Boston Red Sox
“The fans do not deserve to be mistreated. They have done great.”
Red Sox legend Pedro Martinez didn’t mince words over the weekend as MLB braces for a potentially painful lockout in less than a month.
“It’s not fair to mistreat the fans right now,” Martinez said at his foundation’s annual gala on Saturday in Boston. “And I’m pissed. And I hope the commissioner can see me and hear, and the players association hear what I have to say.”
MLB’s owners are expected to lock out the players once the league’s current collective bargaining agreement expires on Dec. 1 — with all league business set to shut down this winter until the owners and the MLB players’ union agree to terms on a new CBA.
That stalemate could carry on for months, given the contentious issues both sides are set to scrap over with this new CBA.
MLB’s owners want to implement a salary cap, with the latest proposal setting a salary cap and floor system that would be implemented in 2028, the second year of a new CBA.
“We recognize that clubs will need a full offseason to prepare to operate within the cap and floor system,” MLB spokesman Glen Caplin told MLB.com’sMark Feinsand. “Therefore, with this offseason already underway, we proposed today to begin the cap and floor system in 2028.
“This proposal would allow a smoother transition into the cap and floor system without delaying key player benefits, including earlier free agency, a $1 million minimum salary, a 30 percent increase to the pre-arbitration bonus pool, and transactional reform that will reduce roster churn.”
Per this latest proposal, MLB would implement a $180.2 million cap floor and a $258.2 million cap ceiling in 2028.
So far, the MLBPA and its players have not budged from their stance of avoiding a salary cap — which would seemingly limit players’ earning potential moving if teams can no longer spend into the stratosphere with no cap in place.
The last time MLB owners made a forceful push to implement a salary cap, the MLBPA opposed the measure so strongly that it led to the 232-day strike in 1994-95 that canceled the ‘94 World Series.
Martinez felt the sting of that ‘94 strike, as he was a 22-year-old budding star on a 1994 Expos team that held the best record in baseball (74-40) and had its sights set on a World Series run before that entire postseason was scrubbed.
“I hope the commissioner can see me and hear and the players association hears what I have to say. I might be insignificant, but I lived it before. I experienced that before,” Martinez added, per Mac Cerullo of the Boston Herald. “The commissioner wasn’t there when I lived the punishment that it took to play three years without one cent raised in my salary, and all I have to settle was for $20,000 that we could share out of the money that we had saved as the players association.
“I was one of the most punished players at that moment because I had talent, and I needed to wait until arbitration to make my money. “So I hope they don’t mess it up and they don’t mistreat the fans. …Back then there was a need for other things to change, and they changed for the better.”
But Martinez stressed MLB does not need to usher in a painful, extended lockout that could put the 2027 season in jeopardy — especially given the current health of the league and sport as a whole.
“This time, there’s no excuse,” Martinez said. “On both sides. Not the PA, not the owners, not baseball. The fans do not deserve to be mistreated. They have done great. Asia is taking advantage of our best baseball in America. Latin America has improved so much with their players, with their stars, with the swag. Everybody has taken advantage of baseball and the fans.
“Baseball is good right now,” Martinez added. “So stop the crap around and get something down and don’t lock out baseball for the fans that have been great. … Both sides — figure out a good way to get it done, and do not lock out baseball.”
Sign up for the Today newsletter
Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.
