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Brett Taylor of Bleacher Nation wrote about how players are receiving less money while the league is making more money than ever, yet again. I’ll admit that collective bargaining isn’t exactly my area of expertise, but in the piece, Taylor says he wouldn’t be surprised if we see a strike in the 2021 season.
To me, that would be surprising, even if it shouldn’t be. One thing the members of the MLBPA seem likely to be willing to fight for would be their own paychecks, after all.
My skepticism doesn’t mean that the union doesn’t value their own best interests, it just seems like they haven’t been as proactive as they could be about this in previous bargaining agreements, to their own detriment as we are starting to see more and more.
It is surprising that this off-season has been as slow as it has been, considering how highly anticipated this free agency class had been, once upon a time. Maybe we’ll still see a couple of record-shattering deals, but we will likely also continue to see players not get signed at all. This is not a great sign of things to come.
Speaking of things that aren’t a great sign of things to come, that the MLBPA will likely need to address in 2021, Sheryl Ring over at FanGraphs wrote on the topic of openers and did the topic way more justice than I did last week. In the piece, she discusses the detailed way in which this will likely affect the pay players receive, especially with regards to arbitration and incentive bonuses.