We’re just beyond the halfway point of the 2025 regular season and the All-Star break is only two weeks away. The trade deadline is two weeks after that. Soon division and wild-card races will really heat up. This season is flying by and, unfortunately, that means labor talks between MLB and the MLB Players Association will begin in earnest.
The current collective bargaining agreement expires in December 2026 and talks typically begin one year before the deal runs out. Another lockout is expected. Several owners have already come out in favor of a salary cap, the league’s white whale, though that is hardly the only issue MLB and the MLBPA will have to work through before the 2027 season can begin.
A free-agent signing deadline is also on the agenda for CBA talks. Manfred spoke in favor of a signing deadline at a recent event for investors held by the Atlanta Braves. The Athletic has the details:
“(Other sports) have free agency, it’s about a month, there’s lots of bidders, it’s a great marketing opportunity for the sport, players have their choice of where to go, all positive,” Manfred says. “Our free agency is like the Bataan Death March. It starts the day after the World Series. And in February, really, really good players are still wandering around the landscape.”
MLB and the 30 teams are hardly blameless. Teams are free to sign players in November and December. They do it every year, some more aggressively than others, but it is a tried-and-true strategy to wait out the market and sign players to discount deals as spring training approaches. Elite free agents always get paid. It’s the middle class that gets squeezed the most.
Similar to service time manipulation, teams created a problem, then MLB put it on the MLBPA to come up with a solution, which of course involves giving up something in exchange during the collective bargaining process. Teams drag out free agency and now it’s on the players to agree to a deadline to move things along, and give up something for the right to do it.
Beyond that, how would a free-agent signing deadline even work? Do players who don’t sign before the deadline just not get to play baseball anymore? Would they be limited to one-year contracts? Because if that’s the case, teams just won’t sign anyone and every player will have to work on one-year deals, flooding the market and suppressing salaries.
Maybe a fair free-agent signing deadline system is possible and teams won’t leverage it into lower salaries. I’m not sure how it would work, but maybe it can be done. But really though, teams just need to make an effort to compete. This is a problem that can be solved by teams acting in good faith, acquiring the players they need, and not being a slave to efficiency.
