Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred was reportedly told to “get the (expletive) out” of the Philadelphia Phillies locker room by two-time MVP Bryce Harper last week.

As reported by ESPN.com and The Bandwagon, Manfred fired back at Harper with similar language and refused to leave.

According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, the meeting is “one of the 30 that Manfred conducts annually in an effort to improve his relations with every team’s players.”

So, yeah. It seems like things are off to a great start on that front.

The content of the meetings this year has often centered around a collective bargaining agreement between the league and Major League Baseball’s Players Association that is set to expire on Dec. 1, 2026.

According to multiple accounts, Harper told the commissioner to “get the (expletive) out” if he was aiming to talk about the potential implementation of a salary cap. The eight-time All-Star was apparently sitting in a chair holding a bat before things really got heated.

Harper’s bombast and peacocking certainly are drawing attention. However, what teammate Nick Castellanos reportedly said is of much greater importance.

“I have more questions,” the veteran outfielder allegedly said in an effort to defuse the situation.

Whether he actually did have questions at the moment — or if he was just trying to prevent the franchise’s star player from going to jail — Castellanos was right to pipe up in such a way.

I mean, I’ve got a lot of questions myself. I would imagine the players do as well — as should the owners, for that matter.

“We don’t really know that much about it,” Castellanos said to ESPN. “It’s not like somebody is teaching us about this conglomerate of Major League Baseball that we, the players, make up (and) make possible.”

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The “it” is the prospect of a new CBA with the potential of a salary cap and (presumably) a salary floor. Honestly, I don’t know how the players could know much about it at this point.

I don’t know how the owners could know much about it, and I have no clue how Manfred and his lieutenants could know much about it either.

Which is why it’s funny to me that there is so much indirect saber rattling from Manfred lately about a salary cap finally being implemented in baseball, when there is less information than ever to put one in place.

Especially before the current CBA expires on Dec. 1, 2026.

I suppose Manfred could just be laying the groundwork in an attempt to normalize the idea to players down the line.

Although, if players like Castellanos have questions about how much money is going to come to the union in the new CBA, how high the proposed cap is going to go, how low the floor is going to be, how long contracts will be allowed to be guaranteed, what kind of cashflow will actually count as “revenue,” etc., how is Manfred supposed to answer those questions if he doesn’t have any idea what the league’s television deal is going to look like after the current one expires in 2028?

After all, that’s where most of the revenue originates. Until those details are known, there’s no reason to even have a conversation about a cap.

Based on how Manfred was speaking at the All-Star game there are still miles to go before baseball figures out how to organize it’s national and local distribution streaming packages of regional games, to say nothing of what the shape will be for a new national television package after Turner and Fox see their rights expire at the end of 2028.

“The media environment right now is really kind of disrupted, particularly at the local level. It’s hardest for (MLB), because we are the most locally dependent (of the leagues) on the RSN model,” Manfred said on “The Pat McAfee Show” in Atlanta. “We want to sell more games nationally. We think it’s good for our exposure. We also believe that the buyers that are out there are going to be national buyers. Particularly the streaming companies.”

"We wanna sell more games nationally and we think it's good for the game..

We need to streamline our offering and get out of the blackout business..

We've got people that wanna watch games and they can't" ~ Rob Manfred #ProgrumSummerRoadTrip pic.twitter.com/1TO4RKxte3

— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) July 14, 2025

But Manfred doesn’t think that’s the only problem.

“We need to streamline our offering. We need to get out of the blackout business,” Manfred continued. “We are in too many places right now. We’ve experimented. Apple has been a great experiment, but we do have a lot of fragmentation. We need to get into a more streamlined model.”

That sure sounds like a lot of stuff to work out before the end of 2028, let alone 17 months from now when the CBA expires.

I can’t even keep track of whether ESPN is in or out of a deal it had previously been a part of, as recently as February.

I suppose the commissioner could just pound the salary cap drum as loudly as possible for a while and make it sound like such a result is a fait accompli, before magnanimously backing off at the last minute to avoid a lockout.

But the MLBPA is going to see right through that. How can Manfred die on the hill of a salary cap when he doesn’t have an idea of how much wealth is going to be capped?

At this point, if I’m Manfred, I’d just ask for a two-year extension to the current deal, unless some concrete answers are forming as to how MLB can account for its TV revenue.

That could be his plan anyway, then make a real push once the league has a read on how much money is coming in from its new media distribution paradigm.

Then, in 2028, Manfred will at least be armed with information to give back to players such as Castellanos.

And maybe with a bat of his own to defend himself from Harper.

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