ESPN’s Buster Olney on Paul Skenes’ Pirates Future & a Possible MLB Salary Cap | The Rich Eisen Show

ESPN’s Buster Olney on Paul Skenes’ Pirates Future & a Possible MLB Salary Cap | The Rich Eisen Show

map out the next two to three years for Paul SK. So, this is fascinating and I have not I want to make this clear. I’ve not talked to SK about this. Okay, but we see in the NBA, in the NFL, players will use their uh equity to force their way out of situations. Jame Harden most famously, Paul SK is the rare baseball player who could make a serious problem for the Pittsburgh Pirates uh if he wants to. And my god, where his situation is now, why wouldn’t you want to, right? Where if he went to the Pirates this winter and said to them, “I’m not signing here long term. I’m gonna be a problem. I’m going to talk out loud about how you guys don’t spend and you don’t try to win. You need to get me out of here.” I I I mean, to me, he has the stature to do that in a rare way in baseball. And I kind of hope as a baseball fan that he does. Does that make sense? I mean, you don’t see it happen in baseball that often. Yeah. I mean, it’s an interesting way that you you attack that. Um, and that’s, you know, I’m glad I asked you the question. So, what’s he I mean, we we haven’t had him on. Um, he he he seems to have the world by, you know, whatever he wants. Um, what do you think he’s going to do? What’s his makeup like? Do you think he’ll do that? It would be against his nature to do that because he’s pretty much one of those guys who puts his head down and does the work and he’s dominates, but he also is because he’s incredibly competitive. You assume at some point that’s going to bubble up and he’s going to be like, “Look, we don’t have a chance to win here. I want to be out of here.” And my god, if it came out that the Pirates were willing to take offers for Paul SK, all these teams would basically be backing up their prospect trucks and saying, “Whatever you want, come and get this guy.” Well, I mean, there’s four people here who want them on their teams. It’s correct. The question is, is Skins willing to defer all of his money into a retirement plan for 2025, 2055, so he can come here to Los Angeles? I mean, it’s let’s let’s discuss that, too. Is baseball willing to change the rules based on what the Dodgers have done where they’re signing all these players and saying, “Luxury tax- wise, help us out. We’ll pay you down the road. We’ll pay you when you’re retired and the players who are willing to say yes to that.” Is baseball seeing this and saying we’re going to change this rule? So, I don’t think they’re going to change it for this. I mean, there, as you know, there’s tons of examples of teams deferring salaries. The Dodgers have done it better than anybody. Uh, and players now, the Dodgers have become a destination much in the way the Yankees were in the late ’90s. Guys wanted to go and play for that team. Uh, guys want to go and play for the Dodgers and so they’ll defer money or they’ll work out contracts to do that. I think the larger question is, will the Dodgers financial advantage, how much will that drive the a the owners to push for the salary cap in the next labor agreement? Oh boy. Yeah. And and and I don’t think that you can’t Well, you can’t have a pure cap. There’d have to be something grandfathered in because there’s such a disparity. Well, the cap there needs to be a floor. A floor. Exactly. There would have to be a floor. And there also And the players would have to agree to it. So, it’s incredibly never going to happen. I mean, really? Yeah. I mean, it we’d get into the weeds. What would the players get? What would the players get? If you told the players, and I know this for a fact, uh there are players who are interested to hear what would this would entail because the message from the commissioner has been this could mean more money for more players. Okay? If they get 40% 47% of the pie now and that goes up to 50% u of the pie and if you’re a zero uh service time to two-year uh service time player and you’re suddenly making two and a half times what you would have made, right? That’s going to interest a lot of players. This issue actually reminds me a lot of the PD issues back in the ’90s where you remember the union leadership was like, “We’ll never do testing. Absolutely not. Privacy rights will never do testing.” And yet when you go to the rank and file at that time, some of them whisper, “We need testing.” Like we want to be protected from this. It’s a similar situation now where the union leadership is never will we have a salary cap. Never will have agree to anything remotely like that. and you go to individual players, agents, and they’ll go, if it’s more money for more players, why aren’t we talking about it? And then I guess returning to what you said about schemes that he has the ability to say, I want out and and he could force his way out based on, you know, I’m going to be a pain in the butt unless you guys move me out of here. Hey, you made it all the way to the end. Thanks for that. Check us out every single day streaming live on Disney Plus and the ESPN app 12 to 3 Eastern.

ESPN MLB Insider Buster Olney joins Rich Eisen in-studio to break down Paul Skenes’ future with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the possibility MLB players will agree to a salary cap in the next Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Tune in to the Emmy-nominated Rich Eisen Show live weekdays from Noon to 3PM ET on Disney+, ESPN+, ESPN Radio, and streaming on SiriusXM channel 80.

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