The past week has provided a preview of the expected close of the upcoming season. The MLB Players Association made its first proposal to negotiate with the league on Wednesday. MLB countered its initial proposal a day later, confirming long-held expectations that the league would look to include a salary cap/floor plan in the next CBA.
Readers can find details of each side’s proposal in the post linked above. No one has any chance of being approved by the other party. They are significant only as they provide insight into the priorities of each side as the negotiations progress. They should both express a maximalist stance at the beginning of the process.
MLBPA executive director Bruce Meyer held a video interview with reporters (including ESPN’s Alden González and The Athletic’s Evan Drellich) on Monday afternoon. Unsurprisingly, Meyer wasn’t happy with what the league was imposing. “I thought they would try harder to make it look good, but they didn’t.”
Meyer emphasized the union’s staunch opposition to the wage cap, which he called “a form of organized labor.” MLB’s proposal included what i the league it is considered a 50-50 revenue split between players and ownership. That it reportedly would have included a $245.3MM cap and a $171.2MM floor. A portion of player salaries will be withheld in the event the league does not meet expectations to maintain a 50-50 balance. The NHL and NBA used a similar setup.
“Using MLB’s definition of revenue and player share as set forth in their request and in their presentation to us, the player share under their proposal will decrease,” Meyer said. “Player share for the 2026 season, is expected to be over 50%, using MLB’s definitions of revenue and what is most important compared to player share.” He said if the union proposal had been in place for the 2026 season, the players would have made about $500MM less than they would have.
League spokesman Glen Caplin responded to Meyer’s comments with a prepared statement. “Our cap-and-floor salary proposal addresses our fans’ concerns about leveling the playing field while sharing baseball’s revenue with players 50-50 like other leagues. Under our proposal, major league players would receive more compensation in the first year of the system than in 2026,” Caplin said. That would be due to the need for various teams to raise salaries to meet the salary category.
The union may oppose that. It’s also worth noting that Caplin’s statement specified “major league players” while Meyer focused on “players leaving” more broadly. Meyer said the union expects the league to propose reducing spending on amateur signing bonuses, although he added that MLB has yet to do so. “They estimated that the money paid to MLB players in ’27, ’28, will be bad,” he said. “The only way to reach even those numbers would be to drastically reduce or eliminate the entrance fee for new entrants at school, at home and abroad.”
MLB has traditionally looked to limit spending on amateur players in previous collective bargaining agreements. The Players Association does not officially represent them until they enter professional football. PA takes novice players into consideration, as a player’s initial signing bonus can affect their later professional earnings. A player who signs for a modest bonus as a rookie may be more inclined to lock in benefits in an early career contract extension, for example. That could have a negative impact on free agency.
Yet there is tension in the Players Association between balancing the interests of emerging and minor leaguers — the latter now under the MLBPA umbrella after the merger in 2022 — against the major leaguers. The MLBPA has traditionally been willing to agree on tighter spending on minor leaguers (eg accepting stronger points in international bonus pools in 2016) in order to get immediate benefits for major league players. They began to move away from that under the ’22 deal – particularly in rejecting the league’s proposal to agree to the international student draft to eliminate the qualifying offer, which added penalties to teams signing certain free agents.
Interested readers can find more of Meyer’s comments in linked pieces from ESPN and The Athletic. ESPN’s Jeff Passan notes that commissioner Rob Manfred is likely to meet with the media Wednesday at the end of the quarterback owners meetings. It makes sense that Manfred will reiterate some of the league’s points and provide feedback at Meyer’s press conference.
It is worth emphasizing that public fighting on both sides was always expected. The 2021-22 shutdown featured months of this kind of conflict. This set of discussions is likely to be very controversial. MLB implements its first official cap since the 1994-95 players’ strike; The players’ first proposal called for a much higher luxury tax threshold and more profit sharing which will be opposed by big market clubs.
Caplin’s statement added that the league is “ready to listen if the MLBPA wants to take our proposal to the negotiating table.” Meyer said that currently there are no planned discussions but they will be held soon, even if they will discuss non-economic areas.
