I just realized something: major league baseball has not had a strike since I became commissioner of the EFL. Now that I know about it, this long era of labor peace is one of my proudest accomplishments.
However, one of my duties as Commissioner is to constantly scan the horizon for threats and challenges we may have to face. So today I am passing along to you, my fellow franchise owners, this bit of news: the players are restive.
How restive? According to player agent Brodie Van Wagenen, this restive:
Bottom line, the players are upset. No, they are outraged… Their voices are getting louder and they are uniting in a way not seen since 1994.
I would suggest that testing the will of 1,200 alpha males at the pinnacle of their profession is not a good strategy for 30 men who are bound by a much smaller fraternity. These 1,200 players have learned first-hand that battles are won through teamwork, and they understand that Championships can’t be achieved by individuals. They are won by a group united by a singular focus. Victory at all costs. They are willing to sweat for it; they are willing to sacrifice for it; they are willing to cry for it; and most importantly, they are willing to bleed for it.
There is a rising tide among players for radical change. A fight is brewing… A boycott of Spring Training may be a starting point, if behavior doesn’t change.
Never in my tenure have we been threatened with violence at the hands of “1,200 alpha males at the pinnacle of their profession.” Even worse, we may be on course for the first decline in our salary cap since 2009.
For some of you youngsters who don’t remember 2009, our salary cap declined that year after Opening Day. The decline wasn’t huge, but it was enough to leave at least one of our franchises OVER the cap. We responded with compassion — well, at least with a little compassion mixed in. The poor team couldn’t bid on anyone at our monthly meetings. So we agreed to a rule giving every team a $500,000 per month allowance to bid with during the season (generally accounted for with a $500,000 boost in the team’s salary cap), even if the monthly allowance put them over the cap.
Another artifact of that searing experience: we prohibited our salaries from declining more than 6% in a year. So far we’ve never had to invoke that clause: your commissioner has always been able to get enough MLB teams to avoid reducing their payrolls to avoid a 6% drop in our cap.
But this year looks bad. According to MLBTraderumors, half of the MLB teams are projected to slash payrolls by up to $70,000,000. Far fewer teams are projected to increase their payrolls. So we maybe in for interesting times…