MLBPA submitted their initial CBA proposal Wednesday, as the owners are expected to make their initial proposal Thursday. The union proposal includes some interesting ideas, some increased benefits to players, and at least one clear nonstarter for the owners. The owners positioned themselves as advocating for fan desire for competitive balance and rejected the proposal, criticizing its ideas towards achieving competitive, which focused on raising spending floors and creating stronger incentive structures
to win games, rather than limiting the top spending clubs. I think the union’s ideas about making recipients of revenue sharing more incentivized to spend money and win games by socializing the more stable TV money through revenue, while privatizing more performance-responsive stadium revenue is a strong idea. I am also sympathetic to the concept of withholding revenue sharing from teams that don’t spend it towards winning games. Dramatically raising the luxury tax ceiling is going to be a tough sell for owners and fans, however, and the proposed changes to service time rules, making players over 30 free agents after 5 years of service time instead of 6 is a clear nonstarter for owners.
Braves News
Our prospect team put out an early refresh of the Battery Power Braves Top 30 prospect list, which is the best you’ll find, featuring the nationally recognized meteoric rise of Eric Hartman.
The Braves’ offense was shut out and Bryce Elder was bad and unlucky in an 8-0 loss.
MLB News
ESPN’s Jeff Passan gave the major bullet points of the MLBPA’s initial negotiating proposal to MLB, with the owners’ proposal expected today.
Dodgers’ utilityman Kike Hernandez will miss significant time with a significant oblique tear.
Former Brave Aaron Bummer signed a minor league deal with the Cubs.
NFL star Travis Kelce purchased a minority stake in the Guardians.
