NEW YORK \u2014 Amid the tidal wave of the Tony Clark scandal that rocked the MLB Players Association last week, the baseball owners were meeting at the Breakers in Palm Beach, Fla., to re-affirm their solidarity over the necessity of a salary cap. And when the dust cleared, and Bruce Meyer was quickly and just as unanimously installed as Clark\u2019s successor, one thing became crystal clear: Baseball is heading full force toward the apocalypse.<\/p>\n
Clark\u2019s departure is certainly no loss as he is under investigation by the Eastern District of New York over his involvement with a youth baseball initiative \u2014 Players Way \u2014 that spent millions of dollars but showed little returns in events. He is also being investigated for obstruction in orchestrating a campaign behind the scenes to shut down a review of a reported bonus plan that would have paid millions to executive board members of the organization. As if the federal probe wasn\u2019t compromising enough for Clark, it then got leaked by a union whistleblower that he was engaged in an inappropriate relationship with his sister-in-law who\u2019d been hired by the union in 2023.<\/p>\n
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According to one former player: \u201cObviously, somebody at the union really had it in for Clark and by leaking that stuff about the inappropriate relationship served to hasten his departure before the CBA negotiations begin.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the opinion of most management officials, however, the change at the top of the union from Clark to Meyer will not have any measurable effect on the upcoming collective bargaining talks since Meyer was the union\u2019s chief negotiator in the rancorous 2022 CBA negotiations that nearly resulted in the cancellation of regular-season games. Upon being unanimously elected as the new MLBPA executive director, Meyer laid down the gauntlet saying: \u201cSalary cap doesn\u2019t help the players at any level. It doesn\u2019t help the middle class players because it comes with an erosion or complete elimination essentially of guaranteed contracts. It eliminates freedom and flexibility and over the course of time the history is it always becomes worse and worse for the players.\u201d<\/p>\n
The owners would counter that argument by saying a cap would actually result in more money for the players \u2014 especially the middle and lower class players \u2014 by virtue of a salary floor that would force the small market clubs to significantly increase their payrolls, as well a substantial increase of the minimum wage. What it would also do however \u2014 and this is why agents like Scott Boras remain the most vehemently opposed to it \u2014 is that it will signal an end to the crazy long-term contracts of six or more years that put such a crimp on clubs\u2019 payrolls under a cap.<\/p>\n
As adamant as the union is against the cap, the owners are equally unanimous \u2014 as never before \u2014 in the need for one. Said one MLB executive: \u201cThis is all about what happened this winter with the Dodgers and the Mets. The small and middle market clubs can\u2019t compete with that and even the larger market teams can\u2019t substantiate the significant luxury tax penalties which the Dodgers and Mets have no problem with. This is why I don\u2019t see the owners caving on this.\u201d<\/p>\n
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On the other hand, MLB is the only sport without a salary cap and the pressure is on Meyer to make sure it remains so. Meyer is considered a hard-liner who actually urged the players to vote down the deal that was eventually agreed upon in 2023. This is why people on both sides think the players still need a more seasoned labor front man and why, I\u2019m told, they have already reached out to former MLBPA chief Donald Fehr (who guided them through the ruinous 232-day 1994-95 work stoppage) to serve as an advisor in the upcoming talks.<\/p>\n
\u201cMeyer thinks of himself as a modern day Marvin Miller,\u201d said another MLB exec. \u201cBut he\u2019s no Marvin Miller and the difference today is back then the players under Miller were fighting for rights which is why they stayed united. Now the fight is simply over the distribution of money.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 Amid the tidal wave of the Tony Clark scandal that rocked the MLB Players Association…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,76579,75753,39,101,28513,34437,324],"class_list":{"0":"post-586726","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-baseball-owners","10":"tag-bruce-meyer","11":"tag-dodgers","12":"tag-mets","13":"tag-mlb-players-association","14":"tag-salary-cap","15":"tag-tony-clark"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116115049306188000","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}