After MLB players, owners fought for so long, baseball enjoys sounds of silence

Running alongside the 162-game schedule in baseball that everyone enjoys is the sport’s other timetable. Every half-decade, the major-league players and owners hash out a deal that determines most everything about the game beyond the final scores. And what’s notable about the current 2022-26 CBA cycle — which, believe it or not, is already 40 percent complete — is how differently this one is playing out than the last.

There’s less kvetching. The players are not criticizing the league as publicly or as often as they did last go-around, and the sides aren’t taking shots at each other left and right.

Some complaints still fly, of course. At the moment, some pitchers are unhappy that MLB is about to shorten the pitch clock with runners on base, from 20 seconds to 18. But the league has also always had the power to make on-field rule changes as it sees fit. In part, that’s because the players continuously grant that power during bargaining. But more to the point: Losing two seconds on the clock is small potatoes compared to the major economic angst players felt at this point in the last cycle.

“It is quieter,” Major League Baseball Players Association executive director Tony Clark told The Athletic during the World Series. “The industry is seemingly in a different place. The experiences that we’ve had the last handful of years has us in a different place.”

During the previous CBA, which covered the 2017 through 2021 seasons, the pine tar hit the fan right away. Some in the industry said the players had negotiated a bad deal as soon as the ink was dry, in late 2016. Then, after just one season of play, free agency went poorly enough that the MLBPA held its own training camp for unsigned players, in 2018.

This upcoming season will be the third year of the current deal. Last time during the third season, something unprecedented happened: The sides briefly held midterm bargaining talks. Players were so unhappy with the status quo in 2019 that the league said it would be willing to discuss changes years before expiration.

Those discussions did not go well or last long. A lot more acrimony followed during the pandemic, and most baseball fans remember how everything played out. Friday happens to be the two-year anniversary of the start of the 2021-22 lockout.

But the CBA that came out of those clashes, the one now in place, has served players better than the last.

“The trends that we’ve seen, and the concerns that we had going in, are moving in a positive direction,” Clark said. “Obviously, as a part of any negotiation, you don’t get everything you want. But some of the progress that we made, in the areas that we made, we believe are having a positive effect — not just on players and teams, but the industry as a whole.”

Through a spokesperson, commissioner Rob Manfred declined comment.

Among some of the numbers that the MLBPA has calculated:

• Opening Day average salary in 2023 surpassed $5 million for the first time in the sport’s history, at $5.04 million. The figure was $4.71 million in 2022 and $4.27 million in 2021, after sitting at roughly $4.5 million for each of the 2016-20 seasons.

• The 2022-23 free-agent class signed 55 multiyear deals. There were 48 in 2021-22. The 2020-21 offseason had 35, the 2019-20 winter had 30 and the 2018-19 had 34, down from 38 the winter prior.

• A record nine teams might wind up above the first luxury-tax tier for 2023, once final calculations are done this month. There were six such teams last year, two in 2021, three in 2020 and 2019, two in 2018, five in 2017, and six in 2016.

• The CBA added incentives for teams to bring up players sooner. In 2023, there were 12 top-100 prospects who received a full year of service time, and 11 the year before. There were only three in each of the 2016-18 seasons and the 2021 seasons, and five in both 2019 and 2020.

So what do tamer waters today mean in the long run? A lot of hedging.

The most important caveat: Nothing is promised for the future. But the status quo is better than the alternative.

The last CBA cycle was atypical. There was a long build-up to the confrontations. In that sense, what’s happening now looks more like what one would expect: quiet in the years well before bargaining restarts. Yet, there also was no guarantee that things would, indeed, pipe down as they have.

At some point, gears will shift, and public messaging will start. So the question is how loud those messages get, and when.

Five years might not be the best representation of the cycle. It can be closer to four years: Typically, negotiations last about a year, starting with one year to go on a deal. So, after concluding in spring 2022, they are likely to have started again no later than spring of 2026.

Relative quiet should not be confused for peace and bliss — which would never be expected anyway in labor relations.

There are always clouds, or dark clouds. MLB formed an economic reform committee to deal with the tumult in broadcasting and broadcasting rights, a situation that will inevitably pit big-market and smaller-market owners against one another. The MLBPA was suspicious the league was angling for a salary cap via that committee, and there were some strong public words from both Clark and Manfred just this spring.

Clark also took exception when Manfred said he liked the idea of limiting the number of years on player contracts.

But those types of dust-ups have been, overall, less frequent.

“That’s probably a good thing,” one veteran player agent said of the quiet. “I think to some degree, it’s a reflection of, there’s a lot of money in baseball right now. … I think even the owners recognize that ultimately, that they will be the beneficiaries of the RSN debacle.

“I think players think that they’re doing OK, and certainly, the top end of the market is doing more than OK.”

But, things can change on a dime. A bad free-agent winter can set everyone off. Clark said the MLBPA was watching to see whether the changes seen are “isolated to one particular moment in time.”

The owners, meanwhile, could get on their hind legs about the RSN uncertainty. If any issue is going to be a driver next go-around, the TV landscape seems the early favorite. And it might be the owners who try to position themselves as the aggrieved party this time, after the players did so last time.

“Because there isn’t socialism, there’s always going to be problems. You’re always going to have the small-market, big-market divide,” the agent said. “I don’t know that Rob has enough (owner) votes right now to pass a status-quo new bargaining agreement. I think there are some small- to mid-market teams that are looking for, you know, substantial change. … But we’re still a bit away from that.”

Ultimately, another offseason lockout could be a possibility, despite the current calm. Lockouts are common in the major men’s sports leagues, a favored tactic by management. An optimist could hope that the chances are lower because of how this CBA is unfolding, but too many questions just can’t be answered right now: What does the league ultimately want to do? What are the sides’ positions in three years?

The more interesting question could well be whether there’s a lockout that actually costs the sport games. No games were missed as a result of the 2021-22 lockout, when the issues were as contentious and substantive as they’ve been at any point this century.

What is safe to say, for now, is simple: Things are going better this time. There’s been no free-agent camp, and there’s no talk of opening up the current CBA in the middle. No one dares disturb the sound of silence, but all involved can clearly hear it.

(Photo of Clark and Manfred: Daniel Shirey / MLB Photos via Getty Images)