MLBPA and Owners Present First Offers + Weekend Waiver Preview
Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball
The Athletic
4.7 • 875 Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2026
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Major League Baseball and the MLBPA have officially opened negotiations on a new labor deal, and while both sides are talking, they’re nowhere close to seeing eye to eye. Today, Eno and DVR break down the league’s initial proposals, the union’s response, and why these talks could stretch deep into the offseason. Later, Ottoneu founder and Senior Hot Dog correspondent Niv Shah joins the show to discuss the latest Ottoneu leaderboard — and explain why he refused to eat the hot dog fries.
Rundown:
0:44 And It Begins: MLBPA & Owners Present First Offers
10:42 Inevitable Lockout: Does That Mean Lost Games?
16:30 Sell-High Starting Pitchers: We’re All Looking at the Same Numbers!
26:45 Dustin May’s Turnaround: Buying In with Increased Cutter Usage?
28:10 Jared Jones is Back! Returning Friday Night vs. Minnesota
33:08 Hitters to Consider: Another Thin Week for Bats?
42:36 Niv Shah Joins the Show
42:52 Hot Dog Fries: Why Did Niv Pass?
44:45 What in the World Is This?
49:25 Taste of the Majors: The New York Mets Dog is a Hit!
51:08 Ottoneu Points Leaderboard: Learning From This Year’s Pleasant Surprises
1:01:38 Timing is Everything: Keeper League Windows are Open!
Follow DVR on Bluesky: @DVR.bsky.social
Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social
e-mail: ratesandbarrels@gmail.com
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Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris
With: Niv Shah
Editor: Jason Potere
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today on Rates and Barrels, it's Fantasy Friday. |
| 0:02.6 | We start getting ready for the weekend waiver-wire run. |
| 0:05.5 | But first we have to talk about labor. |
| 0:07.6 | But we're also going to talk about hot dogs. |
| 0:09.5 | Niv Shah is back. |
| 0:10.7 | Let's go. |
| 0:22.7 | Welcome to Rates and Beryl. |
| 0:24.3 | It's Friday, May 29th. Derek Van Riper here with Enoseres. |
| 0:26.6 | You know, how's it going for you on this Friday? |
| 0:29.8 | Eh, the labor stuff, man. |
| 0:33.2 | I'm not looking forward to this. |
| 0:35.5 | Yeah, well, I mean, it's Fantasy Friday. |
| 0:37.4 | It'll be Fantasy Friday in about 10 minutes or so. |
| 0:40.7 | We kind of feel like you have to talk about the first salvos in the battle between the MLB |
| 0:47.3 | Players Association and MLB owners. |
| 0:50.3 | The players made the first proposal. |
| 0:52.4 | I think from a tactical PR perspective, that was smart. |
| 0:57.3 | Some of the things they were asking for, a $1.5 million salary minimum, nearly doubled the current number. |
| 1:03.5 | A bump for players going through arbitration, setting the minimum salary for those players at three years. |
| 1:08.9 | Those are guys with a couple years of service time, of course. Moving the first luxury tax tier up to 300 million. That's a 56 million dollar |
| 1:16.2 | increase from where it is today. That impacted a decent number of teams. And then it's an increase |
| 1:20.4 | in the pre-arbitration pool that would get to 180 million in 2027. That's up from 50 million. |
... |
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