Inside MLB’s financials fight—and the numbers to solve it

And there you have it. Distilled to the simplest form, Major League Baseball is in crisis because of a $326 million problem.

The players will say: That is $10,880,000 per team, or the cost of a decent No. 4 starter. And they are right.

The owners will say: That is another $326,400,000 on top of the $3.5 billion we are already set to lose. And though there is no publicly available documentation to substantiate those claims, the lack of gate revenues alone is a significant enough blow that some sympathetic to the union acknowledge the league’s finances have been hampered.

Now comes the difficult part. The negotiating endpoints have been established. So has the chasm between the parties.

MLBPA proposes 114-game season in counterproposal

DOA.

The union remains steadfast that players should receive their full prorated salaries, while MLB’s plan included significant pay cuts that affected the highest-paid players the most but covered all levels.