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Philadelphia Phillies star Bryce Harper made it clear to commissioner Rob Manfred, in no uncertain terms, that he and his teammates have no interest in a potential MLB salary cap.
Jeff Passan of ESPN reports that Harper cursed out Manfred when the commissioner came into the Phillies’ clubhouse to discuss a potential salary cap and salary floor in the league’s next collective bargaining agreement.
“…Harper stood nose to nose with Rob Manfred during a meeting between the Major League Baseball commissioner and the team last week, telling him to ‘get the f— out of our clubhouse’ if Manfred wanted to talk about the potential implementation of a salary cap,” Passan reports.
Rob Manfred Has Been Working Hard To Create An MLB Salary Cap
Manfred, like any other league commissioner, works for the team owners. So it’s no surprise that he, and they, would want a salary cap. While it’s being sold as a matter of competitive balance, a salary cap would decrease the growth of player pay and heavily reduce payrolls.
“The strategy is to get directly to the players,” Manfred said recently of his plans to win over players. “I don’t think the leadership of this union is anxious to lead the way to change. So we need to energize the workforce in order to get them familiar with or supportive of the idea that maybe change in the system could be good for everybody.”
Bryce Harper Knows Major League Baseball Doesn’t Actually Need A Salary Cap
One of the biggest selling points that proponents of an MLB salary cap use is that it will create parity across the league. They point to the massive payroll discrepancies between the likes of the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets and those on the other end, like the Pittsburgh Pirates and Colorado Rockies.
And those discrepancies do exist. But even despite the financial differences and lack of salary cap, Major League Baseball still has more parity than any of the other major sports leagues in the country.
Over the last four years, four different teams won the World Series and seven different teams played for it, while 23 out of 30 teams have made the playoffs.
The NBA has seen a similar run, with four champs, seven teams playing in finals, and 25 teams in the playoffs. But the league also has more playoff spots available, and that’s not even counting the newly added play-in round.
Meanwhile, the NFL has had three Super Bowl champs, six Super Bowl representatives, and 28 teams in the playoffs, which are, again, larger than the MLB playoffs.
We also saw the Kansas City Royals, Tampa Bay Rays, Colorado Rockies, Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Guardians all play in the World Series in the last two decades with some of the lowest payrolls in the league.
Manfred reportedly gave the Phillies a long talk about the status of the league. After sitting through the talk, Harper allegedly told him that players “are not scared to lose 162 games,” sources in the meeting told ESPN. Harper then reportedly walked up to Manfred and told him regarding a salary cap: “If you want to speak about that, you can get the f— out of our clubhouse.”
Manfred reportedly refused to do so, and after a brief back-and-forth that included Phillies outfield Nick Castellanos breaking the tension, the two shook hands.