MLB Owners' CBA Proposal Has Comical Implications for Red Sox

As expected, Major League Baseball and the MLB Players' Union didn't see eye to eye with their first collective bargaining proposals.

Both sides rolled out their first rounds of demands this week: the players on Wednesday, and the owners/league office on Thursday. Both sides are looking to hammer home material changes to the league's framework, but the owners' side proposing a hard salary cap made the biggest splash thus far.

As reported by ESPN's Jesse Rogers on Thursday, the league is pushing for a $245.3 million hard cap, with a salary floor as well set at $171.2 million. Those figures would take effect at the start of the 2027 season.

In other words, the owners think the Boston Red Sox, who have gotten all sorts of flak from the fan base so far this decade for the way they've managed the roster, are spending too much money on their players.

Laughable to think Red Sox are overspending

Dec 9, 2024; Dallas, TX, USA; Boston Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow speaks with the media at the Hilton Anatole during the 2024 MLB Winter Meetings. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

Boston's active salary this season is just over $195 million, but because so many of their contracts are backloaded, their luxury tax payroll is over $267 million, according to Spotrac. That's the sixth-highest figure in the league and would make them one of eight teams that would have had to shed payroll to get under the cap if the owners' proposal had gone into effect this year.

And while the Red Sox have indeed upped their payroll in each of the last two seasons, principal owner John Henry and Fenway Sports Group haven’t made an effort to keep up with the top-spending teams in the sport this decade, beginning in 2020 with the Mookie Betts trade. Boston went from first in luxury tax payroll in 2019 to as low as 12th in the league earlier in the decade.

The historical implications are scary for fans of all teams, because the last time the owners proposed a firm salary cap was 1994 -- when the World Series got canceled, the players' strike lasted 7 1/2 months, and the National Labor Relations Board had to get involved.

It's going to be a long summer of rumors, followed by a potentially frustrating winter of negotiations. But it's pretty much impossible to envision the league as the owners saw fit to propose it should be constructed on Thursday, so where the Red Sox fit in almost isn't relevant yet.

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