MLB and the MLBPA met again Thursday, continuing negotiations ahead of the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement. In this round, MLB proposed changes to the reserve system.
“The biggest issue baseball fans want solved to strengthen the game is fixing the payroll disparity that leaves too many fans without hope of their team competing for a World Series title,” MLB spokesman Glen Caplin said in a statement. “Every other major U.S. sport has tackled this problem, and every year more small market teams in those leagues have a chance to win.”
In a fact sheet issued by MLB, the league’s proposals include a “historic increase to minimum salary” and that “minimum salaries will grow with the Salary Cap and Floor in future years.” The proposal also includes elimination of deferred compensation.
However, MLBPA interim director Bruce Meyer described it to the media as a salary cap on individual salaries.
“In addition to those [cap] proposals, I mean, they included some new proposals that are bad for players,” Meyer said, “including an individual salary limit, or to think of it as yet another salary cap — a limit on the length of a contract, elimination of the ability to negotiate deferred compensation, limits on signing bonuses, performance bonuses, the limits on the ability of veterans to enter into extensions.”
The fact sheet states, “Maximum contract length and salary provisions are intended to:
Provide an incentive for star players to re-sign with their current teams and help establish long-term bonds between players and local fanbases;
Prevent circumvention of the Salary Cap (e.g., by adding years to lower the AAV of a contract);
Address player concerns that in a cap system a disproportionate share of compensation will accrue to the highest-paid players; and
Improve the correlation between pay and performance (an underperforming player on a lengthy contract would likely earn less under this framework, while a productive player could secure multiple max contracts – likely at higher AAVs than their existing contracts).”
In his opening remarks to media, Meyer said he had seen some of the league’s press and that the league is just doing what the fans want. He cited The Athletic’s recent fan survey that polled 8,139 respondents where 45.3% would blame owners over the 21.9% that said they would blame players. 30.7% said they would blame both sides.
Last week, in MLB’s regular meeting with its fan council, the league’s Executive Vice President of Baseball Economics & Operations, Morgan Sword, presented and discussed competitive balance with members. Sword showed data from a Morning Consult poll saying 80% of fans polled were in favor of a cap/floor system. Previously, Caplin presented on competitive balance to the fan council last November.
MLB did not respond to requests for comment regarding Sword’s presentation to the fan council.
Fans themselves have called MLB’s motives into question regarding the competitive balance argument. MLB also did not return a request for comment for this.
The MLBPA, however, remains steadfast in opposing the cap/floor system, which Meyer described as “fundamentally anti-competitive.”
“They want it because it's a form of owner protection plan, because it protects owners who would rather not compete in every way from having to compete,” Meyer said. “That's what a salary cap system is. It's the ultimate excuse for an owner to say to fans, ‘I can't make the team any better. I'd like to, but I can't.’ Or ‘I'd like to sign this player because I think this player would help the team. But you know the rules tell me I can't.’”
The public battle, though, remains MLB’s strategy, going so far as to putting bullet points from its fact sheet on social media and pinning the tweet to the league account, posturing it as something positive for fans and players.
Meyer, though, has one simple rebuttal.
“If they're truly just listening to fans,” he said, “they would be listening to all the fans around the league who are chanting that they want their owners to sell the team because they're not trying hard enough to win.”
This story was edited by Ed Carroll.