In 1885, John Montgomery Ward established the Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players, which began as a benevolent society but by 1887 had morphed into the first union for professional athletes in history. It was crushed in 1890 along with the Players League and dissolved. Attempts to unionize took place in 1900, 1912, 1922, and 1946, all of which failed. In 1954, the Major League Baseball Players Association was formed, not as a union but to manage the MLB Pension Plan and licensing concerns.
In 1966, the MLBPA hired Marvin Miller, an experienced labour leader, who would lead the union for 16 years, transforming it into the strongest athletes union in the world and under his watch, resisted multiple attempts to cap salaries and payroll, struck down the hated reserve clause, and worked to create the modern systems for free agency, arbitration and a host of the labour rights that protect players today.
Since then, the MLBPA has been remarkably lucky with their leadership, with the exception of Tony Clark, in selecting smart negotiators and being able to largely thwart attempts by owners to divide and conquer amongst the players. But the 99 day lockout between 2021-2022 that ended with the Player Representatives voting to accept a deal over the unanimous vote to reject it by the Executive Subcommittee was treated as a warning shot for the union. Under current Executive Director Bruce Meyer, they have spent the last five seasons focused on increasing communications, prioritizing the issues of younger players over veteran’s perks and building up a war chest estimated to be close to $600M with the knowledge that if the owners sensed weakness in 2021, they would absolutely use the expiration of the CBA in 2026 as their chance to land the great white whale of a hard salary cap.
Caps have always been a priority of the owners and a bane for the players. The ill-fated Players League was formed primarily in response to the owners implementing a salary cap of $2000 on players wages. That was 136 years ago. When Miller was hired, the priority of the players was mostly focused on the pension plan, but he taught them that any cap in any circumstance would negatively impact their overall chances to earn more money. In 1994, the players went on strike in large part due to owners’ intention to impose a salary cap. The stated reason was that without a cap, small market teams couldn’t compete. Plus de change plus la meme chose.
It cannot be overstated just how much of a trust deficit exists between players and ownership. Players have seen the same numbers about baseball’s revenue increasing year over year while some owners have cried poor while pocketing revenue sharing that could be put towards competing. Simply put, they don’t believe that accounting that teams are trying to sell them and as a result, there is zero trust that any kind of revenue sharing process involving the players would be fair or factual across the full revenue streams of each club. Added on to that are the use of service time manipulation to extend control or suppress salaries, which underlines that regardless of how clear they try and make an agreement, clubs will manipulate the books to ensure they get the bulk of the profits and control.
Wishlists Versus Redlines
The interesting thing is that, right now, the MLBPA is in a position that if the owners offered a straight up extension to the 2021 CBA tomorrow, they’d likely sign it immediately. So under the owners, who are trying to load up the offer with enough goodies to get them to swallow a cap and draft changes, the players get to advance a wishlist they can pivot from as needed. But there isn’t really a key animating element for them beyond opposition to a salary cap. That puts them in a position to be able to horse trade with the owners regarding some of their desires like an expanded playoffs that the players are likely in agreement with.
The other advantage that the players have this year is that they need to hold out until 8 ownership groups suffer too much pain. Owners need to flip 20 votes for the MLBPA to accept a salary cap, which makes it much more likely that the one redline the union is unified against will hold. Player representatives have been talking to their teams for at least the last two years openly to expect a lockout, especially to young players coming up at league minimum, so I would hope that the majority of them put money aside in the anticipation of losing time or even a season. Tactical use of their reserve strike fund, especially if veterans who have already made seven or eight figures don’t tap into it, can last quite a long time.
While the owners hold quite a lot of power, the players absolutely have resources and leverage of their own which, if managed smartly, can keep their members unified and on message throughout as long a work stoppage as necessary. If the owners drop the cap demand and put out a CBA offer that mostly just tinkers around the edges, we could very quickly see an end to the lockout.
