3 Major Problems That Could Derail Major League Baseball

As we roll into September, the final stretch of the baseball season is shaping up to be an exciting one. Parity reigns in MLB, and a case could be made that a full third of the league has a chance to win it all. And if you’re a fan of the San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners, or Milwaukee Brewers – three teams that have never won it all – you’re probably all too eager to get to the postseason.

Right now, baseball is like a magic show. It’s easy to be dazzled by what’s right in front of you, but magician/commissioner (magisioner?) Rob Manfred definitely does not want you to see what’s going on behind the scenes. As he waxes poetically about possible expansion, there are many things he’d rather keep under his rabbit-filled top hat. And I’m not talking about terrible umpiring; while that’s gotten a lot of headlines this year, compared to three massive issues, bad umps are rather quaint.

Pitching Injuries

Injuries have always been and will always be a big part of baseball, and really all sports. But there has been an alarming trend in MLB over the last several years, especially with pitchers. Nuanced throwers who nip the corners – guys like Greg Maddux – are no longer the aces of staffs. In fact, this type of pitcher seems to be going extinct. Instead, it’s all about speed. If you can’t consistently hit the upper 90s or triple digits and blow the ball past hitters, you may not even make a major league roster.

The problem, of course, is that there is a limit to what an arm can do, and pitchers are getting hurt and requiring major surgeries at an astounding rate. In 2023, over 1/3 of active pitchers in MLB had undergone Tommy John surgery at some point during their career, and it’s now not uncommon for players to have it more than once. In Tom Verducci’s mid-season report, he reported that 18 pitchers had torn the UCL ligament in their throwing elbow this year. And bad mechanics or overuse aren’t to blame. The main culprit is velocity. “Pitchers aren’t wearing out,” he writes. “They are blowing out.” Perhaps most disturbing is that of those 18 pitchers, 10 are under 30, and two of them – Jackson Jobe and AJ Smith-Shawver – are just 23 and 22 years old, respectively.

Gambling

Who would’ve thought that once the Supreme Court legalized sports gambling that it would lead to so many problems? Pretty much every professional sport is dealing with betting issues, and in baseball, they seem to be happening more frequently. Last year, Tucupita Marcano received a lifetime ban for placing nearly 400 baseball bets, including many involving the Pittsburgh Pirates when he was on the team. Also in 2024, Athletics pitcher Michael Kelly and three minor leaguers in three different organizations received one-year suspensions related to gambling. This year, two Cleveland Guardian pitchers – Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz – were placed on non-disciplinary leave pending an investigation into sports betting.

Players aren’t the only culprits, either. In February, MLB fired umpire Pat Hoberg for violating gambling rules. Apparently he shared betting accounts with a friend and then later deleted messages related to MLB’s investigation. He was terminated for failing “to uphold the integrity of the game,” according to the commissioner’s office. It’s easy for the league to act holier-than-thou when it comes to gambling until you discover that it has partnerships with both FanDuel and DraftKings. And is it any surprise that Pete Rose, both the Hit King and Gambling King, was recently removed from the Hall of Fame’s permanently ineligible list?

Labor Strife

The two issues above are serious enough, but this last one could be devastating. On December 1, 2026, the collective-bargaining agreement between MLB and the MLB Players Association expires. This alone is no cause for concern, but this could be: Many owners are in favor of implementing a salary cap for the first time. The players, naturally, don’t want one. And, as we have seen in the past, when these two sides don’t see eye-to-eye on something, this can result in a work stoppage. While there was a brief lockout before the 2022 season, it was the strike of 1994 that left a permanent black mark on the league. We may be a long way from that happening again, but there are already some troubling signs.

In July, while on his annual player relations tour, Manfred stopped in the City of Brotherly Love to talk to members of the Phillies. It turned out, however, that it wasn’t much of a love fest. When the subject of a salary cap was raised (without Manfred actually using those words), Bryce Harper was reportedly not too happy and said that if owners planned on putting in a cap, players “are not scared to lose 162 games.” He also kindly invited Manfred to “get the (bleep) out of our clubhouse.”

Phillies outfielder Nick Castellanos, who was part of that tumultuous meeting, believes that Manfred could be playing with fire. “Rob seems to be in a pretty desperate place on how important it is to get this salary cap because he's floating the word ‘lockout’ two years in advance of our collective bargaining agreement [expiration],” he said. “That's nothing to throw around.”

The rest of the MLB season is sure to be a fun one, and hopefully these issues won’t be too big of a distraction. Let’s just hope that somebody sitting in an executive’s chair is working on addressing them and not just planning to continue the smoke-and-mirrors act.