If you're a fan of Major League Baseball, the latest story out of New York is generally bad news for you.

Let's take it from the top.

On Monday, Game 3 of the World Series between the Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays will be played. And while exciting, that means that there are just a handful of days remaining in the 2026 season.

After that, offseason business will begin as usual, and free agency will begin five days after the World Series ends. From that point, there will be about a month until the Collective Bargaining Agreement runs out (Dec. 1 at 11:59 p.m. ET). Unless a new deal is reached by then, the sport is expected to go into a deep freeze right at midnight on Dec. 2. No business, no transactions, no communication between players and teams.

At the core of the latest labor issue is the owners insistence on putting in a salary cap and the players resistance to accepting it. While some have speculated that this fight could be so bloody that baseball could lose the entire 2027 season, others have hoped that cooler heads will prevail to give fans the entire campaign with no interruption.

As relayed by Buster Olney of ESPN, New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner recently told reporters that he helped draft the salary cap proposal. In Olney's estimation, and I believe correctly, that's a telling admission.

Typically, large market teams, which include the Toronto Blue Jays, do not push as hard for a salary cap. For starters, large market teams are clearly making massive revenues in the current climate. Secondarily, large market teams tend to have an advantage in free agency, as they can out-muscle much of the rest of the market. I would imagine that large market teams don't want to give up that advantage, even if it means the cost certainty of a salary cap.

So, to Olney's point, if Steinbrenner is firmly on this side in this fight? That shows a sign of solidarity amongst the owners doesn't usually exist, and it puts fans in the crosshairs with regards to the 2027 campaign.

There was a lockout in 2021 that was resolved just in time to save the entire 2022 season, but you have to look no further than the NHL, which missed the entire 2005-06 season as a result of this exact same fight. The owners there were willing to stick out the fight. We'll see if the baseball owners are willing to do the same.