The All-Star spotlight in Philadelphia has come with a familiar baseball shadow hanging over it: labor tension. With the league’s five-year contract set to expire on December 1, MLB is expected to lock out players, and the salary cap proposal sitting at the center of the dispute is already drawing loud resistance from some of the game’s biggest names.
Paul Skenes, Juan Soto, Bryce Harper and Mike Trout are among the stars pushing back hard on the idea, according to ESPN. And they’re not doing it quietly.
“Both sides kind of have their line that they're not going to cross,” Pittsburgh Pirates ace Skenes said Monday. “Whether that results in missing games or missing a season, we'll see.”
Skenes, who is also part of the union’s eight-man negotiating committee, is helping carry the players’ side into what could be a defining fight. MLB’s current proposal marks the first time the league has put a salary cap on the table since 1994, when the last such battle helped trigger a seven and a half month strike and the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
The new framework would also limit deals to $265 million over six years, a detail that lands directly in the middle of the sport’s biggest contracts. Soto, who signed a 15-year, $765 million deal with the New York Mets, didn’t hide his reaction.
“Yeah, that sucks,” Soto said in regard to the cap on individual contracts. “It shouldn't be there.”
Trout and Harper are in similar territory, with long-term money already on their books. Trout signed a 12-year, $426.5 million contract eight years ago, while Harper is in the middle of a 13-year, $330 million deal.
“It's trying to minimize the years and obviously the totals. For sure, we see that,” Trout said. “I think baseball's in a good spot right now and we can't mess this up.”
Harper’s concern goes beyond the money. The proposal would also block a player from signing a contract until he is at least 20 years old by September 1 of his signing year and two years removed from the graduating year of his high school class. In practice, that would steer more players toward the college path.
“The opportunity for players to get paid is what this is all about. We owe it to the guys that have come before us to do the same thing,” Harper said.
“If you're in the top three rounds as a high school kid, I think you should be able to do whatever you want. It would really be tough for a guy like Jackson Holliday to not be the No. 1 pick and not get the chance to go to the big leagues at 19 or 18 if he's able to.”
Even with the tension building, there’s still a belief that a deal can be reached before the sport gets pushed into a work stoppage.
“MLB is kind of presenting their perfect-world offers and we're kind of presenting our perfect-world offers,” Skenes said. “So there's a lot of time before there's any real movement, I think.”
Time may still be on the table, but not by much. And if this turns into a lockout or strike, baseball risks putting the brakes on the momentum it has built in recent years.
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