New York Mets pitcher Max Scherzer, who is heavily involved with the MLBPA, offered depressing insight into the potential of an impending MLB lockout.
At the stroke of midnight on Dec. 2, baseball as we know is set to expire — until a new collective bargaining agreement is approved, at least.
Until the MLBPA and MLB owners can agree on terms in a collective bargaining agreement (CBA), professional baseball players will be engaged in a a lockout. A lockout, as described by ESPN, is the “antithesis of a players’ strike.” Until a new deal is reached, owners will prevent players from signing with new teams as free agents, interacting with team facilities, or even contacting the team in any way.
The lockout is designed to pressure players to accept a new financial deal which always tends to suit the billionaires who crafted the agreement. As the MLBPA and MLB ownership debate and compromise on the final day, newly-signed Mets pitcher Max Scherzer believes it’s unlikely a deal will be reached before Dec. 2.
“Hearing the tone in negotiations, the lockout seems like that’s a very likely scenario, let’s say that.”
Newly-signed Mets pitcher Max Scherzer believes MLB lockout is “a very likely scenario”
In the thread expanding on Scherzer’s comments, ESPN MLB writer Joon Lee detailed what players are looking for in a new agreement, as well as how affected players will cope with a stoppage of funds.
According to Lee, Scherzer says the MLBPA has a “war chest” of money to assist players, although he hopes the CBA negotiations don’t reach that extreme.
As far as what players want out of the new deal, Scherzer indicates that MLB players want to boost competitiveness in the league and discourage tanking.
“Adjustments have to be made to be made to bring up the competition … When we don’t have that, we have issues,” Scherzer said.
Although the MLB doesn’t have a salary cap to restrict salaries, there are still economic limitations that allow players to be financially exploited for their talents, especially early in their careers. To summarize, “players would like to be paid more at younger ages because that’s when they are in their prime,” explains ESPN’s Jesse Rogers. Otherwise, players could be underpaid throughout their twenties without landing a bigger contract when they near 30 and could see a potential decline.
Scherzer sits on the executive board of the players’ union alongside Marcus Semien, Gerrit Cole, Francisco Lindor, Jason Castro, Zack Britton, Andrew Miller and James Paxton.