MLB outlined its vision of a grand bargain in a series of proposals made to the MLB Players Association over the past few weeks.
Under the latest proposal shared last Thursday, which focused on the reserve system, the vast majority of players would earn more money, reach free agency earlier, and play under a new economic system designed to address the historically wide payroll disparity, which is one of the biggest frustrations among fans as it impacts competitive balance.
The tradeoff is straightforward.
Baseball's highest-paid stars would surrender earning power at the very top of the market.
That raises what I think is a central question of these negotiations as it pertains to the reserve system: Should the next CBA be optimized for the superstar who reaches free agency, or for the typical player whose career ends before arbitration?
The players' overall share of industry revenue is not likely to change dramatically, if at all. Under MLB's proposal, it would remain a 50-50 split, where it typically hovers. What changes in the reserve proposal is how that money is distributed over the course of a player's career.
This proposal is a pivot. It focuses on the 98%, not the 2%.
This century, baseball increasingly is a sport where value is created early but compensation arrives late. Younger players are producing more wins than ever before while veterans continue receiving a disproportionate share of payroll.
The economic proposals taken together attempt to address the mismatch, while also leveling the financial disparity in the game, allowing baseball a better opportunity to grow.
Historic change
The headline item in the reserve proposal is allowing players to reach free agency earlier.
In Thursday's proposal, MLB agreed to reduce the service time required to reach free agency to five years instead of six for players 30 and older. It's tied to the acceptance of a cap-and-floor system.
The six-year standard has been in place since free agency itself was introduced in 1976.
Getting to free agency a year earlier is a big deal.
Player careers are short, three seasons on average. One season matters.
As of June 25, 354 players on Major League rosters would be projected to reach free agency a year earlier under the proposal.
Under the proposal, clubs would retain the ability to keep those five-year players for one additional season by tendering a contract equal to the average salary of the game's 125 highest-paid players -- $22.025 million this season -- creating a form of restricted free agency similar to other North American sports.
MLB is also willing to eliminate the qualifying offer system, another MLBPA objective.
Reasonable people can debate whether this proposal strikes the proper balance.
But the larger point shouldn't be overlooked.
For decades, baseball's labor system delayed access to the open market. This proposal moves in the opposite direction.
And it needs to.
Players are debuting later, and spending fewer years in the Major Leagues.
Over the last 40 years, average player age is on a slow descent, declining by 0.7 years from an average of 28.6 years over the 1986-88 seasons, to 27.9 years over the last three seasons.
Meanwhile, the average debut age increased from an average of 23.7 (1986-88) to 25.1 years over the last three seasons.
Player careers are being pinched at their beginnings and endings.
This is also an argument for players locking in a 50% share of revenue. Enhanced player development practice and new tech extends now to the amateur level, which will only further pressure the average age and career length of players.
Moreover, teams today better understand aging curves. A free-agent season at age 29 or 30 is substantially more valuable than one at 31 or 32.
The historic change is an acknowledgment that peak compensation increasingly lags when players' greatest on-field value occurs.
Who benefits? (Most players and fans)
The union argues that trickle-down economics work in MLB. Yes, elite players have functioned as price setters in the baseball labor market as their earnings influence the free agent, arbitration, and extension markets.
But those trickle-down economics do not reach the largest cohort of players: the pre-arbitration players. They play at or near the league minimum.
Consider that the average career length is three years, meaning the majority of players never reach arbitration, let alone free agency.
Each year, about 60% of players on the field are in their pre-arb years.
On Opening Day, 57% of players this year were at the league minimum, or near it. Then, in-season, the players who replace Opening Day rostered players due to injury, or prospects who are promoted, are almost always playing at or near the minimum. That raises the overall contribution. In 2025, 52% of all service-time days were tied to pre-arb players.
The big takeaway is this: the median salary is the league minimum.
Also consider the value these players produce.
In the combined 2019-25 seasons, 40.7% of fWAR was produced by pre-arb players.
