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Major League Baseball is in a great spot right now, and World Series champion John Smoltz said the sport cannot afford a work stoppage.
The CBA between MLB and MLBPA is set to expire at the end of the season, setting up what looks to be a long and contentious period of negotiations over the winter. Smoltz said this head-on collision has been coming for a long time, and the two sides can’t afford to get it wrong.
“We know that if they don’t get this worked out, baseball will suffer. They cannot afford to have a stoppage with all the good that has been done and all the great games that have played late lately with the World Series,” Smoltz told Fox News Digital in a recent interview.
MLB is pushing hard for a salary cap to be implemented, while the MLBPA is vehemently opposed to the salary cap. Smoltz recognizes there is a competitive-balance issue and disparity, but thinks a lot of the spending has been done on purpose.
“There’s a competition issue in baseball and a disparity that’s bigger than ever, and I think a lot of it’s been on purpose to get to this point when you have the Dodgers spending beyond belief and the Mets spending beyond belief. Until recently, nothing guaranteed a championship,” Smoltz said.
“The Dodgers have been back-to-back champions for the first time since the Yankees. That’s the uniqueness of 162 games. You have basically eight to 10 teams that don’t try to win at all.”
The Dodgers won the World Series in 2024 and 2025, becoming the first team to repeat as champions since the New York Yankees won three championships in a row from 1998-2000. The Baseball Hall of Famer said he questions the thought that one brand-new system will automatically fix the current issues.
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“There is a disparity within baseball that some system is claiming that it’s going to fix. I question that big time. Until you have teams and owners that want to put the best product they can on the field in their market, it’s hard for me to be able to tell somebody what they can and can’t spend in a free market world,” Smoltz said.
“However, this is a monopoly, right? This is an antirust. There’s definitely a separate system for Major League Baseball.”
Smoltz pointed out that the game has gotten younger, and with that, 2% of the players make 98% of the money. He said that careers are getting shorter, pushing veterans out of the game.
The Atlanta Braves legend also noted that a salary cap has not translated to a competitive environment in other professional sports leagues.
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“Because if you look at every other sport and what they’ve tried to do and you can make an argument that you know salary caps in other sports have not exactly produced a competitive environment where most teams have a chance,” Smoltz said.
“It’s actually made super teams in the NBA for the longest time.”
MLB and the MLBPA traded formal proposals for the first time at the end of May, and as expected, the two sides are far apart. The MLBPA offered a proposal first, and MLB countered with a salary cap and salary floor, and no formal proposals have been made since.
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Major League Baseball said in an announcement last month that viewership for exclusive national games is up 44% over last season, and the best of the last nine seasons. Regardless of the solution for the MLB and MLBPA, Smoltz just wants to see something worked out so baseball can continue to build on its momentum.
The eight-time All-Star spent 21 seasons in the big leagues, 20 of those with the Braves. He spent his last season with the St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Red Sox.
Smoltz has a career record of 213-155, an ERA of 3.33 and 154 saves, as he converted to a reliever for a few seasons after his Tommy John surgery. He is competing in the American Century Championship, which takes place July 10-12 at Edgewood Golf Course in Lake Tahoe. The tournament will be broadcast on NBC and Peacock.
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