MLBPA Says Leadership Shake-Up Won’t Affect Bargaining Prep

MIAMI — The recent change in the leadership of the MLB Players Association has rendered “no change” in the union’s preparation for upcoming labor talks, the organization’s new executive director said Sunday.

Speaking before the World Baseball Classic semifinal game between the U.S. and Dominican Republic, executive director Bruce Meyer said the players remain just as focused as before on what promises to be a historic and industry-shaking set of labor talks this year with MLB management. Meyer was and remains the MLBPA’s lead labor negotiator, but he also became the union’s interim executive director after Tony Clark stepped down from the top union role last month. 

Clark has been at the center of an investigation focused on alleged financial mismanagement of licensing revenue, as well as a separate matter involving an inappropriate relationship with his sister-in-law, also a union employee.

“The leadership change has had no change, no effect, in our bargaining preparation,” Meyer said. “That leadership change, as unexpected as it was, has not and will not affect our bargaining.”

Meyer is nearly finished with a planned spring training tour of every team’s camp to meet in person with players, with five more stops to go in the coming days. In each session, Meyer said players have been actively engaged on the core issues surrounding the upcoming talks. 

MLB owners are expected to pursue a salary cap, something the MLBPA fervently resists.

Regardless of a final outcome, though, both sides are reckoning with a fast-growing fiscal divide in the sport that threatens to derail strong topline growth for MLB in core metrics such as attendance and viewership. 

“I’ve been to 25 camps, and players are locked in,” Meyer said. “They’ve got a lot of questions, but they’re focused on the challenges ahead and what they need to do. They’re ready.”

There is no set date for formal bargaining between players and owners to begin, but it’s expected that the talks will begin in earnest in mid-to-late April.

Olympic Talks 

MLB and the MLBPA, meanwhile, still have plenty of work to do to secure a formal agreement on the league’s participation in the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Talks involving the two entities, as well as the LA28 organizing committee and IOC, have been happening for years. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred also struck a hopeful note recently, saying there was “momentum” around those negotiations.

Meyer, however, said nearly every core issue that is required for player participation in the Olympics remains unresolved, including scheduling, insurance, transportation, and housing. 

“We still have a lot of issues to work out. Pretty much everything except for the qualifying [process],” Meyer said.

The Olympics negotiations are likely to be a somewhat separate path from the core collective bargaining talks between players and owners. That bargaining could easily stretch well into 2027, depending on how much progress is made this year, but a formal decision on the Los Angeles Games will need to be made before then. An internal baseball issue, separate from LA28, is what non-Olympic players will do to stay active during what could be a roughly 10-day break in the middle of the 2028 season.

Additionally, if the MLB-MLBPA labor talks wipe out the entire 2027 season, the prospect of Olympic participation would also end. For now, though, the two issues are being handled separately. 

“[The Olympics issue] kind of has been on a separate track, but I’m also sure it’ll come up in the course of bargaining,” Meyer said. “If we’re in a situation where games are being missed in ’27, that could have an impact on playing the Olympics after that. But for now, it’s been on a separate track.”