MLB Lockout Latest: Owners Consider Delaying Salary Cap to 2028

Major League Baseball yesterday did do a little bit of a movement on the potential for us to play baseball. We talked about this about a week and a half ago before the World Series, where Major League Baseball is entering into the free agency period. How in the hell do you sign a player to a free agent deal if you don't know what the cap or what the floor is going to be for the next five seasons? You can't do it. You can't negotiate. So it stagnates the entire market. Or you get a team that says, make me, right? I got the money. I'm going to sign these guys. Make me not sign him. Make me not honor the contract. We'll go to court and we'll fight this because I signed the contract before you came up with this arbitrary number of $275 million or whatever the hell number it's going to be from a cap perspective. So Baseball Yesterday said, okay, hold on. Since free agency is here and the bargaining agreement doesn't expire until December. So we have a month of free agency negotiations. So I don't really know what we're going to do with these contracts. What if we just say, okay, timeout, let's pause it. We're going to pause that salary cap for one year, and we're not going to implement it until 2028. Now, there are other parts of the deal that they're going to implement for next year. There are certain things that are there, but. The fact that the owners appear willing to back off on the salary cap for 2028, at least we have a negotiation starting point, okay? If you remember the things I was being told by people who are in the know about Major League Baseball, there was a real thought that Major League Baseball was going to wind up not even talking. Until they start starting to lose games in April, meaning teams have been telling their employees, we're not going to spring training. So don't book stuff. Don't plan on things like don't plan on being in Florida or Arizona in February. Like it's just not going to happen. But this might be a little bit of a different world now. Okay. This might be different. We might wind up seeing the owners. Slow play this and say, hey, we're going to slowly implement this. Now, again, the players might say, no, like through hell or high water, we are not going to allow you to put a cap in ever. So 28, 29, 30, 55, we don't care what year you put this thing into place. We're never going to agree to a salary cap. But at least the owners are not drawing a line in the sand and saying it's this way or no way. At least they are implementing saying, hey, we understand that if you sign these players. You can sign a free agent to a one-year deal, and we won't put that salary cap restriction until 2028. That's when it's going to kick on. If you're willing to go to 28, maybe you're willing to go to 29. Maybe you're willing to have some type of slow play to implement this, and then you can negotiate what the number will be when ultimately the salary cap does come into play and lock in. It also brings into question how long this bargaining agreement is going to go for. Five, 10, however many years they're going to have this where there's not going to be labor unrest. So it's a little bit of good news. I'm not saying it's really good news, but it's a little bit of good news that the owners are willing to push back the salary cap to 2028. It doesn't mean the lockout's not coming in December. It doesn't mean we're not going to miss baseball. It doesn't mean we're going to fix the labor dispute. But it does show at least a little bit on the owner's side. That they're willing to be somewhat kind of reasonable because free agency is open right now in Major League Baseball and there is no way to sign a player for 28. Sorry, for 27 rather, without knowing what's going to happen from a cap perspective, 27, 28, 29 going forward. So we'll see if that gets sides to the negotiating table. If we have some level of conversation, we might, we might not. I hope we do. I don't know if we're going to, but I hope that that does wind up happening. So that is some good news in terms of how things are going.