Why a baseball work stoppage is on the horizon, and a biblical view of the value of work
The World Series begins on Friday night between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Milwaukee Brewers, with the guarantee that one fanbase will experience the thrill of a first championship. The low-payroll clubs clash after boasting the best records in the sport. The intrigue is there, and we’d better cherish it because it may be the last of Major League Baseball that we see for a little while.
Baseball’s crown jewel event may get overshadowed by the strong likelihood of an imminent labor dispute. How did we get here?
Baseball is ingrained in the fabric of American culture. We use baseball idioms in regular conversation, perhaps without even realizing that’s where they derive from. Field of Dreams, The Sandlot, and Moneyball headline a lengthy list of influential feature films centered around America’s Pastime.
Major League Baseball, in particular, has left its mark on Civil Rights, American cuisine, and the rest of professional sports. Yet, despite its pioneering journey, it began to fade into the shadows in recent generations.
After a lull in its prominence, MLB has experienced its own sort of renaissance in recent years. The introduction of a pitch clock, the emergence of international superstars, and efforts to reach younger fans are all paying off. Television ratings and ticket sales have surged.
However, all that progress may soon be down the drain as MLB’s future looms uncertain, with a lockout likely to begin when the current collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between owners and players expires on December 1st.
Why a lockout?
The 2027 season is set to open on March 24th, but that is beginning to seem optimistic. It feels like baseball has only recently completed its PR recovery from the disaster of the 1994 players’ strike that cost fans a half-season and an entire postseason.
While the league locking out the players may be a foregone conclusion at this point, how long the siege persists depends on several factors.
The primary topic of concern is the creation of a “salary cap.” MLB is on an island of its own without one. The NBA, NHL, and NFL each introduced a cap decades ago. Now, baseball franchise owners are hoping to enact one.
Owners desire to strengthen the sport’s competitive balance and increase the value of their franchises. The sport’s resurgence could continue with financial predictability and stability.
But the players’ union has vowed never to agree to a cap. To the union, the cap is just a path for owners to artificially reduce player values and squeeze control of the free-agent market to line their own pockets.
The initial league proposal is for a $245.3 million cap and a mandatory floor of $171.2 million. Just ten teams opened the 2026 season with payrolls in that range–twelve were below, and eight were above.
Mark Feinsand, for MLB.com, points to other leagues to argue that the floor would increase spending and directly benefit player compensation. Feinsand also notes overwhelming fan support for creating a cap.
The fuller picture
With the Brewers and Rays as the last two standing this year, the Fall Classic will be between two bottom-half payroll teams. Experts are curious if this might change the dynamic at the negotiating table. Both players and league owners desire public support, and small-market teams finding postseason success does not fit the league’s narrative.
Following the elimination of the two-time reigning champion, big-market, high-payroll Dodgers, Ryan Glasspiegel of Front Office Sports shared his perspective on X: “Hard to see how MLB could credibly lock players out for months or longer over competitive balance issues now. . .Brewers might have saved the sport.”
From 2021 to 2025, nine out of ten World Series participants were top-half payroll teams, and the most recent “small-market” team to win was the 2015 Royals. While 2026 is flipping that script, it is certainly more of an exception than a norm. Perhaps the timing of the exception will prove significant.
If the lockout carries deep into the spring, actual baseball games will vanish from the calendar. 60 games is seen as a potential breaking point, according to The Athletic. Missing 60 games means the current media rights will be extended by a year, and importantly, “the big payday owners expect from new national TV rights deals could wind up delayed by a lockout.”
The league is eagerly eyeing the prospect of new television contracts for 2029 as an opportunity to make everyone richer (see the NBA’s most recent media rights deal). Owners may not be willing to postpone such a significant pay increase. Plus, if the lockout drags into a 1994-like PR disaster with fans, the league’s media value will tank.
Canceling games will come with other casualties, like ticket revenue, concessions, sponsorships, and merchandise sales as well. Each side has prepared by stockpiling a “warchest” for years in anticipation of this day.
As December 1st nears, MLB revealed plans to use the new CBA as an opportunity to revamp the sport’s calendar. The primary changes include reducing the season from 162 to 154 games, implementing a guaranteed weekly off day, and expanding the early postseason rounds. Such changes are widely viewed as beneficial to owners and players, but they come with a catch…a salary cap.
As with our recent examination of college football’s current challenges, it’s all about the money for baseball. As billionaire owners bicker back and forth with millionaire players, avid fans will wait in disappointment, and casual fans will simply disappear if games are not played.
Working is redemptive
Lockouts in professional sports are far from unprecedented. Every time a significant work stoppage like this is anticipated, I am reminded of God’s view of work, outlined in Scripture. Work is a blessing and should be treated as such.
God gave Adam work in the Garden, before the Fall (Gen. 2:15). Paul describes work as a service to the Lord, not to man (Col. 3:23-24). Scripture also speaks harshly against laziness (Prov. 10:4), idleness (2 Thess. 3:10), and greed (Ecc. 5:10)—all temptations for the person that “works” from a self-serving heart.
A great many athletes and league officials love their work and are passionate about what they do, but others are just there for the paycheck. It is hard for the average spectator to sympathize with the plight of players or owners when it all feels so greedy. Yet, the greed that influences decisions in ballpark front offices also influences decisions in workplaces of all shapes and sizes.
Our culture has degraded the value of work to a transactional segment of our lives, typically seen as separate from the personal and spiritual parts of ourselves. At best, work may be about our personal passions and goals. More commonly, work is simply a means to get rich or to be known, and if it does not produce those desired outcomes, we either leverage it for what we want or pull the plug and move on.
But work, whether a paid job or the efforts we pour into everything else in life, was never meant to be about us. Work is a form of stewardship. God has entrusted each of us with skills, time, and opportunities. Our responsibility is to use what he has provided for his glory, whether in a dream job or a “dead-end” job.
If the biblical worldview of work took root in the hearts of athletes and team owners, perhaps we wouldn’t be here waiting on a lockout. If it took root in the hearts of folks in Silicon Valley or on Capitol Hill, perhaps the country, and even the world, would look different.
But what if, first and foremost, the biblical worldview of work took root in your heart and the hearts of those you work with? Perhaps a newfound contentment and joy will emerge as you bring glory to Christ in your working efforts.
Denison Forum
