Guardians fans might not appreciate stray mention in MLBPA head's salary cap joke

While we’re close to the start of the 2026 MLB season, there’s been an understandable amount of attention paid to the 2027 season… or lack thereof. 

With this sport’s latest Collective Bargaining Agreement set to expire after the 2026 season, there’s a fair bit of trepidation around whether the sport will come to an end because of debates about a salary cap. 

Those concerns reached a new level in the middle of February when Tony Clark stepped down as MLBPA executive director and was replaced by Bruce Meyer. 

On Thursday, Meyer spoke with the Yankees during his spring training tour of all 30 teams, where he spoke to reporters afterward and talked about a variety of Cleveland sports. 

"Salary caps certainly don’t guarantee competitive balance. (You're) very much better off being a Cleveland Guardians fan over the last any number of years than a Cleveland Browns fan,” Meyer said, per Newsday’s Erik Boland. 

New MLBPA executive director Bruce Meyer randomly talked smack on Cleveland sports in press conference 

While Meyer’s not wrong (especially as it relates to making an anti-salary cap argument), it’s still a bit funny that he picked the Cleveland sports scene as the example he used to make his argument. 

But it also doesn’t take away from how good the Guardians have been recently. In fact, their 843 wins since the start of the 2016 season are the fifth-most of any franchise in that time frame. 

The Browns have won 59 games in that time and have only made the playoffs twice. They’ve been one of the worst teams in the NFL over the past decade, while the Guardians have been one of the best. 

But one of the reasons the Guardians have been so much better than the Browns in that time span is because they have a front office filled with smart people who have always done a good job threading the needle between retooling and competing. 

Meanwhile, the Browns won one (1) game between 2016 and 2017 as a part of one of the most dramatic rebuilds in all of North American sports. 

Sure, you could use that as an argument for a salary cap not working, but you could also use it as an argument for why teams shouldn’t make short-sighted decisions (see their ill-fated decision to sign Deshuan Watson to a mega-contract).

Football is king in Cleveland (like it is in pretty much every American city), but the Guardians’ success has provided sports fans in Northeast Ohio with something to celebrate in September and October while the Browns begin to sink into their black hole next to Lake Erie. 

And usually that conversion takes place in basements and on barstools in Northeast Ohio. Instead, Meyer made it a national talking point much to the surprise of everyone in Cleveland.