If we go back three decades to MLB’s past, there was something about the salary cap. When suggested in the 1990s, players went on strike for nearly 8 months between 1994 and 1995! It meant that the World Series would be cancelled for the first time since 1904. Cut to 2025, and the salary cap debate has returned.  It started with a shrug and a sentence that’s now setting off alarm bells across Major League Baseball. “There has not been a lot of conversation about that particular topic,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said recently, referring to a salary cap. But behind closed doors? That statement reportedly couldn’t be further from the truth.

At a glance, Manfred’s comment seemed like typical commissioner-speak: cautious, neutral, boring. But according to insiders, this wasn’t just a diplomatic dodge, it was a calculated move. As the 2026 collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations loom, baseball’s financial future may hinge on how ownership positions itself in the months ahead. And it looks like Manfred is setting the stage very early.

Industry observer David Stearns says owners have been talking very much about salary caps at meetings, in private calls, and even in informal sideline chats. “He (Rob Manfred) wants the union to believe, and you, the fan and media, that ‘there has not been a lot of conversation about that particular topic.’ He knows that’s not true. It is one of the great things that is being talked about amongst owners both publicly and privately, both in meetings or in little sidebars.”

Not only is payroll disparity on everyone’s radar, but a potential cap-and-floor structure is allegedly being explored as a way to rein in both runaway spending (think Dodgers) and chronic underspending (hello, A’s). So why pretend otherwise?

There’s a reason Rob Manfred said what he did, explained Stearns. It’s a strategy. You downplay division now so you can present a united front at the table later. Then, even if you don’t actually want a salary cap, you can tell hardline owners, ‘We fought for it. We didn’t win.’

That’s the cynical brilliance of it. If owners aren’t unified, negotiations falter. If the union sees fractures, they exploit them. So instead of showing their hand, MLB’s top brass may be opting for plausible deniability, acknowledging problems like payroll imbalance, but pretending salary caps are off the radar.

The deeper concern here isn’t just what’s being said, it’s what’s being omitted. If this really is “Day One” of the next CBA fight, as David Stearn has suggested, then fans are already caught in the crossfire of spin. The question now isn’t whether Rob Manfred lied. It’s whether baseball’s leadership is building leverage or just stalling for time while trying to wrangle its own house.

Players know the Rob Manfred game

If Rob Manfred and MLB owners think they’re playing chess with the next CBA, the players aren’t showing up with checkers, they’ve seen this playbook before. The union, seasoned by decades of high-stakes labor negotiations, knows exactly how front offices operate when the heat turns up. Masking division, downplaying salary cap discussions, floating narratives, these are all well-worn tactics. And the MLBPA isn’t just watching, they’re already countering the spin.

Players have long resisted any version of a hard salary cap, understanding it would artificially suppress earning potential and limit market freedom. Instead of waiting to react, union leadership often works proactively, diving deep into economic data, shoring up internal unity, and closing ranks between superstars and rank-and-file members. “You divide, you lose,” one former player rep once put it. If they can get pre-arb players thinking differently than the veterans, they win the negotiation before it even starts. The owners know it. And the players do too.

In fact, the union is likely already anticipating efforts to fracture its membership: pitting high earners against minimum-wage players, pitchers against hitters, veterans against rookies. “We try to divide the players, we try to divide pitchers and hitters, we try to do things that aid pitchers but hurt hitters, and then later on we’ll do something that hurts pitchers and helps hitters. We’re always trying to divide membership in the union because when there is division, there is a lack of clarity of purpose.” It’s a tactic used time and again, offering crumbs to one subgroup while tightening control on the whole. But the MLBPA has shown remarkable unity in recent cycles, even during lockouts and pandemic-era chaos.

This time will be no different. Just as the league prepares its coordinated messaging, the players are building their own war chest of numbers, legal support, and solidarity. Because in this game, being prepared isn’t optional, it’s survival.