I expect them to at least lose part of the season. This is the most aggressive posturing I’ve seen since I started paying attention to this kind of stuff 20+ years ago. Teams are making major roster decisions that show they don’t expect to play in 2027. The owners are prepping for a “salary cap or bust” negotiation and I expect it to get ugly (before the players cave in).
Its really dumb they can't get on the same page... because for the most part, the game is actually doing quite well and the ongoing rule changes/future ABS are a big part of that. Attendance up. Streaming is doing well (despite everybody complaining about it). Media rights valuations continue to improve despite the legacy/cord/parent company bankruptcy issues (again back to the streaming). There is a degree of parity in both leagues when looking at the records... and they're not all just being dominated by the biggest spenders. Downsides: small market teams don't have any incentive to spend with the revenue sharing... and they're more than happy not making moves of any kind. Big market teams continue to use the media rights loophole to reduce their revenue sharing obligations. Mid-tier salaries have been stagnant compared to the elite ones. Pitcher injuries are expected and only the financially well-off can afford to offer the 5+ year deal that presumes 1-2 years missed.
Yeah, to me the prevalence of pitching injuries is the biggest issue the game is facing. I really don’t have the answers but that’s the thing they need to address above all else imho. Next would be poor teams not spending; my hope is that instead of a salary cap they negotiate a salary floor combined with more severe penalties for big spenders. My view of the owners’ demand for a salary cap is that it’s pure greed. The constant increase in franchise valuations and all publicly available data around franchise profitability shows they’re making plenty of money without a cap. An out of the box idea I have would be instead of a salary cap, there’s a cap on how large an individual contract can be. That would push money down to the 2nd and 3rd tier free agents and keep the biggest stars from having contracts they can’t possibly live up to.
I don't know that players would agree to a max annual salary but maybe they could figure out a way to limit contract length. A player like Ohtani deserves waaay more than anyone else and would be artificially capped by a max annual salary. But limiting contracts to 7 years or something would help create less "dead money" on payrolls which means more live money available players who actually stay good/healthy. So it reshuffles money around but doesn't take money away from players. Max salaries are actually a problem, to me, in the NBA where the truly elite players make the same as a 2nd tier elite player, meaning if you get lucky and get the best player in the NBA, you have a permanent advantage over every other team that they can't counter. LeBron James and Paul George (in their primes) shouldn't get the same amount of money.
