Former Mets Reliever Sounds Off On MLB After Bryce Harper-Rob Manfred Confrontation

Former Mets Reliever Sounds Off On MLB After Bryce Harper-Rob Manfred Confrontation originally appeared on Athlon Sports.

The baseball world was shocked after reports that reputed Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper cussed out MLB commissioner Rob Manfred last week during the commish's visit to the Phillies clubhouse.

Manfred was in town to establish a better line of communication between the Phillies, as well as the 29 other MLB teams, as the December 2026 deadline for a new collective bargaining agreement feels like a 1994 lockout déjà vu.

The players' primary issue is with a potential salary cap - multiple MLB owners have stumped for a max spending ceiling as baseball continues to be the only major American sport without one. Harper reportedly told Manfred that 'the players are not scared to miss 162 games' if he did not back down from a potential cap.

On X (formerly Twitter) longtime MLB reliever Trevor May, who played for the Twins, Mets and Athletics from 2014-2023, sounded off on the idea of a salary cap in a thread-style discussion with fans.

May began by asking fans who support a salary cap why they believe it would be beneficial. The arguments in support of the polarizing measure center on a belief in decreased parity, particularly with big market teams like the Dodgers and Yankees, versus small-market teams like the Rays and Marlins.

Especially in a post-Juan Soto world, it would appear that without a salary cap, the teams with the thickest pockets would have the best odds at landing premier talent, while the teams that spend less have shown their strategy to be one of searching in the bargain bin for ways to fill out their rosters.

What appears to be more supported is the idea of a salary floor - that is, a mandate for small teams like the A's to spend a minimum amount to fill out their rosters.

May, however, disagreed with a fan who peddled that notion, writing: "Unfortunately, a floor without a cap is a non starter for owners and will result in a lockout."

One fan opined, and May agreed, that a salary cap would enable small-market stars to stay in the markets they came up in - players like Jacob Misiorowski, Paul Skenes, and Junior Caminero come to mind.

Another fan seemed to suggest that mega-contracts for guys like Soto, Vladimir Guerrero Jr, and Shohei Ohtani drastically increased the price of attending a game for the casual fan, arguing that it prices out those who cannot afford, say, a $75 trip to the ballpark, which might have been the cost of a premium ticket in the 1990s rather than a nosebleed seat.

To this, May wrote: "I can tell you for a fact, not a SINGLE contract was agreed on without the owner knowing they would be profitable. Not one. So the idea that ticket prices are being forced up by expenses they agreed on is just not true."

The Harper-Manfred dialogue is forcing dialogue between players and the owners who finance their contracts, and as next December nears, that dialogue might get even more tense and ugly.

This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jul 29, 2025, where it first appeared.