Baseball’s decades of labor peace may come to an end when its current collective bargaining agreement expires in 2021.
A majority (65 percent) of players queried in a wide-ranging survey conducted by USA Today and published by that publication’s Bob Nightengale said they feel a strike is necessary to regain losses incurred in previous CBAs.
There are two key caveats to that bombshell finding. The first is that negotiations on a new deal are still three years away, leaving plenty of time for players and ownership to find common ground. The second is that only 26 of the 63 players who participated in the survey were willing to answer that particular question, so the sample size is small enough that it should be taken with a grain of salt.
Still, Nightengale added an ominous note on the players who chose not to answer formally.
“Many of those who politely declined to answer indicated that in the absence of change, they are prepared to walk out if necessary,” he wrote.
The saber rattling follows an offseason in which many veteran free agents waited longer than normal to find work and, in some cases, were forced to settle for surprisingly cheap deals. The Pirates, of course, chose to sign no major league free agents and were one of four teams hit with a grievance by the Major League Baseball Players Association over use of revenue sharing money.
Nightengale also found general agreement among players on a slew of other topics, many of them having to do with proposed changes to the game.
Just over half felt that pace-of-play changes are working. But strong majorities opposed limitations on defensive shifts; were unconcerned about fewer balls in play; favored legalizing foreign substances that could help pitchers get a better grip on the baseball; opposed shortening the season from 162 games; were opposed to a computerized strike zone and felt the size of the zone was “just fine.”
In another topical finding, 71 percent of players felt revenue and interest generated by state-run gambling is worth the risk, although it’s questionable whether the players would see a cut of the spoils if MLB were to obtain one of its own. Just last week, the Pirates sought to receive sports gambling revenue from the state to pay for maintenance at PNC Park, with no mention of investing in the team’s payroll.
Adam Bittner: abittner@post-gazette.com and Twitter @fugimaster24.
First Published: June 28, 2018, 9:57 p.m.
