Economics at heart of labor dispute

NEW YORK » Francisco Lindor’s $341 million contract with the Mets was supposed to be a boon for other shortstops. Same for pitchers when aces Gerrit Cole and Max Scherzer signed megadeals.

Players have long benefited from trickle-down economics, where stars set a market that leads to bigger paydays for those down below. While a bevy of record-setting deals in recent seasons have boosted the top of the salary scale, they haven’t done much for players at the lower end and may have contributed to a thinning of the middle class.

Players’ belief in a topdown market and their desire to increase team payrolls are at the heart of the financial differences leading to Major League Baseball’s first work stoppage in 26 years.

Lindor, Cole and Scherzer are on the union’s eight-man executive subcommittee. The group also includes infielder Marcus Semien, catcher Jason Castro and pitchers Zack Britton, Andrew Miller and James Paxton. Of those, only Castro — at $3.5 million — earned less than $12 million last season.

Of the 1,670 players who appeared on a major league roster this year, 1,145 earned under $1 million, including 771 below $500,000 and 241 under $100,000.

“Ultimately we are fighting to improve things in a lot of places for the next CBA,” Miller wrote in an email to The Associated Press.

Concerned salaries have been depressed by the luxury tax and a decline in payrolls, the union proposed lifting the tax threshold from $210 million to $245 million. Players would lower free-agent eligibility from six seasons to five for players 29.5 and younger by 2025-26 and drop arbitration eligibility to two years. The overwhelming gains would go to the highest earners.