2027 Lockout: As Twins Fans, What Do We Actually Want From the Next CBA?

[farmerguychris]

With more and more proposals starting to come out from MLB and the Players Association, I've been wondering what other Twins fans think about the possibility of a lockout — and potentially losing some of the 2027 season.

I'm especially interested in this from the perspective of fans of a small-to-mid-market team like Minnesota.

MLB is proposing some pretty major changes, including a salary cap and floor. Their current proposal would put the 2027 cap at about $245 million and the floor at about $171 million. They've also floated changes to the offseason calendar, including much shorter windows for free-agent signings.

The Players Association, meanwhile, has made it pretty clear that a salary cap is something they strongly oppose.

Obviously, we're a long way from knowing where any of this ends up. But if we're heading toward another owners-vs.-players labor battle, what should we as Twins fans actually be rooting for?

Personally, the thing I want most is parity.

I think the NFL gets this part mostly right. I like the idea that going into a season, fans of just about every team can reasonably believe that if their organization makes good decisions, drafts well, develops players and manages its roster properly, it has a legitimate opportunity to win.

I'd like MLB to get closer to that.

Here's one statistic that really puts the current situation into perspective for me:

The Cleveland Guardians entered this season with a payroll of roughly $70 million.

Shohei Ohtani's contract with the Dodgers has a nominal value of $70 million per season. (Obviously that's complicated by the massive amount of deferred money in his contract, so it isn't literally $70 million being paid to him this year.)

Still, think about the basic comparison: one superstar's contract averages approximately what an entire roster costs.

I don't think either extreme is particularly healthy for the long term future of baseball.

I'd like to see a system where the Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, etc. can't simply use enormously deeper pockets than everyone else — but I'd ALSO like to see a system where low-payroll owners can't pocket revenue-sharing money while putting a $60-$80 million roster on the field.

That's why, at least in theory, I find a cap AND a meaningful floor interesting. If you're going to limit what the biggest spenders can spend, you should also force the lowest spenders to invest substantially more in their teams.

But I also realize it isn't that simple.

A huge part of this comes back to revenue. MLB teams don't begin on equal financial footing. Local television revenue has historically varied enormously from market to market, and the collapse/change of the regional sports network model has hit some clubs much harder than others. So if MLB wants NFL-style payroll parity, doesn't it eventually need something closer to NFL-style revenue sharing too?

Ultimately, my ideal outcome would be pretty simple:

Every fan should be able to enter Opening Day believing their team has a legitimate path to a championship — and that championship shouldn't be something another team can simply buy because its revenue and ownership pockets dwarf everyone else's.

Maybe that's unrealistic in baseball. Maybe a salary cap creates more problems than it solves. Maybe the MLBPA is right to fight it. That's part of why I'm starting this thread.

I'm also finding it hard to get emotionally invested in choosing between millionaire players and billionaire owners when the people who ultimately lose during a work stoppage are the fans — along with all of the ordinary people whose livelihoods depend on baseball being played.

So I'm curious where Twins Daily Users falls on this:

1. Would a salary cap AND floor ultimately be good for the Twins?

2. How should MLB significantly increase revenue sharing between large- and small-market teams as part of any cap/floor system?

3. Do you think MLB should be trying to copy the NFL model when it comes to competitive balance, or is baseball fundamentally too different?

4. And maybe most importantly — do you think we're actually going to lose games in 2027?

I'm genuinely interested in hearing both sides, because I suspect this is going to become one of the biggest baseball stories of the next several months.

Many of the venues I participate about Twins baseball say it is too early to do any predictions - fair enough, but I would like to know if I'm the only person feeling the way I do.

Thoughts anyone?

[Dave Borton]

As a fan, I favor a floor and ceiling. Both the players and owners are over-pricing the game out of my pocket (ticket/concesssion/parking). I keep saying that and attendance goes up (1.1% the year).  Floor and ceiling won't fly.

