Tag: MLB 2026 CBA

Tony Clark, Rob Manfred comment on likely 2026 lockout

Rob Manfred wants to pretend he didn’t say the things he said, but hey, guess what.

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With spring training well underway and games that count in the standings a few weeks off, MLB Players Association executive director Tony Clark has been making the rounds. On Friday, he spoke to a few media members regarding the possibility of a lockout in 2026, when the current collective bargaining agreement ends. The union is historically quiet when it comes to speaking publicly about what’s going on with negotiations and the like — that’s actually how these things are supposed to go, you know, but given the incessant leaks and proclamations from the ownership side, you’d never know it — however, Clark had something to say this time around, with good reason:

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Do MLB owners want a salary cap, or for everyone to believe that’s true?

Like with free agency, you have to think of why certain positions are stated in public.

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There’s been a whole lot of discussion lately, from the ownership and league side, anonymously and with names attached, to the idea of both an MLB lockout in 2026 when the current collective bargaining agreement expires, and the desire for a salary cap being part of the impetus for said lockout. I’ve already written about the lockout portion of things, but I wanted to reiterate something this morning, given that the owners wrapped their winter meetings in Florida, where the subject of discussion was often the game’s economics.

Evan Drellich wrote a story last week about part of that, headlined, “MLB owners debate push for salary cap at summit this week”. A key section from that piece, for our purposes:

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Orioles’ owner publicly wishes for salary cap

David Rubenstein spoke up about his wishes for a salary cap, which signals we should be watching to see if other owners start bringing it up, too.

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There’s been all kinds of talk in MLB lately about the need for a salary cap. There is no need at all, of course, given it’s attempting to solve a problem that doesn’t actually exist in more ways than one: there’s what Rob Mains pointed out last week at Baseball Prospectus, in that the competitive imbalance cited as evidence of the need for a salary cap doesn’t actually exist, and there’s also what I’ve been harping on for some time now, where the problem is not the teams like the Dodgers that are outspending everyone, but the huge chunk of the league that wasn’t spending enough years ago and isn’t spending more now even as other clubs do increase spending.

It keeps coming up, though, so let’s dive in again. Jeff Passan, over at ESPN, wrote a piece last week that included this bit that I want to highlight:

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