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Forget eliminating Shohei Ohtani-esque, $700 million contracts in free agency.
If the owners have their way in baseballs labor negotiations, Alex Rodriguezs $252-million signing from December 2000 wouldnt be allowed in the future either.
Major League Baseballs owners on Thursday proposed a $202 million limit on contracts for free agents who leave their current team $50 million less than the amount A-Rod took to leave Seattle and sign with the Texas Rangers a quarter-century ago.
Advertisement Last month, MLB revealed some pieces of how its proposed salary-cap system would work, but left many core elements a mystery.
At the bargaining table in New York on Thursday, the owners filled in the blanks on subjects like free agency and the minimum salary.
The players union then responded with just as much disappointment as it did a few weeks earlier.
Starting in 2027, MLB wants free agents who leave their teams to be limited to five-year deals worth no more than $202 million.
Players who re-sign with their teams as free agents could come back for six years and $265 million a means of encouraging players to remain with their present clubs.
The league also dangled changes that, in isolation, would be better for players compared to the status quo.
It proposed eliminating the qualifying offer for free agents, a mechanism that can sometimes depress player markets.
MLB also said it would raise the minimum salary to $900,000 for players in their first two years in the big leagues, and to $1,000,000 million for players in their third.
Todays minimum is $780,000.
And the league said it would allow players who are at least 30 to become free agents after five years of service, rather than the current six, something the players union itself proposed earlier in these negotiations.
Today, in addition to proposing the largest ever increase in the minimum salary, earned by over half of MLB players, we accepted two landmark changes to free agency that have been in place for 50 years, MLB spokesperson Glen Caplin said in a statement.
A lot more is included in the league proposal, including the elimination of deferred salary for future contracts.
But all the proposals come with an important requirement: players would have to buy into MLBs salary-cap structure, which the union is adamant it does not want to do.
Advertisement I will tell you with all honesty, I have never seen this degree of unity at this point among agents and players, Bruce Meyer, interim head of the Players Association, said on a conference call with reporters.
I think, honestly, the league has done us a favor.
Because their proposals are, in fact, so obviously and extremely bad for players at all levels, that its actually been a benefit for our unity.
Anybody whos banking on Major League Baseball players cracking: its never happened.
Its not going to happen.
Thats why were the only ones who dont have a salary cap.
MLB declined to make an official available for an interview.
Agent Scott Boras, who represents some of baseballs highest-paid players and negotiated Rodriguezs deal in 2000 said that the leagues proposal is like offering a few pieces of nice furniture if youll move into a room that has a four-foot ceiling.
Theyre trying to move back to an arcane salary structure of the nineties, Boras said.
A key reason the league is willing to make many of the changes it proposed Thursday is also a key reason that players do not want them: in a cap system, how much each side earns is predetermined.
A cap-and-floor set-up does more than set a salary limit and floor, which for 2027, the league has proposed would be $245.3 million and $171.2 million, respectively.
It also creates a defined split of revenue: the players, under the leagues proposal, would receive 50 percent of revenues, and the owners the other 50.
The union says thats a reduction from what players make now.
This year, the Players Association expects players will receive about 55 percent of revenues.
Regardless of the exact numbers, having a defined split means that any changes to things like the minimum salary, are not actually creating new money for players in aggregate.
Advertisement In a cap system, its a zero-sum game, so its literally just moving money around, Meyer said.
They can propose any amount to any group of players, and in their cap system, it just takes money out of another players pocket, and thats true of salaries, benefits, all forms of compensation.
Their system is an overall limit on how much money players make, on an individual player level, on a club level, on a league-wide level.
Publicly, MLB has hammered the idea that it is trying to help fans via the salary cap, which it says will increase competitive balance in the sport.
The sides do not agree on whether baseballs parity is broken, or how to best improve it.
The biggest issue baseball fans want solved to strengthen the game is fixing the payroll disparity that leaves too many fans without hope of their team competing for a World Series title, Caplin said in Thursdays statement, echoing past remarks.
Every other major U.S.
sport has tackled this problem, and every year more small market teams in those leagues have a chance to win.
The salary cap and floor proposal levels the playing field, allowing us greater flexibility to address longstanding player priorities while sharing baseball revenue with the players 50/50.
Meyer said Thursday that it really kind of strains belief to think that, well, they really want the system, because, geez, thats what the fans want.
They want it because it increases their profits, they want it because it increases their franchise values, neither of which gets shared in the cap system, Meyer continued.
It protects owners who would rather not compete in every way from having to compete.
Thats what a salary cap system is, its the ultimate excuse.
A lot was jammed into MLBs proposal.
For free agents, those $202 and $265 million figures the limits for free agents signing with new and old teams, respectively are based on the leagues proposed salary cap for each team in 2027.
Free agents signing with a new team could make no more than 15 percent of the cap in their first year.
Free agents who stay with their team can make no more than 16 percent.
Advertisement Salaries couldnt grow too much over the life of the deal: theyre allowed to increase by up to 5 percent of the first-year figure.
The longest extension any player could sign with a team is for 12 years, up to $500 million.
But that amount of years and dollars would only be available to a player who has just arrived in the big leagues, and doesnt yet have a full year of service time.
Every year of service a player accumulates amounts to a year less they could sign for, and the maximum money available to them also decreases with each year of service.
For example: a player in his third year would be limited to a nine-year extension, worth a max potential of $382 million, were he to sign a contract in 2027.
The sides are bargaining over a labor contract that would start next year.
Meyer said Thursday he still thinks it is highly likely the owners will lock out the players in December.
At the negotiating table Thursday, talks became a little more vigorous than they had been thus far, Meyer said, but he noted the parties had all done this before.
The sides are expected to meet at least one more time before the mid-July All-Star Game.
Big picture, were not that different from where we were the last time we bargained, Meyer said, referring to the 2021-22 negotiations that produced a lockout ahead of an agreement in March 2022.
Im a little surprised by how bad their proposals are.