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Major League Baseball’s commissioner, Rob Manfred, went on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show” during Monday’s All-Star Game festivities and talked about the system of non-competitive baseball that teams, like McAfee’s hometown Pittsburgh Pirates, are running.
Manfred responded to McAfee’s comments with, “We need to deal with that issue.”
McAfee said that growing up, he was not the biggest baseball fan because going to Pirates games was more of an experience than seeing winning baseball. Manfred said he wants the league to be competitive all around and is working toward it. With the comments he made, that could mean something is in the works for the new collective bargaining agreement.
The current CBA expires after next season, and with questions about a potential lockout arising, this could be a turning point for the league and the owners.
There are many ways that teams can be incentivized to produce annually competitive baseball teams, and could also receive punishments for being non-competitive by design rather than purely baseball reasons.
Manfred is aware of the problem that is corrupting teams across the league and wants to deal with the problem head-on before it gets even worse and the league begins to lose fans in those markets.
Forcing teams to spend and instituting a salary cap has been a topic of discussion at every CBA expiration recently, and while there has been no progress on the addition of a cap, Manfred has been set on growing the game of baseball.
Restrictions for non-competitive teams could be one of the biggest fish to fry at the CBA meetings next year.
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