The MLB All-Star Game is supposed to be a celebration. And it is, for the few hours the game itself lasts. But underneath all the pageantry in Philadelphia this week, there’s a real fight brewing. The league’s current labor deal expires December 1, and the owners are expected to lock out the players if a new agreement isn’t reached. One of the biggest sticking points? A proposed salary cap.
That idea is not going over well with the game’s top talents. According to ESPN, a handful of All-Stars — Paul Skenes, Juan Soto, Bryce Harper, and Mike Trout — all came out publicly against the cap on Monday. And they didn’t exactly mince words.
The players are not on board
Skenes, the Pirates ace who also sits on the union’s eight-man negotiating committee, put it bluntly. “Both sides kind of have their line that they’re not going to cross,” he said. “Whether that results in missing games or missing a season, we’ll see.” That’s not an idle threat. The last time MLB proposed a salary cap was 1994, and it triggered a 7½-month strike that wiped out the World Series.
Soto, who just signed a 15-year, $765 million contract with the Mets, was even more direct. “Yeah, that sucks,” he said when asked about the proposed cap on individual contracts. “It shouldn’t be there.”
Soto’s deal would be impossible under the new proposal, which would limit contracts to $265 million over six years. That’s less than half his current deal in both total money and years. For a player who just got paid like the game’s biggest star, it’s easy to see why he’d feel that way.
Long-term contracts are in the crosshairs
Trout and Harper both have huge, long-term deals themselves. Trout signed a 12-year, $426.5 million contract eight years ago. Harper is in the middle of a 13-year, $330 million deal with the Phillies. “It’s trying to minimize the years and obviously the totals. For sure, we see that,” Trout said. “I think baseball’s in a good spot right now and we can’t mess this up.”
Harper also pointed to another part of the proposal that would change how young players enter the league. Under the new CBA language, players couldn’t sign a contract until they’re at least 20 years old by September 1 of their signing year and two years removed from high school graduation. That would push more top prospects through college rather than letting them go straight to the pros at 18 or 19.
“The opportunity for players to get paid is what this is all about,” Harper said. “We owe it to the guys that have come before us to do the same thing. If you’re in the top three rounds as a high school kid, I think you should be able to do whatever you want. It would really be tough for a guy like Jackson Holliday to not be the No. 1 pick and not get the chance to go to the big leagues at 19 or 18 if he’s able to.”
So what happens now?
Skenes isn’t panicking yet. “MLB is kind of presenting their perfect-world offers and we’re kind of presenting our perfect-world offers,” he said. “So there’s a lot of time before there’s any real movement, I think.”
But the clock is ticking. The last time the league pushed for a salary cap, it cost baseball an entire postseason. The sport has been riding a wave of growth in recent years — new stars, rule changes that speed up the game, and a younger audience tuning in. A lockout or strike could put that all at risk. Everyone knows it. The question is whether that’s enough to get a deal done.
Leave a Comment