{"id":609246,"date":"2026-03-06T06:26:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T06:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/609246\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T06:26:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T06:26:20","slug":"mlb-players-union-gearing-up-for-cba-fight-and-lockout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/609246\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB players union gearing up for CBA fight and lockout"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA \u2014 With just under nine months to go until the current Collective Bargaining Agreement is set to expire, both MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association have been battening down the hatches for what appears to be increasingly likely next winter: a lockout.<\/p>\n

While the two sides are set to begin bargaining some time next month, the looming battle is expected to center on the possibility of a salary cap \u2014 with owners pushing for it and the union staunchly against it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been preparing for this fight for years,\u201d MLBPA interim executive director Bruce Meyer said Thursday morning at Steinbrenner Field, where the union made a stop on its annual spring tour of all 30 teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re coming off a season of incredible momentum and great fan interest, as evidenced by attendance, ratings, anything you want to look at. If the league is saying they\u2019re looking to shut that down, that doesn\u2019t make a lot of sense for a lot of reasons. But we\u2019ll be prepared for that and everything else that may be coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gerrit Cole, who has previously served on the executive subcommittee, described the meeting with the PA as \u201cvery informative, very thorough.\u201d<\/p>\n

It came in the wake of Meyer replacing Tony Clark as the head of the union last month, after Clark resigned in the wake of an internal investigation that found he had an inappropriate relationship with his sister-in-law<\/a>, who was hired by the MLBPA in 2023.<\/p>\n

While Cole said he is trying to keep an \u201coptimistic\u201d view in the face of concerns of a lockout, he acknowledged that a salary cap is not the \u201canswer to the questions that we\u2019re trying to answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"GerritGerrit Cole, throwing earlier in the spring training, said he is trying to be \u201coptimistic\u201d that there won\u2019t be a lockout next season. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sport is growing, the viewership is younger, the gate is up, the players\u2019 pay is up, club appreciations are up,\u201d Cole said. \u201cObviously there is a whole list of concerns. \u2026 I\u2019m optimistic that through good conversations, through a lot of deliberation and some tense moments, ultimately the best will come out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meyer said that the union has never thought that salary caps were in the best interest of players.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see no reason to change that view,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Meyer also added that salary caps \u201cdon\u2019t really guarantee competitive balance,\u201d indicating that baseball has the best competitive balance as opposed to the other major sports, which all have salary caps.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem we have in baseball is not with the teams that are trying to win games and trying to spend money,\u201d Meyer said. \u201cIt\u2019s with teams that maybe aren\u2019t trying as hard as they can. That\u2019s the problem with competition in baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oswaldo Cabrera will make his spring debut on Friday night, starting at shortstop against the Rays in his first game action since breaking his ankle and suffering ligament damage last May.<\/p>\n

\u201cExcited for him,\u201d manager Aaron Boone said. \u201cObviously it\u2019s been a pretty long road for him. It\u2019s been exciting to see some of the improvement he\u2019s made over the last few weeks.\u201d <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGo beyond the box score with the Bombers\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Yankees by Greg Joyce, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Cody Bellinger returned to the lineup Thursday for the first time in a week after dealing with a stiff back. <\/p>\n

He played four innings in right field and went 0-for-1 with a walk in a rain-shortened 15-0 loss to the Twins at Steinbrenner Field.<\/p>\n

\u201cFelt really good,\u201d said Bellinger, who is scheduled to play left field Friday. \u201cFelt 100 percent.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Yankees made a round of cuts Thursday, optioning RHP Chase Hampton to Double-A Somerset and reassigning him, RHP Travis MacGregor and RHP Drake Fellows to minor league camp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA \u2014 With just under nine months to go until the current Collective Bargaining Agreement is set to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,2281,4,62,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-609246","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-gerrit-cole","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-new-york-yankees","12":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116180811572486156","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609246","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=609246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}