{"id":709749,"date":"2026-06-02T05:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T05:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/709749\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T05:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T05:35:11","slug":"bruce-meyer-responds-to-mlb-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/709749\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruce Meyer Responds To MLB Proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week provided an early preview of the expected forthcoming offseason lockout. The MLB Players Association made its first collective bargaining proposal<\/a> to the league on Wednesday. MLB countered with its initial proposal<\/a> one day later, one that confirmed the longstanding expectation that the league is looking to incorporate a salary cap\/floor system in the next CBA.<\/p>\n

Readers can find the details of each side\u2019s proposal at the above linked posts. Neither has a chance of being approved by the opposite party. They\u2019re notable only insofar as they provide an insight into each side\u2019s priorities as negotiations get underway. It behooves both to stake out maximalist stances this early in the process.<\/p>\n

MLBPA executive director Bruce Meyer held a video chat with reporters (including Alden Gonz\u00e1lez of ESPN<\/a> and Evan Drellich of The Athletic<\/a>) on Monday afternoon. Unsurprisingly, Meyer was less than enthused with what the league put forward. \u201cI thought they would try harder to make it look good, and they didn\u2019t even do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meyer reiterated the union\u2019s firm opposition to a salary cap, which he called \u201ca form of institutionalized collusion.\u201d MLB\u2019s proposal included what the league deemed to be a 50-50 revenue split between players and ownership. That reportedly would\u2019ve included a $245.3MM cap and $171.2MM floor. A portion of player salaries would be held in escrow in case the league underperformed revenue expectations to maintain the 50-50 balance. The NHL and NBA have used similar setups.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsing MLB\u2019s definition of revenue and player share as set forth in their proposal and their presentation to us, player share under their proposal would go down,\u201d Meyer said. \u201cPlayer share for this season, 2026, is projected to be well over 50%, using, again MLB\u2019s definitions of revenues and what counts against player share.\u201d He claimed that if the league\u2019s proposal had been in place for the 2026 season, players would have made roughly $500MM less than they actually will.<\/p>\n

League spokesman Glen Caplin responded to Meyer\u2019s comments via a prepared statement. \u201cOur salary cap-and-floor proposal addresses our fans\u2019 concerns by leveling the playing field while sharing baseball revenue with the players 50-50 like the other leagues. Under our proposal, major league players will receive more compensation in year one of the system than in 2026,\u201d Caplin said. That\u2019d ostensibly be due to the need for various teams to raise payroll to meet the salary floor.<\/p>\n

The union would presumably dispute that assertion. It also seems notable that Caplin\u2019s statement specified \u201cmajor league players\u201d while Meyer focused on \u201cplayer share\u201d more broadly. Meyer said the union anticipates the league will propose cuts to spending on amateur signing bonuses, though he added that MLB has not yet done so. \u201cThey projected MLB players\u2019 payroll in \u201927, \u201928, would be flat,\u201d he noted. \u201cThe only way to get to even those numbers would be to drastically reduce or eliminate amateur entry compensation, both domestic and international.\u201d<\/p>\n

MLB has traditionally looked to curtail spending on amateur players in previous bargaining agreements. The Players Association doesn\u2019t formally represent them until they enter professional ball. The PA does take amateur players into account, as a player\u2019s initial signing bonus can impact their later professional earnings. A player who signs for a modest bonus as an amateur may be more inclined to lock in earnings on an early-career contract extension, for example. That can have a trickle-down effect on free agency.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nevertheless a tension for the Players Association between balancing the interests of amateur and minor league players \u2014 the latter of whom are now under the MLBPA umbrella after unionizing<\/a> in 2022 \u2014 against those of major leaguers. The MLBPA had traditionally been willing to make concessions on tightening amateur spending (e.g. accepting hard caps on international bonus pools in 2016) for more immediate benefits for big leaguers. They started to move away from that under the \u201922 agreement \u2014 most notably in rejecting<\/a> the league\u2019s offer to agree to an international amateur draft in exchange for the elimination of the qualifying offer, which adds penalties for teams that sign certain free agents.<\/p>\n

Interested readers can find more of Meyer\u2019s comments in the linked pieces from ESPN and The Athletic. Jeff Passan of ESPN<\/a> notes that commissioner Rob Manfred is likely to meet with the media on Wednesday at the end of the quarterly owners meetings. It stands to reason Manfred will restate some of the league\u2019s talking points and provide a response to Meyer\u2019s media session.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth reiterating that public combativeness on both sides was always to be expected. The 2021-22 lockout featured months of this kind of squabbling. This set of negotiations is likely to be even more contentious. MLB is making its first formal cap push since the 1994-95 players strike; the players\u2019 initial proposal called for a much higher luxury tax threshold and far more revenue sharing that\u2019ll be opposed by bigger-market clubs.<\/p>\n

Caplin\u2019s statement added that the league is \u201cready to listen if the MLBPA wants to counter our proposal at the bargaining table.\u201d Meyer said no talks have currently been scheduled but would be soon, even if to negotiate on areas aside from core economics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week provided an early preview of the expected forthcoming offseason lockout. The MLB Players Association made its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-709749","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\/709749","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=709749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}