Joe Buck sees ‘competitive imbalance’ in MLB as lockout looms

Joe Buck might not miss being the voice of Major League Baseball, but he’ll miss the sport if it suffers a lengthy work stoppage.

Buck has been justly celebrated in recent days after being inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and awarded the Ford C. Frick Award. But the future of Major League Baseball is much less of a feel-good story right now. With the current CBA between MLB and the MLBPA set to expire after the 2026 season, both sides appear destined for a work stoppage as long as a salary cap remains at the center of those negotiations. And during a recent interview with Jayson Stark and Doug Glanville, Buck acknowledged he understands the divide.

“I get it,” Buck told Stark and Glanville. “There is a competitive imbalance that when I’m doing an NFL season, at the start of the season, who knows who’s going to end up in the Super Bowl…you go into the last couple of (MLB) seasons, there’s the Dodgers, and then there’s the Yankees, and there’s the Phillies, and the Mets, they’re willing to spend money. There’s the haves and there’s many more of the have-nots. So I understand what the impetus behind this would be, and I think it makes a lot of sense. But I’m also not on the players’ side. I think there’s strong arguments each way.”

Those strong arguments are centered around MLB owners wanting a salary cap. The MLBPA, however, remains one of the strongest unions in American history and has been steadfast against a salary cap. While Buck is correct in noting the “haves and the have-nots” in terms of money, spending hasn’t always equated to winning, with the Mets proving that this season. The Dodgers just became the first team in a quarter-century to win back-to-back championships, and the playoffs routinely feature small-market organizations with low budgets.

Despite evidence that the league has competitive balance even though there is a clear spending imbalance, it has not altered the apparent path toward a lockout. One year ago, Ken Rosenthal put the odds of a lockout as high as 90% during an appearance on the Awful Announcing Podcast. And in the last year, there has been little movement in either direction on the salary cap dispute to signal a new CBA could be agreed to without a lockout. If there is a lockout, the question is whether games will be missed.

“I just hope the curtain doesn’t come down on this thing next year,” Buck added. “I hope somehow, someway they figure out a way to get something done because if there is a stoppage, it feels like it would be a long stoppage. And that wouldn’t be good for anybody.”

It took years and the steroid era for Major League Baseball to rebound after canceling games and the World Series during the 1994 strike. And in recent seasons, baseball has seen continued gains in ratings and popularity, led by the stardom of Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers. But a lockout with missed games could be a disaster for a league trending upward.