Yet, last year, pre-arb players earned just 9.4% of all player salaries.
Conversely, from 2019-25, free agents earned 61.4% of all player salaries and produced just 28.8% of fWAR.
Put differently, players producing more than 40% of the league's on-field value earned less than 10% of its payroll.
In this proposal, MLB raises the league minimum a record $1 million for players with two-plus years of service time. That would be a record year-over-year increase.
Compensation would also jump to $1 million for players with 0 to 1 years of service if they accumulated a full year of service. (A $900,000 salary combined with a $100,000 bonus.)
Those levels would increase as league revenues increase.
The increase is meaningful.
Consider what former MLB reliever Rob Scahill told me a few years ago when I was with FiveThirtyEight.com.
"Most grind out on a split career between Triple-A and the Majors unless you're a contract guy," Scahill said. "For the vast majority of players, every dollar counts for the rest of their lives.
"Your average Major League player needs a job after baseball."
If the union's goal is maximizing earnings for the median player rather than maximizing the ceiling for stars, then this proposal deserves consideration.
The trade-off: Max contracts and the middle class
The MLBPA's top objection is that salary caps reduce the earnings potential of the league's highest-paid players. Significant restrictions are placed on the top of the player pay pyramid in this proposal.
But the disagreement is less about whether players should be paid more or less in aggregate, and more about which point in the career curve the marginal dollar should be concentrated.
MLB's proposal includes limiting free agent contracts to a maximum of six years for players who re-sign with clubs, "Cornerstone Players," at 16% of the cap (a 6-year and $265 million max deal in 2027 numbers), and five years and 15% of the cap for players that signed with new clubs (a 5-year, $202 million max deal).
The "Bird Rights"-like incentive is designed to keep stars with incumbent teams, which is what fans want to better build interest and emotional connection.
Imagine incentivizing a star like Paul Skenes to remain with the small-market Pirates. That's good for baseball. No one wants an NFL where Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen depart for the New York Jets and New York Giants after their rookie deals. (Well, no one outside of New York.)
Star players would oppose earnings limitations but that means dollars will flow to other players as teams would be forced to meet a floor.
Again, the pie is going to be split roughly 50/50. This is a question about how one half is distributed.
This quote from an agent shared with me from the last CBA talks stuck with me: "I think there is too much focus on the top 1%. There's not really a middle class in baseball. I definitely think it's been a huge hole for many years. They need to find ways to incentivize teams to spend on the middle class. Because at the end of the day, stars are going to get their money."
Baseball's top earners would lose ceiling income but that group is a very small portion of the player pool.
Consider that only seven players are enjoying a 2026 salary in excess of the proposed maximum annual average value. The other 98% of free agent contracts today would not be impacted.
More players would benefit but it requires more shared revenues tied to a cap-and-floor system.
Growth focus
Over the long term, this economic framework could be a massive tailwind.
Combined with a salary floor and cap, and shared media dollars, there would likely be an increase in revenues because there would be more fan bases invested. More balance would almost certainly lead to greater TV deals as it would be a less bifurcated sport.
While MLB revenues have increased without a cap-and-floor system, they've also grown more slowly than the other major North American sports.
Consider the compound annual growth rates (CAGR) of revenue for the major North American sports since 2015: NBA 10.7%, NFL 7.5%, NHL 6.8%, MLB 2.7%.
Imagine what revenues might be if all teams played on a level field?
If MLB had matched the NBA's revenue growth over the last decade, league revenues would have doubled -- and salaries with them, mostly going to stars.
The NBA maximum per-year salary was $22.97 million in 2015-16. In 2025-26, it more than doubled to $54.13 million.
When we place all the puzzle pieces together, under this economic framework, the vast majority of players would earn greater pay and more fan bases would be engaged year-round, easing the perception and realities of competitive imbalance. That would then likely raise revenues, baking a larger pie.
That's a rising tide lifting most ships. That's what a grand bargain should look like.