Jeff Passan

Look, you look at the standings right now, and I understand we're in early June.

You see teams that spend a lot of money at the top, like the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees.

You see teams that don't spend a lot of money at the top, like the Milwaukee Brewers and the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cleveland Guardians.

You look at the bottom and you see teams that

aren't spending a whole lot of money.

But then you see the Mets down there and you see the Red Sox and the Giants and the Astros.

And the argument from the players is that competitive balance already exists.

Why would we change things?

Whereas Major League Baseball says that for the future of the game, this is a necessity.

You're hearing about 94, Pat, because that was the last time that owners proposed a salary cap.

And the fallout from that salary cap proposal was in August.

The players went on strike.

The World Series was lost that year.

They wound up at a place where judges had to get involved.

Sony

Sonia Sotomayor, who's a Supreme Court justice now, actually was the judge who put Major League Baseball back on the field after the 1994 strike.

And Major League Baseball, I would say it learned its lesson, but I don't know if that's an accurate way of putting it.

I think more so it understands that when it throws salary cap out there, those are the two dirtiest words to baseball players.

Baseball players, when they were building the MLBPA through the 60s and into the 70s and getting free agency into sports for the first time, they have held that up as a paragon of what the union can and should be.

We should have unfettered free agency and the market should determine what players are worth.