I think a 162 game schedule is overdone. It is the only aspect for which I feel sympathy for the players. Season is too long. Realize that is an unpopular fan sentiment. Won't fly. Revenue ↓.

Limit pitching staff to 12 (11 in season 2029). Forces team to have starters go longer, less speed on FBs, less arms hanging from clubhouse ceiling, less pitching changes. Won't fly.

Increase the luxury tax and revenue sharing, increasing the floor. Will fly as part of a compromise with a late start/abbrev 2027 season,

I will find a seat at CHS. Minor league CBA good thru Dec 2027.

Structure of the players' executive committee will be nominated in November and voted on at the Winter Meetings, Scottsdale, AZ in early December.

 

 

[The Great Hambino]

I might be increasingly in the minority on this, but I don't think we lose more than a month of games next year.  The upcoming media rights negotiations in 2028 will prevent a prolonged work stoppage.  Missing a season right before these negotiations take place would literally kill the golden goose.  There will be a lot of posturing, and the offseason will feel like it lasted for seven years, but that's too much of their future revenues at stake to go nuclear.

Personally, I don't think a cap is needed if they have the amount of revenue sharing that would meaningfully level the playing field (it would sort of work as an unofficial cap on its own - the big spenders would have to curb their spending if all their revenue was getting pooled).  However, to get the revenue sharing and high floor needed to create payroll balance through collective bargaining, I don't know what could be offered as a trade-off other than some form of cap to get the owners to agree to it.

My prediction: there will be a (not high enough) floor, some convoluted mechanism that blurs the lines between a stiff luxury tax and a soft cap on the high end (think NBA), both sides will claim they won,  and we're playing competitive baseball by May.

As for what I want to happen, I want any mechanism that incentivizes organizations from putting their best 26 healthy players on the active roster.  No more service time manipulation, no more maintaining profitability with noncompetitive payrolls.  Overall, I think the Pirates of the world are more responsible for the imbalance in the sport than the Dodgers

[bean5302]

In terms of chances at making the post-season, MLB is more competitive than the other leagues (including the NFL). Same with the championship games. There are just different reasons for the lack of parity.

In leagues with salary caps, small and mid market teams can succeed. In MLB, they can't. Jeff Passan would make the same argument I'd make a couple years ago about how teams can make the playoffs so everything is okay.

MLB teams cannot advance in the playoffs based on payrolls. No team in the past decade has made the World Series in a full season while in the bottom half of payroll. The smaller market, smaller payroll teams are honestly just cannon fodder for the real competitors.

I want to see much closer to full rev share, a floor system of some sort. If it's not a hard floor, I want it to have teeth. Like every $10MM under the floor, lose your top pick. Go $100MM under the floor lose all your picks for the first 10 rounds. I want to see a hard cap or at least a prospect forfeiture tax. i.e. The Dodgers can go in at $300MM, but for every $10MM over the tax, say starting at $220MM, they lose their top prospect. That means they lose their top 8 prospects who are allowed to be selected as competitive balance picks or something like that. The ceiling has to have real teeth and long term consequences.

I like the "tank/rebuild" strategy overall. It sucks for a couple years, but I think it's a good alternate strategy to just "spend more!" In other salary cap leagues, there's one strategy. Get lucky in the first round of the draft.

 

[Trov]

I wrote a forum on this topic a ways back when both sides were putting "offers" in media to try to win fans, and when the biggest parts of the offers are about how "OUR" money is being split up, I get upset at both sides.  I say "OUR" money because even from TV revenue it is ultimately our money because that comes from ads, which gets passed onto consumers.  

That being said, I would love parity.  Fans in support of the players and no cap, echo their talking points of teams like Rays doing well, as a reason you do not need a cap.  There are other teams near bottom of payrolls, Cleveland, Miami, White Sox, and Brewers that are competing for playoffs, Brewers and White Sox are in first place in divisions with Brewers best record in baseball. There are also several teams above the average payroll that are doing terrible, specifically, Mets, top payroll in baseball, Detroit and San Francisco are not competing for playoffs. However, generally the teams on top half are competing for playoffs, and teams on bottom half are not. 

