LAS VEGAS — The spectre of a shutdown isn’t throwing cold water on the hot stove.
A year from now, Major League Baseball could be on the cusp of another work stoppage. The sport’s five-year labor deal expires in December 2026, and some in the industry fear a long shutdown will follow, one that, unlike the 2021-22 lockout, could lead to missed regular-season games. But the speculation of a shortened 2027 season doesn’t seem to be influencing this year’s free-agent market — at least not yet.
None of the dozen general managers or club presidents asked about the topic this week said they planned to offer fewer years or to otherwise adjust for the possibility of lost revenue down the road, and a half-dozen player agents largely confirmed that stance.
“That’s not come across in any conversation I’ve had one time,” said Arizona Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen at the GM meetings this week.
“We’ll continue to plan with the system in place, because that’s the only certainty we’ve got,” said Mark Shapiro, president of the Toronto Blue Jays, who are coming off World Series heartbreak.
But a few executives also acknowledged the possibility of adjustments to come, as well as curiosity regarding what’s around the corner.
“I don’t know, yet, how much it’s going to impact (the market),” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said. “I don’t think anyone here does. I think it could have an impact. It could have no impact. It’ll be something people think about, because you have to.”
Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Ben Cherington, who is poised to spend more this winter than in past offseasons, was one of a few execs who acknowledged thinking about the future of the collective bargaining agreement — not for the lockout that might precede it, but for the changes it will bring.
“It feels like it’s in the back of everybody’s minds,” Cherington said. “But I don’t know that that feels different than toward the end of any CBA, at least since I’ve been in a front office. Like that’s always been a thing we think about as you get towards the end of a CBA, what is this environment going to look like? Should we be considering that in decision-making? And the truth is, none of us know — really know. None of us really know what’s going to happen in 2027 or the next CBA. So we’re taking a pretty short-term focus in Pittsburgh. We just want to win more games in 2026.”
If a GM declares his focus is on the upcoming season, it isn’t necessarily evidence that he’s narrowing his field of vision because of the potential lockout. That’s often just how GMs talk. The Yankees’ Brian Cashman also said earlier this offseason that his focus was on 2026, rather than 2027, but he described his approach as “business as usual.”
There’s also a danger in devoting too much anticipatory anxiety to the CBA.
“It’s always something you’re aware of,” said Chaim Bloom, who just took over the St. Louis Cardinals’ baseball operations. “Things could look a little bit different, and they could look a lot different, and you just don’t know. And it’s kind of probably fruitless to try to predict that.
“You just want to make sure you position yourself to be as nimble as possible on the other side of it, to take advantage of whatever changes there might be, and position your own organization within that as well as you can. But I think to try to get too cute with that, you’re probably just asking for trouble.”
Scott Boras, who represents free agents Pete Alonso, Cody Bellinger, and Alex Bregman this winter, said he wasn’t worried about a lockout affecting negotiations this winter.
“No, historically, we haven’t seen that, because teams always want to be their best,” Boras said. “The bottom line is that teams understand they don’t have to pay players when there’s (a stoppage).”
But Boras’ overarching point is that the conversation should be moot. He thinks the sport’s media rights are too valuable and that the game has too much momentum for a work stoppage. The latter point, in particular, is shared by many in the industry.
Another player agent, who provided candor on the condition of anonymity, said teams aren’t making a big deal of a potential lockout directly in contract talks, but noted at least one team has expressed uncertainty about their budget in coming years because of the potential lockout. A third agent said he also hadn’t detected a difference in free-agent discussions, but that the potential for a work stoppage had come up in extension talks.
Meanwhile, a fourth and fifth agent said to check back later because it’s still too early in the offseason. “They were mostly feeling us out if we were going to act differently,” one of those agents said.
Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller seemed to acknowledge that some GMs are on a fact-finding mission themselves.
“We’ll get a better sense of that, honestly, in the next month when we get more detailed with agents about kind of what they’re looking for and how it affects the asking prices and maybe the structure of some deals,” Preller said.
Of course, some executives wanted to avoid the discussion entirely. There’s only billions on the line.
“Not get into anything close to that,” said Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns, who once worked in MLB’s labor relations department, the group responsible for negotiating on behalf of the owners.
During the World Series, Tony Clark, the head of the players’ union, didn’t make a prediction when asked about free agency.
“We’ll have to see,” Clark said. “We simply hope that it’s all 30 teams that are interested in trying to be the last team standing.”
One smaller-market executive noted that the lockout doesn’t really matter to his team’s plans this winter for a simple reason: they’re rarely in the bidding for high-end free agents anyway.