There’s going to be a lockout. Almost certainly.
Baseball fans have known this for a while. Players and owners have known this for a while. And the December deadline is rapidly approaching. Winter is coming.
The battle lines were drawn long ago. Unchanged by a fun postseason or appeals that every single MLB team “just play Moneyball” we are headed for a stoppage. For those of us who love the game – who love the game more than the product – sad times are ahead.
As we look ahead, though, it is important to remember that there are not two sides to this fight. There are four; Owners, players, media, and fans. Three of these sides have representation in the rooms that matter.
But, arguably the most frustrating element of this particular lockout though, is how small a voice the fans seem to have.
The media, as is almost always the case, has done the most talking thus far. And because there is a lot more media on the coasts than in the middle of the country, a lot of it has skewed toward ignoring fan concerns altogether. Their teams are doing just fine.
After all, if the Brewers, Guardians, and Rays can do it, so can your team! They will say this while simultaneously arguing that it is actually “good for baseball” to have “evil empires” like the Dodgers and Yankees. They will also offer polar opposite solutions to the problem.
On one hand, they say, your owner is just cheap. They should spend more. Your team could easily have signed Shohei Ohtani, they just chose not to.
On the other hand, they say, just play Moneyball. Spend less. You don’t have to spend to win. Money isn’t an advantage!
Which is it? Should small and mid-market teams simply pony up and stop crying poor? Or should they actually spend less and everyone except the top 5-7 teams should be in a race for the bottom payroll? Is that really what the players want? It’s almost certainly not what fans want.
Of course, most reporters, journalists, and content creators who make a living covering baseball live in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. It is very much in their own personal vested interest to keep those teams at the top of the food chain. It would be naive to ignore that much if the industry of baseball, including most of the current media, benefit from the current system and are therefore reluctant to change.
The owners, meanwhile, have played a strange gambit so far. Typically also reluctant to change, they’ve proposed some absolute whoppers this time around. It’s honestly tough to discern how many of their proposals are genuine and how much of it is posturing. Naturally, most owners would love a salary cap, something players have long balked at. But how many of them would truly sign off on a salary floor? Do they really like the idea of shortening the season and lengthening the postseason? Or is this all smoke and mirrors??
It’s hard to tell because so much of the conversation is focused on the cap. And it shouldn’t be. Players have drawn that line in the sand. Frankly, there is no reason why players should accept a cap on their earnings when owners won’t do the same. If the billionaire can make endless money, then so can the person with talent.
A cap, though, is not the only way to incentivize better competitive balance. And if the fans were more at the center of this conversation, and not just the money, then this would be the key issue.
How can MLB rebuild its middle class?
Currently, none of the owners, players, or media has much of an incentive to care. Owners can spend little and still win. Players still get paid. Most don’t really care by which team. New York and LA can keep hiring more baseball writers while those jobs disappear in the middle of the country. Your small-to-mid-market team will be worthy of conversation during the two-to-three-year window they get to compete. Not before. Not after.
Fans don’t get a rep at these meetings. They are told instead to keep quiet and that all their worries are unfounded. “Don’t believe your own lying eyes!” This is an interesting strategy. One that doesn’t appear to be working this time.
In CBA negotiations, we spend so much time talking about how to divide the pie. The pie, of course, being the mountains of money pouring into MLB. What percentage should the players get? What percentage should the owners get? Don’t forget that media companies also have lots of dollars at stake. What percentage will the new rules help them get?
We spend so much time fighting over how to split the pie, we forget who bakes it. The fans.
It is the love, passion, time, and hard-earned money spent by normal, everyday people, that allows this whole machine to churn. The fans have built and bought every house and every yacht that every owner and player has. They are the ones who keep us reporters employed and generate all that ad revenue for all those sponsors.
These people love the game of baseball. And they are being squeezed by it in every direction.
So, as the next round of bartering and badgering and bloviating begins, just remember that the most important constituency here is the one that has no representation.
MLB Owners, players, media fight over CBA while fans are left out Mile High Sports.
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