Would a cap and floor be good for Twins?  I think generally a cap and floor will be good for parity, and will really see which teams are best to winning on the edges.  Rays, Cleveland, and some other teams have for years won with a below to near bottom payrolls, where teams like Angels and Mets have failed year in and year out with an above average payroll. (Angels just below average right now).  If you cap the top market teams they will have to decide who they are paying top dollar too, and push for them and having to use other ways to get them, than just more money than everyone else. 

One issue will be implementing these, you cannot do it outright comply because teams well over the cap number, Mets, Dodgers, Yankees, Philly, Toronto, cannot reduce that much payroll next year, most likely.  Also, teams at the other end, Cleveland, Miami, Cards, Athletics, will have to raise payroll so much that they will end of over paying for middle of road guys just to hit the floor.  It will need to take a few years to get there. 

How can they implement revenue sharing?  That is easy, instead of the 50% share of all local broadcasts, you do 100% goes into pool.  Same with ticket revenues.  

I do not think MLB can copy NFL, I think they should be closer to NBA type parity.  NFL players careers are so short and the players go right into playing from draft, because they only let college guys play and there is no minor league. Generally, the NFL has to churn so many guys out, and injuries eat them up too, that outside of HOF QBs and line men, or kickers, most guys even the best, retire early 30's, most never make a second contract.  

I do enjoy that each you outside a few teams, most fans can dream of their team competing.  However, NFL and MLB are just not alike enough to fully work that way.  MLB will always have the minor leagues with rookies that come in an out or fringe guys that need to make a few starts while top guy is injured. 

Do I think they will miss games?  I do think that.  I think both sides are too far apart and too entrenched, and until either side is losing money they will not blink. 

I personally think if both sides really cared about the game, and what would be best they would agree to a system like the NBA has.  A full revenue split.  The issue is players and owners cannot agree on what is "baseball revenue".  They have fought over the stuff surrounding the stadiums that are owned by the team ownership groups should count, and owners say no way. 

If they can agree on what is revenue though a 50/50 split would make each side want to grow the game together.  In addition, it would have a floor, but a soft cap, which is what the tax is really a soft cap.  I think max length contracts, or max money contracts with giving prior team the right to have the longest or most money would help keep home grown talent. Lowering years of control from MLB service time to either years after draft or age or combo would help get them paid faster.  

For example, if a high school kid was drafted they become FA 6 years after drafted, regardless of years in majors.  If they are college 3 years.  This would stop holding kids down for years to maximize their years of control.  In both cases, most players would become free agent around 24.  

To counter it though, if you gave a qualifying offer to your player, which is based on actual years in majors and a formula of WAR/WPA however you want to figure it out, for a base salary, at a minimum of 3 years, increasing pay each year, with automatic incentive bonus for all players on those contracts then the player becomes "restricted" FA.  Just like all other team can match any deal then.  After that contract they will be unrestricted to teams.  The max length contract for first time FA is 5 years for other teams, and 7 years for returning players, max money not sure.  This would make their next contracts generally between ages 27 and 29, where then they can get their second contract with similar max lengths but increase money based on years of playing and output. 

The above would do a few things, one it would make teams call up players sooner if they were ready to max their time with them.  It would give a natural good FA time of 27 to 29 in most cases, or if they wanted to max on first deal 31.  Not much different from how most guys do it now, with opt outs and what not. Then they can get a second big deal.

For the teams at the top of cap, they can resign any of own players they had for full year prior just pay extra fee on what is over the cap.  However, they are limited on trading on how much money they can take on.  They could only take like 10% increase, or something like that. The fine details would need tweaking.  

I think this would help pay guys sooner, and get more contract chances.  This would make teams think twice before always outbidding for guys, but other teams will then get chance to keep guys on as they need to at least get to floor.