Two months after players pushed out executive director Tony Clark, the Major League Baseball Players Association has further cleaned house, firing two more top officials.<\/p>\n
Chief operating officer Xavier James and chief human resources officer Michael O\u2019Neill were both terminated with cause on Wednesday, according to a person briefed on the union\u2019s staffing who was not authorized to speak publicly.<\/p>\n
The dismissals come at a time when federal investigators are continuing to probe the union and the union is concurrently winding through an internal investigation. MLBPA staff are also simultaneously preparing for their most important job function: collective bargaining with MLB\u2019s owners, a process that is expected to begin no later than May.<\/p>\n
Chris Capuano, a former big-league pitcher who joined the MLBPA in 2019, is moving into the COO role on an interim basis, while Ian Penny, a high-ranking lawyer at the union since 2010, is now taking over as head of human resources, also with an interim tag. Penny, who came to the MLBPA from the National Hockey League players\u2019 union, was the MLBPA\u2019s general counsel from 2017 until 2022, a role in which he also oversaw human resources.<\/p>\n
The union\u2019s reasoning for the firings was not immediately clear. The MLBPA declined comment. Text messages to James and O\u2019Neill seeking comment were not immediately returned and The Athletic will update this story if they respond.<\/p>\n
ESPN was first to report the personnel changes<\/a>.<\/p>\n A lawyer with an MBA, James was once a player agent who counted former big leaguer Gary Sheffield as a client. Clark brought James to the MLBPA full-time in 2018 to help grow the union\u2019s for-profit arms, and the two became friends.<\/p>\n The union in Clark\u2019s time did successfully grow licensing revenues.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was setting up a mechanism for players to even more effectively monetize their intellectual property,\u201d James said in a 2022 interview with The Athletic for an article on Clark\u2019s tenure at the union<\/a>. \u201cThere\u2019s a disparity between what\u2019s generated in the marketing category with the leagues and the teams on one side of the equation versus the player side of the equation.<\/p>\n \u201cTony has been vociferous about making sure the players get their fair share of that pie.\u201d<\/p>\n But those efforts have also led to federal and public scrutiny.<\/p>\n The union said this month it had shut down a for-profit arm, Players Way, that was dedicated to youth sports but had little to show for its expenditures. A business registry hosted online by the state of Florida<\/a> names James and Capuano among the managers of the now defunct operation in an annual report from 2025.<\/p>\n OneTeam Partners, a licensing company co-founded by the MLBPA and other sports unions with private-equity backing, also drew the attention of federal investigators. OneTeam was established to pursue opportunities of scale that wouldn\u2019t typically be available through an individual sports union\u2019s licensing arm.<\/p>\n \u201cOneTeam, because it represents sports across and unions across the board, is able to monetize that maybe even more effectively than we could individually,\u201d James said in 2022.<\/p>\n But OneTeam also created a complicated and unusual dynamic for a labor union. A union\u2019s assets belong to its members, and the organization is subject to labor law, considerations typical private businesses do not have.<\/p>\n Clark and James both held seats on the board of OneTeam. That board in 2024 undertook a controversial effort<\/a> to allow equity grants that could have ultimately served to enrich the board members, including MLBPA officials. No grants were issued.<\/p>\n \u201cTo be unequivocally clear: no OneTeam board member, nor any union employee, was directly or indirectly granted equity in OneTeam,\u201d OneTeam said in a statement last year.<\/p>\n When the Eastern District of New York began probing Clark and the union last year, the players hired<\/a> outside counsel at the firm Morrison Foerster who began an internal investigation on behalf of the player membership.<\/p>\n That review ultimately spurred Clark\u2019s firing in February. Morrison Foerster found that Clark had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a union employee, his sister-in-law.<\/p>\n The internal investigation was still in process when Clark was fired and his former second-in-command, Bruce Meyer, was selected as the union\u2019s new leader.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s fair to say there are issues that will be addressed,\u201d Meyer said on Feb. 18, the day he was voted in<\/a>. \u201cTo the extent that there are changes that need to be made in terms of our procedures or any in any other respect, we\u2019re going to be, in the coming days and weeks, looking very carefully at all of it.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s unknown whether the union will make any further personnel changes or whether Wednesday\u2019s firings mark the conclusion of the internal investigation. More fallout could come if the Department of Justice brings an indictment implicating the union or any of its past or current officials.<\/p>\n Harry Marino, a former MLBPA lawyer who led a mutiny against Clark and Meyer in 2024, told The Athletic recently<\/a> that the union has been going through an \u201can overdue reckoning.\u201d Marino has been critical of union leadership\u2019s transparency with players regarding spending.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s pretty clear that there was stuff going on that players needed to be made aware of,\u201d Marino said this month.<\/p>\n James\u2019 salary at the MLBPA in 2025 was $727,866, according to an annual disclosure form the union submits to the Department of Labor. O\u2019Neill made $327,250.<\/p>\n Penny\u2019s salary last year as senior advisor to the executive director was $877,703. Capuano\u2019s was $492,107 as senior director of business and strategy operations.<\/p>\n Players paid Morrison Foerster $100,000 for its work in 2025.<\/p>\n