00:00All right, so let's go over here with what's been presented by the commissioner
00:04and Major League Baseball to the union.
00:06What's your takeaway, Brian, on trying to get a salary cap in Major League Baseball
00:11to try to make the playing field level for all teams in the sport?
00:15Where's your position on it right now?
00:18Look, my position is make a deal, obviously.
00:21My position is the sport is thriving.
00:25It's hot again.
00:26We come off a great World Series.
00:29The last CBA was done right after the pandemic.
00:33So that was kind of dire circumstances.
00:35Now everybody's pretty flush.
00:37Game is going along great.
00:39And beyond that, look, there are certain things that are true, right?
00:44Now the players don't want a cap.
00:46They want a free market system, right?
00:49They've had it.
00:49They fought for it decades ago.
00:51I understand it.
00:52At the same time, there is a wide disparity between the top-end runaway trains and the team.
01:00I mean, I'm talking most of teams, you know, toward the bottom.
01:04Seven teams that are under 100 million, and you've got three or four over 300 million.
01:10It's quite a gap.
01:11Now, a lot of those teams are bridging that gap, but, man, that's hard to do.
01:15And I'll just throw in one other thing.
01:18Remember that, you know, the players, they feel like a cap is radioactive, right?
01:23Dan, every time they, you know, you mentioned cap, they lose their minds.
01:26There's already that luxury tax that's there that isn't quite doing that job anymore.
01:32It did the job initially of let's keep everybody sort of the same.
01:36Even the big market clubs will have an advantage, but not have triple the payroll.
01:41That's not healthy.
01:42And what we've seen is the largest clubs that are now very well funded are runaway trains on most of
01:51the rest of the league.
01:52That's not healthy either.
01:55Would you agree with this, though?
01:56One of the things in my sport, the National Football League, one of the things that I think the players
02:01would probably be a little nervous about is a salary cap.
02:05You know, I think it works, Brian, when you have non-guaranteed contracts.
02:10When you have guaranteed contracts in Major League Baseball, if you've got a guy like Bo Bichette who's not producing
02:16for you and you sign a three-year contract, you're beholden to that contract.
02:20We're in the NFL, they blow you out.
02:23Only thing you're really obligated to is the guaranteed money.
02:26So if you're going to go down that lane, that's probably one of the things that you've got to be
02:31concerned about is knowing that, again, the finances here, this a little bit, where it's a little different than football.
02:37Those aren't guaranteed contracts.
02:39Baseball has the guaranteed contracts.
02:41Yeah, look, I mean, that's, for the players, that's got to be a non-starter, right?
02:46That's basic.
02:47Right.
02:47You know, what's important to you labor-wise, again, when Marvin Miller was first negotiating these deals, he was really
02:55looking to fund the pension and get better health care.
02:58And let's raise the floor for all the players, like very elementary things.
03:04We're talking now salary cap.
03:06Who does that affect?
03:07It affects the super rich.
03:08It really does.
03:09It's a matter of, we've seen this, I can't believe, Dan, because when I, you know, I'm tuning into the
03:14NBA playoffs and I'm watching it with my son and I'm like, how much is that?
03:17Because I'm not watching as close as I used to.
03:18I used to watch every playoff game in the NBA.
03:21I don't now.
03:21I watch just baseball.
03:23And I asked my son, how much does that guy make?
03:26And I'm like, what?
03:27Like, I'm blown away by the salaries, you know, like you and I can remember.
03:32I remember Jeff Bagwell signed a contract extension and he got $17.5 million a year.
03:37Like, so somewhere in my little head, it's still thinking, you know, 17.5 is a lot of money.
03:42It's not.
03:44What, what, what these, what the cap does, you know, what they're afraid of is that it will limit the
03:51guy, you know, who can go from Garrett Cole money to Shohei Ohtani money.
03:56And that's $36 million to $70 million a year.
04:00I think, you know, the Players Association should be more concerned with, and in their proposal, they did raise the
04:05floor.
04:05But anybody, anybody that steps on a major league field, I feel they should want the guy to be making
04:11a nice fat salary.
04:13If that's $2 million, you know, it's not $700,000, it's $2 million.
04:16I think that's what they wanted to come in at.
04:19That makes more sense.
04:20As far as, you know, we need to, you know, protect our basic rights, what they're, what they are doing
04:25is protecting the rights of the super rich player, the super talented player, who then, you know, doesn't want to
04:33be limited in 36, 40 and $45 million a year.
04:37That's what that's about.
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