Major League Baseball's collective bargaining agreement with the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) ends on December 1, 2026. A new agreement has to be reached prior to the start of the 2027 season the following spring, and as it stands, there are some very big sticking points in negotiations, particularly around the topic of a salary cap. Should a new agreement not be made prior to the season, we're looking at a lockout, with owners refusing to give players access to their facilities, as we briefly saw back in 2022.
But it feels different now. In 2022, the start of the season was pushed back but a full 162-game schedule was kept intact. This time, the owners (MLB) and the players (MLBPA) seem to be so far apart on the matter of a salary cap that it could cause a reduction in total games for 2027, assuming there's a season at all.
Every year, just prior to the start of the baseball season, Sony releases a new MLB The Show game, bringing with it the latest real-life rosters for all 30 MLB teams. Should there not be a new CBA in place, however, what happens to the baseball video games we expect every year? Will they even release as planned?
I wanted answers, not just because I write about games for a living, but because I will undoubtedly be playing hundreds of hours of a baseball game in the event of a lockout that leaves me unable to watch real-life Major League action. Well, to be fair, I would probably do that even without a lockout, but now it's especially important.
MLB The Show 26So, what could MLB video games look like if they launch before a new agreement can be reached? Last time, the lockout didn't last long enough for it to actually have a tangible effect on The Show, and an agreement was reached to save the baseball season a few weeks before the game's launch.
Sony--honestly, understandably--hasn't responded to my request for comment on its MLB The Show plans in the event of a lockout. These plans could very well still be changing, as the owners and MLBPA continue sending offers and counter-offers back and forth. We can, however, look to another major sports franchise for some insight. I spoke to Matt Bertz, former Game Informer managing editor and current senior VP of Games at consulting firm Magid, to explain how this went in the past. He pointed to a similar situation that happened with NBA 2K12.
"That game dropped in 2K's typical October release window, even though the league lockout started in July and extended until December," Bertz said. "The money train needs to stay on the track, and those licenses aren't cheap.
"During that time, updated rosters and rookies were not available until the lockout was resolved," Bertz added. "To help create a draw without having the latest and greatest rosters, [developer] Visual Concepts leaned heavily into NBA history with the NBA's Greatest mode, which replaced the previous release's popular Jordan Challenge. The mode honored the careers of 15 of the league's best players, creating era-specific presentation packages and asking the commentators to wax nostalgic about NBA legends like Magic Johnson and Bill Russell. Given the MLB's storied history, I imagine a similar strategy could be employed by San Diego Studio."
We could be seeing a whole lot of this.There is certainly plenty of historical content that The Show could draw from, as legends of the past--including the Negro Leagues over the last handful of years' games--have been a major part of the experience. But typically, this content exists as a supplement to the live rosters of current players in the MLB rather than the main attraction. Perhaps the game could really lean into the Field of Dreams content, giving baseball fans a chance to see even more greats of yesteryear compete while a never-ending army of fathers and sons plays catch off to the side, but this likely wouldn't have the legs of a traditional full-season content rollout.
As it stands, only Sony knows what San Diego Studio's plans are for the potential lockout. However, even though The Show is the only traditional MLB baseball game on consoles today, it's not the only game with MLB licenses. One major--and very different--alternative is Out of the Park Baseball, a baseball sim that lets you manage your team down to the incredibly fine and minute details. I asked Out of the Park Developments president Rich Grisham back in August about the licensing agreements and the constant changes and uncertainty that come with making an annual sports game, and was a little surprised by the prevailing message: Baseball video game fans shouldn't lose sleep over this, at least not yet.
"I think history is the best guide in terms of video games, and luckily, we've been blessed with Major League Baseball not having a lot of labor issues over the last, you know, 10-15 years. But if you look at history where there have been labor disputes in the past, the video games around the sport, their release schedules didn't change," Grisham told me over a video call. "So I don't think video game baseball fans have any reason to be concerned about their video games. We're not expecting to not be able to make the games or anything like that."
Grisham's confidence regarding the 2027 season existing, at least in some form, was a little surprising to me--not just because of the stalemate the MLB and players are in, but because Out of the Park Baseball relies heavily on nitty-gritty details like a new CBA to work authentically. The development team aims to have any changes implemented into the game as soon as possible, but it can't plan for all potential outcomes before the dust is settled.
Out of the Park Baseball 27"Will there be baseball exactly on time or a little later? You know, that is all up in the air, but there will be baseball," Grisham added. "So, if there is a labor stoppage, you know, we'll do what we do to the best that we can do it, and we'll make sure that the games are as good as they can possibly be, and then, you know, let the chips fall where they may. But we're certainly not going to have two or three different versions of the game."
We've seen The Show take an extra year to update all of its modes with rule changes, like when the universal DH was added to Diamond Dynasty one year after it happened in real life, and Grisham says Out of the Park, too, will continue to adapt--just maybe to a greater extent than in other years.
"We're always making adjustments, because even in non-CBA years, there are rule changes, you know? Different taxes come into effect, you know--different rules around the draft. So we're always implementing those in Out of the Park Baseball. As they come out, we then put them in the game."
It will be impossible to immediately implement all the changes that come about from a new CBA, especially if it happens post-lockout and with a shortened MLB season, but existing rules can act as a stopgap measure.
"If there's not a CBA come March, then we'll probably just have the rules be the same as they are [now] until we find otherwise. And whatever the new CBA [states], we'll then [implement it] as quickly as possible--within the time allowed, because obviously you've got to put [the rules] in, you've got to test, it, you've got to run a billion simulations to make sure, you know, how it all works. We take it as it comes, is sort of the bottom line."
It's an approach you can see in the most successful baseball teams, weathering the storm of injuries that inevitably crop up over the course of the season, shifting resources and moving around existing players to best compete against the rest of the league. We don't know exactly what the future holds, either for real-life MLB games or their digital counterparts, but we'll have some sort of baseball to enjoy in 2027. Whether that digital version immediately reflects the on-field reality remains to be seen.