Something Big is Happening
Morning Dose: Friday, February 13
☀️ Good Morning:
Think back to February 1994.
If you were paying close attention, you might have noticed a few people talking about labor discontent that was spreading among MLB owners and players. But most of us weren’t paying close attention. The sport felt relatively stable, spring was in the air, the conversations centered around rotations and batting orders. If someone told you “there might not be a postseason this year,” you would’ve assumed they were reading a weird corner of baseball media.
Then, over the course of a few months, the entire sport changed. The season came to a screeching halt. The World Series was canceled.
I think we’re in the “this seems overblown” phase of something much, much bigger than most fans want to believe.
I’ve spent years six years building Mets Fix and many more in baseball circles. I live in this world. And I’m writing this for people in my life who don’t… my family, my friends, the people I care about who keep asking me “so what’s the deal with a salary cap?” and getting an answer that doesn’t do justice to what’s actually happening. I keep giving them the polite version. The standing-in-line-for-a-hot-dog version. Because the honest version sounds like the MLB commissioner has lost his mind. But the gap between what I’ve been saying and what is actually happening has gotten far too big. The people I care about deserve to hear what is coming, even if it sounds crazy.
MLB owners are prepared to blow up the sport to institute a hard salary cap.
As the world starts to lose its collective mind over the impacts of AI and how quickly it will be able to replace knowledge work, the job that seems the most resistant to automation, a professional baseball player, could be out of work next season.
🍎 For those who are wondering what the hell I’m talking about, I am having some fun with an essay that has been spreading around the internet warning about the threats of AI. You can read that essay here. And I suggest you read a strong counter argument here.
Luckily, we are still humans here. A community of Mets fans trying to make sense of our favorite baseball team. You can hear Blake and Peter’s voices on our latest podcast. You can message me in the comments for an actual conversation, or to point out where I might have been better suited to use AI to check for errors in my writing.
🩸 FIRST BLOOD
Satirical as the opening of today’s newsletter might have been, the looming threat of a lockout is very real. MLB owners struck first blood on Thursday by setting the stage for a labor dispute that will most certainly lead to a work stoppage after the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) expires on December 1.
The Mets and Dodgers are ruining baseball. That is the message that came through two articles published by The Athletic and ESPN on Thursday.
The Dodgers are obvious. They have turned into what most fans growing up and reading this newsletter used to think about the Yankees. They spend more than everyone else. And they win more than everyone else.
Ironically, Steve Cohen has spent more on payroll and luxury taxes than the Big Bad Dodgers over the past five seasons. The Amazins pose as the strongest counterpoint to the idea that payroll disparity automatically leads to competitive imbalance. Still, the underlying point remains: the gap between the clubs with the highest payrolls and those with the lowest is wider than ever.
🔹 What does this mean?
