MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and MLBPA Interim Exec Dir Bruce Meyer “held separate question-and-answer sessions” about the future of the league and CBA negotiations with assembled members of the Baseball Writers Association of America that “functioned as a drawing of battle lines,” according to Jake Mintz of YAHOO SPORTS. How they spoke about the sport “illustrated how the league and union plan to handle their messaging moving forward.” The two offered “diametrically opposed perspectives on the state of the sport.” Meyer began by “heralding the health of the sport.” It “was a theme he would return to multiple times.” He then “criticized the league for attempting to redirect that momentum into frustration.” Mintz noted the union is arguing that if “things are good, the status quo is working well and baseball is in a strong place, why the need to fundamentally reshape things by adding a cap?” Over the course of his remarks, Manfred “repeatedly employed some version of the phrase ‘listening to the fans.’” Mintz: “Expect a whole lot more of that in the months to come.” The league “intends to position itself as an altruistic actor, one whose willingness to adopt rule changes has propelled the sport into this era of massive growth” (YAHOO SPORTS, 7/14). In Boston, Peter Abraham noted Meyer and Manfred on Tuesday “painted a dire picture of the still-nascent negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement” (BOSTON GLOBE, 7/14).
NOT MATCHING THE PRODUCT: SPORTSNET.ca’s Shi Davidi writes there is a “dissonance around baseball right now that’s difficult to reconcile.” The product on the field “is tremendous.” Davidi: “These should be happy times and as the Midsummer Classic nodded to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence’s signing during the pre-game festivities, with the starting lineups autographing a mock parchment lineup on their way to the field, and a 4-0 American League win over the National League, they very much are." At the “same time, they very much aren’t with the collective bargaining agreement set to expire Dec. 1, the sides not even on the same spectrum that they could be on opposite sides of, and the threat of an extended labour disruption as real as it’s been since the summer of 2002, when a late-season strike was averted just before the deadline." Davidi: “Expect the labour situation to regularly shift from background to foreground to background for the rest of the season, all while the product shines, the way it did before 43,916 at Citizens Bank Park" (SPORTSNET.ca, 7/15).
WINTER IS COMING: CBSSPORTS.com’s Dayn Perry wrote Manfred, in his final term as the figurehead atop the sport, “will tarnish his legacy by presiding over an incomplete or even lost season in 2027.” Perry: “That matters to him, and for all the progress the game has seen on his watch when it comes to on-field innovations and changes, much of that will be forgotten, or at least dismissed, if he squanders 30-plus years of what’s been less peace than an absence of outright war.” He noted in the winter comes the “most dangerous weeks and months the game has faced in decades.” Much “is at risk,” and no stakeholder “stands to gain or lose as much as Manfred does” (CBSSPORTS.com, 7/14).
MIND GAMES: THE ATHLETIC’s Evan Drellich wrote to Manfred, baseball’s owners are “more resolute today than they were even during the 1994-95 strike.” During that dispute, the owners “ultimately caved on a salary cap.” But his suggestion that owners are more unified now is a “loaded statement: an intimation that this go-around, the league might be willing to fight for an even longer time to get what it wants” (THE ATHLETIC, 7/14).
MILLION-DOLLAR ANSWER: In Pittsburgh, Colin Beazley noted Meyer during Tuesday’s meetings “pointed toward revenue sharing, as well as more buy-in from small-market ownership, as the biggest answer.” Meyer believes that “small-market owners should spend more.” He said a salary cap is “subsidizing mediocrity” and “the ultimate excuse not to compete.” He also “called them ‘bad for fans.’” Meyer added that if owners “were really so interested in listening to fans, why don’t they listen to ‘Sell the team’ chants?” He said that the MLBPA proposals “would give small-market teams even more resources to compete” (PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, 7/14).
ON THE UPSWING: In S.F., Susan Slusser noted since the last CBA was signed after a shortened spring training in 2022, ever more investment groups “have bought stakes in teams.” There are “strict rules” on the size of investment groups’ stakes. Manfred said that such entities “cannot shape MLB policies.” The union believes that such investments “show that the sport is flourishing but still has concerns about investment ventures and their potential for, say, advocating reduced spending.” Meyer: “In our view, owners having access to more sources of capital is a good thing. Hopefully they use it to pay players and make the team better” (S.F. CHRONICLE, 7/14).
