, executive director of the MLB Players A sociation, expects the league to implement a lockout after the 2026 season. Unle s I am mistaken, the league has come out and said theres going to be a work stoppage, Clark said, per . So, I dont think Im speaking out of school in that regard. The current collective bargaining agreement is set to expire on December 1 of 2026. That quote is in response to some made by Major League Baseball commi sioner Rob Manfred about a month ago. In a bizarre way, its actually a positive, Manfred said to last month. There is leverage a sociated with an offseason lockout and the proce s of collective bargaining under the [National Labor Relations Act] works based on leverage. The great thing about offseason lockouts is the leverage that exists gets applied between the bargaining parties. He also praised a lockout as being preferable to in-season negotiations, saying that its like using a .22 (caliber firearm), as opposed to a shotgun or a nuclear weapon. Clark disagreed in response at that time. Players know from first-hand experience that a lockout is neither routine nor positive, Clark said. Its a weapon, plain and simple, implemented to pre sure players and their families by taking away a players ability to work. Relations between the league and the union have been combative in recent years and the current collective bargaining agreement was agreed to after a lockout which lasted several months. The previous CBA expired on December 1 of 2021 and the league instituted a lockout that very night. The negotiations continued into the spring, with a new agreement getting done on March 10 of 2022. That led to a rushed ramp-up to the 2022 season, though a full 162-game schedule was still completed via some scheduled doubleheaders. Given that the relations between the two sides havent markedly improved, many in the baseball world expect another lockout to follow the expiration of the current CBA. Manfreds comments only added to that suspicion and it seems Clark and the union are operating under that a sumption. There are many i sues that will need to be discu sed between now and then. There will be the ever-present topics of player compensation and revenue sharing, as well as more complex i sues such as an international draft. The two sides are free to discu s these i sues at any time but comments Brian Pinho Jersey from Manfred make it seem unlikely that any progre s will be made well in advance. Im one that likes to bargain early, but were still two years away, even if youre thinking you want to bargain early, Manfred said about a month ago. We got time on that front. And I think the time is particularly important right now, because we do have things going on in terms of the economics of the game local media being the principal one that the longer we wait, the more it evolves, the better decisions were going to make. From the players side, they seem to be a suming that Manfred is trying to generate leverage through the pre s. I know that a lot of what Rob Manfred says in the media is posturing, Giants third baseman said recently to . Theyre all negotiating tactics. He tries to create his narrative. One topic that usually comes up in CBA discu sions is a salary cap, though the MLBPA has always considered that a nonstarter. recently reported that the owners are mulling a push for a cap when the next round of CBA talks gets going in earnest. David Rubenstein, principal owner of the Orioles, in favor of a cap in January. Clark, however, reiterated that the union has no desire to agree to such a measure. We remain of the mind, as we have over the last 50 or 60 years, that the industry does not need it, Clark said today to . It is not nece sary. Whether its from a competitive balance standpoint, or whether its from the ability of the industry to continue to grow and move forward, all of those things have happened in the absence of [a salary cap] and our game has thrived as a result. Many fans view a salary cap as the simplest way to combat certain inequities in baseball. Thats despite the fact that the sport hasnt had recent dynastic runs like other leagues. MLB hasnt seen a repeat champion since the 1998-2000 Yankees. There are huge gaps in terms of spending, with the Dodgers projected by to have a $390MM payroll this year with some other clubs like the Marlins are down near $70MM. But despite that ma sive gap, those two clubs have the same number of World Series trophies over the past 35 years. Still, there are fans of small-market clubs who feel overpowered when it comes to competitive balance. There are ways of addre sing the system that arent salary or cap related or require the restrictions of player salaries as the answer to every one of these questions, Clark said, per Bloom. Presumably, Clark was referring to things like the fact that smaller-market clubs get extra picks in the draft via the competitive balance round as well as larger pools of bonus money to spend on international players, or perhaps the revenue-sharing agreements which could always be altered. Those measures have helped clubs like the Rays, Guardians and Brewers stay consistently competitive despite far le s spending capacity than some of their fellow clubs. The larger point is that MLB is in fairly healthy shape overall. recently reported that the leagues revenues hit a record $12.1 billion in 2024, without even accounting for alternate revenue streams such as from commercial real estate projects connected to ballparks. Various metrics have suggested the implementation of the pitch clock has helped baseballs popularity more generally, in terms of ticket sales and TV ratings. Clark seemed to reference that situation in comments relayed by Weyrich today, suggesting that the proposed cap is le s about competitive balance and more about increasing profits for owners. At this point in time, despite the fact that there was an announcement that the industry itself is doing better than it ever has, despite the fact that there was an announcement that theres more viewership and more attendance than it has been in the last 10 or so years, youre hearing the rhetoric around a salary cap because theres an interest in moving more of that revenue from one side of the equation to the other. Keith Kinkaid Jersey