Photo: Andrey_A - Getty Images
Baseball smashing glass
While the short-term future of baseball hangs in the balance this winter, there’s something larger at stake in the months ahead.
As has been widely expected for some time, the ninth work stoppage in MLB history began overnight on Wednesday, Dec. 1. The announcement came immediately after the expiration of the league’s collective bargaining agreement with the MLB Players Association, with the owners choosing to lock the players out until a new deal is in place.
While the lockout was not surprising, it is a new experience for entire generations of baseball fans. This is the first time the owners and players have failed to reach a collective bargaining agreement since the end of the 1994-95 strike. In a way, that prolonged labor peace planted some of the seeds for the current dispute: The players made some widely criticized concessions to avoid a work stoppage when the last CBA expired following the 2016 season, leading to accusations that union leadership negotiated poorly and raising the level of hostility between the two sides.
Those tensions have continued to escalate in the years since, especially as teams have become increasingly blatant about service time manipulation for young players. Tensions flared once again in 2020 over negotiations for an abbreviated season, with players wanting a longer schedule and the owners being unwilling to settle for more than 60 games.
Down to Money
While both sides have raised talking points about the health of the game, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic recently noted that the debate largely comes down to money. While Forbes estimates that MLB teams made $8 billion in profits from 2010-19, player salaries have not grown apace with that revenue: The average MLB salary fell 6.4% from Opening Day 2017 to Opening Day 2021.
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While the sport has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, even MLB’s top spenders have largely remained constrained by a Competitive Balance Tax that forms an upper boundary for player salaries. Under the recently expired CBA the tax threshold for player payroll increased only slightly, going from $195 million in 2017 to $210 million in 2021 (the last two years have seen less than 1% increases).
While teams are allowed to exceed that threshold and pay financial penalties, most do not. In the 20 seasons under the current Competitive Balance Tax system 22 of the league’s 30 teams have never exceeded the tax threshold. Only five teams have exceeded it more than twice.
With those facts in mind, the two sides may have a long winter ahead of them waiting for the other to blink. Since the start of the lockout they haven’t exactly rushed back to the bargaining table: As of Thursday no meetings were scheduled.
Strategy of Confrontation
They have, however, had plenty of opportunity to publicly air their grievances with the other side. Immediately following the lockout MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred issued a letter to fans where he accused the MLBPA of having “a strategy of confrontation over compromise,” called the players’ proposals “the most extreme set of proposals in their history” and concluded by saying “MLB is ready to work around the clock to meet that goal. I urge the Players Association to join us at the table.”
By choosing to take the owners’ grievances public, Manfred is setting a dangerous precedent for the winter ahead. While the relationship between ownership and the players is adversarial by necessity, once an agreement is reached the same players that ownership is publicly arguing with now will become their featured product once again.
While many of the notable figures in the current work stoppage were not present for it, there is a lesson to be learned from the 1994-95 strike. That prolonged work stoppage and the rhetoric that came with it had a legacy that lasted long after the two sides reached an agreement: Many fans remained angry with the players following their extended absence and did not return to the ballpark when play resumed. The sport eventually recovered, but bitterness regarding the strike created a real setback for both sides.
If this winter’s negotiations follow a similar path, an offseason of acrimony could turn off even more fans next spring. While both sides have work to do to ensure baseball returns as scheduled next April, the health of the sport depends on their ability to reach a new deal without publicly damaging their own product in the process.
