MLB Players Overwhelmingly Predict a Lockout as Voting Results Revealed from New Poll

Anyone holding out hope that MLB will completely avoid a work stoppage will not like what the players had to say in a new survey conducted by The Athletic's Sam Blum.

Of the 101 players surveyed, 80 said "yes" when asked if they believe there will be a lockout at the end of the season. Nineteen players said they were unsure, while two said no.

"I can't bet on baseball," a veteran starter told Blum. "But if I were a betting man, I'd bet a lot of money on there being a lockout — unfortunately."

The current collective bargaining agreement expires at 11:59 p.m. ET on Dec. 1. There has been every expectation for some time that a work stoppage will happen, particularly with the owners set to push hard for a salary cap.

One starting pitcher for an NL team told Blum they aren't expecting negotiations between the league and union to get serious until closer to the spring:

"I don't think negotiations will start happening until spring because there's not a real threat. Like, missing spring games is a lot less dramatic than missing regular-season games. But the longer you wait, obviously, you have to expedite spring and then through the season. I do think there will be games missed."

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told The Athletic's Evan Drellich in January that an offseason lockout can be a "positive" for both owners and the MLB Players Association.

"In a bizarre way, it's actually a positive. There is leverage associated with an offseason lockout and the process of collective bargaining under the NLRA works based on leverage. The great thing about offseason lockouts is the leverage that exists gets applied between the bargaining parties."

Even if a work stoppage happens, the primary concern is on whether or not it will last long enough to impact the start of the 2027 season.

MLB hasn't lost games due to a work stoppage since the 1994-95 strike that lasted seven months, resulting in the cancelation of the 1994 World Series and the 1995 regular season being shortened to 144 games.

A player for an AL East team told Blum that union leaders have been telling players for "a couple years" at this point to save their money in preparation for a prolonged lockout.

"Once they start preparing you for a couple years, saying 'Save your money, 2027 is probably going to be delayed, at least,' we're pretty aware, we're expecting a lockout," the player said.

The MLBPA has been vehemently opposed to any talk of a salary cap. Interim executive director Bruce Meyer told Eric Fisher of Front Office Sports after the league's first proposal, which included a salary floor of $171.2 million and hard cap of $245.3 million to be implemented in 2027, would also reduce the players' share of league revenues.

"I thought they would try harder to make it look good, and they didn't even do that," Meyer added about the proposal. "They've effectively managed to cobble together the worst system for players in any of the major sports, and it's not even close."

The most recent work stoppage occurred in the winter of 2021, lasting 99 days before being resolved on March 10, 2022. It resulted in the start of the regular season being pushed back one week from March 31 to April 7, but all 30 teams were able to play a full 162-game regular-season schedule.