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Major League Baseball is more than two months into the 2025 season, but the future is murky. Owners around the league can't agree on a fair collective bargaining agreement to offer to the Major League Baseball Players Association. The Miami Marlins, who have had a tough start in 2025, saw their former president, David Samson, give his opinion on the situation.
The conflict amongst MLB owners means that negotiations have not begun yet. Samson all but guaranteed an MLB lockout when speaking with sports media personality Dan Le Batard.
Samson was the former president for both the Montreal Expos and Miami Marlins during his career. He believes that an MLB lockout is inevitable, predicting that it could run into the 2027 season.
In a time where new media rights deals are more expensive than ever, athletes want their fair share of the revenue. For example, the Women's National Basketball League Players Association re-negotiated their CBA in order to make the most of the new $2.2 billion media rights deal the WNBA and NBA signed.
The lack of a salary cap and the varying sizes of markets around the league has owners arguing about how much money they are willing to spend. For example, the Marlins are far less willing to hand out big contracts like the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Samson said as much to Le Batard, who asked him how sure he feels that a lockout will happen.
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“Guaranteed,” Samson said about his prediction. “There is no scenario where at the end of December 2026 the players will not be locked out. The owners still cannot fight stop fighting with each other about what they want in a new CBA, forget fighting with the players. So when you’re still fighting with your own side, what you do is you delay the negotiation with the other side and the way you delay that is by locking them out.”
On top of predicting a lockout, Samson also provided a timetable for it.
“It will be minimum of four months,” Samson said. “…it will go through the month of April at best, the season will be delayed until May at best in 2027.
MLB fans hope that Samson is wrong, but time is running out for the league's owners. If they don't get on the same page, players could have no choice but to sit out. If an MLB lockout happens, both the teams and players lose out on millions of dollars in revenue. That, and fans won't be able to sit and enjoy America's pastime in 2027.
