Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Is there any way to avoid an MLB work stoppage?

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Marshall Harris discussed the feeling of inevitability that there will be an MLB lockout after the 2026 season.

Harrison Grody. Can you imagine Lovey Smith doing the whole good, better, best thing and saying bleep the Packers? Come on, guys, good better best. Never let it rest.

I'll see you on Tuesday. Middays 10 to 2 on 1043 the score. I've been waiting to break, oh, there it is. This is thuggish-ruggish bone at least. This isn't crossroads. It's the thuggish-ruggish bone.

Listen, If it wasn't Ash Wednesday, I might go outside and get myself some boneless buffalo wings just to support everybody involved in this important case. Get you some cauliflower wings. Layla, come on. cauliflower wings are excellent, and I love Frank's Red Hot. You know that. Could just make them myself while I'm at it.

This is Rahimi Harrison Grotie. I'm 104-3, the score. And we spent the entire 11 o'clock hour talking about court stuff. Mike Florio was on. We're all very curious to see what happens with Brian Flores' suit against the NFL. Then there's the... the matter of what's going on with the MLB Players Association. And then, yes, there was a landmark boneless Buffalo Wings case. I said landmark. As far as the Players Association, the message that

we've heard, whether it's, whether it's, I don't know how you want to absorb it, whether it's owners hinting at it, whether it's the discussions around it, whether it's even a story that came out today from Evangraulic Ray that you sent us in the Athletic talking about dissension among the players' ranks when it comes to the Boris interest in who becomes the Players' Association executive director or if it's a non-Borris interest. And then there's Ian Hap, who said this to the Marquis Sports Network about the whole thing when he was asked about Tony Clark. I think the game's in a great place.

The rules changes have worked. The pace is fantastic. Viewership, attendance, all of those things are in a great place. It's a beautiful game. And you can see that the reception has been really strong from, fans in the last few years. And so I really hope that we can continue playing baseball and avoid anything that would take the game away from the fans. He's the first person I've heard say something like that. Which part? Like the part that, oh, this doesn't have to happen.

He can believe that. He can hope for that. The reality is there's going to be a work stoppage next year. And how long that lasts depends on how dug in the owners are. in their intent to leverage a salary cap on baseball, which does not exist, has never existed. And if the players get their way, will never exist. That's the problem here, is that the owners, we heard about how they have their little war chest, what is it, $45 million per team?

75 of a million. Oh, I'm sorry, yes. Millions. Millions to just kind of weather that storm. And are the players willing to give up a, season of baseball to not see a salary cap enforced. That's the question. He's right, though. It doesn't have to happen. But that would mean that people have to agree to a lot of stuff quickly. And it doesn't sound like people are going to agree. And before we even get to what I

just described, don't forget, before it's the billionaires versus the millionaires, it's the billionaires versus the billionaires. Fellow team owners have to decide what they want to do. The Dodgers are certainly not going to agree with what the Pittsburgh Pirates or the Tampa Bay Rays or want to do. Or that's the billionaires versus the millionaires. Let's be honest. Okay. Yeah, that's a fair way to put that. The Pittsburgh Pirates and the Rays and some of these other teams are operating because they're small market teams on a very different level than a Dodgers team that's got so much money coming in before things even get started from their local television contract, which half the league.

doesn't have television distribution on their own right now. And that's something that we discussed a little bit yesterday, Marshall, but you and I having worked together at Comcast SportsNet, Philly, me going there because of the demise of Comcast Sportsnut, Houston. That is, in the reality, a big part of this. And when we say the millionaires versus the billionaires, I don't think we're talking about the individuals you picture when you talk about owning the actual team.

We're talking about the operating costs and the budgets, that the respective teams have. The haves are the teams like the Dodgers, the Mets. And the Phillies do have a very robust contract. They don't often get mentioned in this, but they do have a very nice deal. Marquis with the Cubs, Nesson with the Red Sox, and the have-nots are the teams that are unfortunately

seeing their regional sports networks cease to exist. Now, Pittsburgh is in an interesting spot because they got owned and operated by Nesson, but if you're one of the Fandual sports networks, St. Louis, for example, You're in much more dire straits. When you talk about what we thought were the richest owners in the sport, you know what team falls under the bottom 10 owners as far as wealth? You know the Yankees are in the bottom 10?

Did you know that? I did not. And so that puts in perspective, though. Right. It's not the Steinbrenner family. It's the yes network and the cost. that the Yankees operate with from their budget. And so to hear a guy like Aaron Judge, for instance,

was just talking about, I would hope that we can go out and be on the same level as, sir, you can't. They've shown us over the last half decade or so that the Yankees are not on the same level as some of these other teams. Yeah, the evil empire move west. It moved west to Time Warner and Charter Communications

and a 25-year TV deal. That ends in 2038. So before you say to yourself, oh, well, this CBA, blah, blah, blah, no, it outlasts many of them. And so I'm equally as interested in what the owners of the teams with their own television deals want to do versus this idea that Major League Baseball brings all the TV rights back under one bubble and sells them a la what Apple did with MLS. Right. And I don't know that that's possible. Right. So if it's not, how are you going to figure this out? And that is as big of an issue with all of this as anything. But I appreciate Ian and Hap saying, it doesn't have to be like this. It's possible. Right. That is absolutely possible. It doesn't have to. But here we are cherishing it. In the meantime, more from the conversation Caleb Williams had with Max Crosby. Because I, I, I feel like there were a couple follow-ups that he naturally got to with Max.

There were storylines that we had during the season. And one of them was his relationship with Ben Johnson. Pretty big deal, wouldn't you say? Still learning about the layers of that relationship and how it came to be what it was by the end of the season. So let's peel it back like an onion because QB1 gave us insight next.