Bob Nightengale Talks Lockout, Salary Cap Debate & League Parity

So let's get to some of the off-season news here. Obviously, the labor talks are going to be front and center here with all the conversation going on. Between the union and the league, where are we, do you think, when it comes to this lockout, and is there any progress being made? There's progress on little things, but not the core economic things. You know, the union likes some of the things that MLB is proposing, the 154-game schedule they like, reducing free agency for guys who are 30 and older, more money for the younger guys, the minimum salary is going up. You know, they want it higher. But everything is still attached to a cap. You know, right now Major League Baseball says, okay, we'll delay the cap by a year, but that's not really moving the needle. When you talk to both sides, I don't think that they'll get real serious negotiations on this until right before spring training in February. Do you think when you look at that salary cap conversation, that's what makes the NFL, Bob? I mean, you're only as weak as the weakest team in the NFL, and that's what keeps that salary cap in the league continuing to go up each year when it comes to revenue. Are you a fan of the cap? Do you think it's needed in Major League Baseball? Or do you think that that's something that's just absolutely a pipe dream and the union would never go for it? Yeah, I'm not sure how well it would work. I mean, here's the Yankees, all their money. They haven't won a World Series since 2009. Uh, yeah. Yeah, the Dodgers won their third, but you look at some of the big markets, they're not doing much. And what the Brewers and Tampa Bay just did is like, wait a minute now, you don't have to have the massive payrolls to compete. So I think there's more parity than they let on. Yeah, do you have a better chance to win if you have more money? You do, but I think as the Brewers and Rays and Cleveland showed, if you have a smart phone office, you know what you're doing, you can compete no matter what your money is. But money does hide mistakes. Like the Dodgers, Edwin Diaz struggled all year. They're able to cover his up with money. Same with Kyle Tucker making $60 million a year. So if those things happen with a smaller market team, Then they'd be, you know, they'd be cooked for the year.