would want to have its star players at the Summer Games instead of minor-leaguers not on a 40-man roster. Just think of Paul Skenes and the U.S. squaring off against Ohtani and Japan for a gold medal. Taking a two- or, more likely, three-week break during the regular season would be unprecedented, but this would be for a good reason and could help baseball become a regular part of the sports programming at the Olympics. The Olympic break would likely mean no All-Star Game in 2028.
Other subjects could arise between now and Dec. 2nd, 2026, but a lockout is expected and it could be lengthy, perhaps intruding further than it did into the 2022 season, which had Opening Day pushed back a week.
Nice summary!