The current Major League Baseball Collective Bargaining Agreement is set to expire on Dec. 1 following the 2026 season.<\/p>\n
According to San Diego Padres star Jake Cronenworth, who’s also a member of the MLB Players Association’s eight-player executive subcommittee, the league has informed the players they’re going to lock them out as soon as the CBA expires.<\/p>\n
“Our primary concern? The league has unfortunately said they\u2019re going to lock us out on Dec. 1,” Cronenworth said to the Times of San Diego<\/a>. “I don\u2019t see a need for that. We all want to play, and we all want to get a deal done.”<\/p>\n He added: “It\u2019s surprising they\u2019d come out this early and say that.\u201d<\/p>\n Baseball hasn’t had a work stoppage since 1994-95, but as of now, the two sides are very far apart on any deal. The greatest potential hurdle in agreeing to a new CBA is the idea of a salary cap, something the players have vehemently rejected, according to Cronenworth.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve taken a pretty hard stance on that,\u201d Cronenworth said. \u201cNot just this year, but forever. I think that shows the unity and the strength of the Players Association. Everybody can agree on that, absolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to a potential salary cap and other economic issues, additional topics that could be at the forefront of negotiations include rule changes and an international draft, something the owners want.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, the players seem eager to make progress on a new deal that will prevent them from being forced to miss games in 2027. It doesn’t sound like the owners share that eagerness, according to Padres right-handed pitcher Nick Pivetta.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re open to proposals, exchanging proposals and making sure there\u2019s communication,\u201d Pivetta said. \u201cIf you look at the last negotiations we sent them a proposal in the offseason and then didn\u2019t hear back from the owners until mid-February. We have to communicate so we\u2019re on the same page and don\u2019t miss games.\u201d<\/p>\n The 2026 season will be played as normal, but there will be a dark cloud hanging over the sport all year as the potential for a work stoppage looms. It’s possible the sides reach an agreement before Dec. 1. But it’s likely the league locks the players out, and puts a mid-March deadline to get things done before games start being missed.<\/p>\n For more Padres news, head over to\u00a0Padres on SI<\/a> and follow us on X\/Twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The current Major League Baseball Collective Bargaining Agreement is set to expire on Dec. 1 following the 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-525567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}