Tony Clark, leader of baseball players' union, tells of concern about Twins' payroll

FORT MYERS, FLA. - As the head of the MLB Players Association, Tony Clark can’t exhibit any preference for one team of union members over any other.

But he sure sounded like a typical Twins fan on Saturday.

“This is obviously a very good club, a very good clubhouse [with] an opportunity to be the last team standing,” Clark said after addressing Twins players before their morning workout. “But they weren’t as active during the offseason as they could have been, or some may think should have been. Those are the things we pay a lot of attention to.”

Yes, count Clark, a longtime first baseman for the Tigers and five other MLB teams, among those bothered by the Twins’ shrunken payroll, at $137 million roughly $19 million cheaper than two seasons ago. But Clark isn’t a ticket-holder who wants the Twins to beef up their batting order; he’s a union president trying to get better pay for his Minnesota membership amid the uncertainty of the shrinkage of local TV revenues, a potential change of ownership and a collective bargaining agreement set to expire in 20 months.

“We’re hopeful that the Twins continue to be a staple of the clubs that are trying to be that last team standing,” Clark said of the Pohlad family’s exploration of a sale after 40 years of ownership. “We’re hoping any challenges around a potential ownership change don’t alter that.”

As for TV money, the Players Association agreed last summer to change the current CBA to allow Major League Baseball to redirect money collected from teams whose payrolls exceed the luxury tax to those teams — the Twins among them — whose revenues took a hit from the bankruptcy of the former Diamond Sports.

“We’re working with the league to insure that as teams adapt and adjust, they have the financial resources, should there be need for them, to level out a shortfall,” Clark said. The Twins, whose income from Bally Sports North was once as high as $54 million, were eligible for those funds, up to $15 million, though the league has never disclosed individual payment amounts.

“The league has assured us that we may be in a better place when we come out in the other side” of the switch to direct-to-consumer streaming subscriptions, like the newly created Twins.TV, Clark said. “Those are things that we’re hearing from the league.”

Mostly what the MLBPA is hearing, and the players are most concerned about, however, is talk of another shutdown when the CBA expires in December 2026, after enduring a 99-day work stoppage during spring 2022. Commissioner Rob Manfred suggested in an interview with The Athletic last month that locking out the players before the 2027 season, “in a bizarre way, it’s actually a positive” because it increases the bargaining leverage during negotiations.

It’s set off a war of words before talks can even start, particularly as rumors grow that small-market teams may insist on a salary cap for the sport in order to rein in the disparity in payrolls between their teams and big-market spenders like the Dodgers and Mets, each of whom spends nearly three times as much as the Twins.

“Just to be clear, players heard the commissioner say that. We’re not introducing anything new” to the conflict, Clark said. “The commissioner came out and said a lockout is going to happen at the end of ’26, and he offered that it’s a good thing. OK, the players heard all that. So this is a part of the conversation now [in his clubhouse meetings with players]. There are things you do to prepare accordingly.”