Some of baseball's owners are planning for a year with no baseball. The labor agreement expires at 11:59 p.m. Eastern on December 1, the owners have put a salary cap on the table for the first time since 1994, and in late July ESPN's Jeff Passan reported what some of them were telling their front offices: "There are owners that believe there won't be a single game next season, so they're telling their GMs to price that into their trade deliberations."
Kalshi puts a price on that fear. Its contract that pays only if the entire 2027 season is lost sat between 6 and 8 cents in the first week of September, an outside chance, then climbed to 18 to 19 cents in three mornings, September 11 to 15. It was sold down to 13 to 14 cents by October 2, ran back to 18 to 19 in the small hours of October 7 after 36,000 contracts were bought in a single second, gave two of those cents back the same morning, traded between 16 and 19 for the next two weeks, and was bought back up on Monday, October 19 and Wednesday, October 21; as of 3:20 a.m. ET on Saturday, October 24, it is 19 cents bid, 20 cents ask, the book this page was stamped at on September 15. The contract that pays if every game is played has fallen further and faster, from 61 cents in early September to 47 on September 15 to 38 bid, 40 ask on October 18 to 24 bid, 25 ask now. The market no longer calls a full season a coin flip. It prices one at about one chance in four, and some version of a shortened season at better than even.
We gave the same question to nine AI models without showing them a price. They agree with the market that games are in danger. They part ways on whether the whole season goes.
How The Prices Moved In September
Kalshi does not post one number for this question. It lists five separate yes-or-no contracts on how many of the 2,430 scheduled games get played, and each pays $1 if its line is cleared:
- No games at all. The entire 2027 regular season is canceled.
- More than 600 games. That is 40 games per team, a quarter of a season.
- More than 1,215 games. Half a season, 81 per team.
- More than 1,930 games. Just under 129 per team. The strike-shortened 1995 season, at 144 games per team, cleared it with 2,017.
- More than 2,425 games. Every game, give or take a rainout. Each undisrupted season since 2017 has finished between 2,429 and 2,431.
Only games completed as official regular-season games count, games postponed and made up later still count, and the reason games are lost does not matter; the full wording is in Kalshi's contract terms.
The whole ladder repriced in three mornings, Friday, September 11, Monday, September 14 and Tuesday, September 15, and the moves all pointed the same way. In cents, which read as the market's chance:
- No games: 6 to 8 cents in early September, 12 on Friday the 11th, 15 on Monday morning, 18 by Tuesday the 15th, with the book at 19 bid, 20 ask when this page was first stamped at 9:13 a.m. that day. Now 19 bid, 20 ask, after a dip to 12 and a run back.
- Every game: 61 in early September, 50 on Monday morning, 47 by Monday evening. Now 24 bid, 25 ask.
- More than 1,930 games: 73 on Monday morning, 65 by Monday evening. Now 57 bid, 58 ask.
- More than 1,215 games: 81 on Monday morning, 76 by late Monday morning. Now 73 bid, 77 ask.
The Tuesday move reached the quarter-season line too: the chance that fewer than 600 games get played was priced at 17 cents by 8 a.m. on September 15. The more-than-600 contract behind it last traded in size at 80 cents, on Thursday afternoon, October 22, which puts the under at 20; the quoted book on that contract has since thinned to 57 bid, 64 ask, 36 bid, 43 ask on the under, which the first section after the board explains. The sections after the board walk through what happened between the readings.
The most recent bargaining session we could find is still October 8, covered in the October 7 section below the board. The most recent public development is the pair of media sessions Commissioner Rob Manfred and the union's interim executive director, Bruce Meyer, held before Game 1 of the World Series on Friday, October 23, covered in the first section after the board, which also carries Hal Steinbrenner's October 21 news conference and the Associated Press's October 22 report. The last development before the October 8 session was the Associated Press's September 28 report, carried by Yahoo Sports, in which New York Yankees pitcher Carlos Rodón said of a cap, "We won't play. I'm going to be frank with you. I'm not worried about it. They should be worried about it." Before that, ESPN's anonymous survey, published September 2, had 16 of 21 players firmly against discussing a cap.
New to Kalshi event markets? Our Kalshi MLB guide covers how these contracts pay. Prices on this page refresh while the labor story is moving, and every quote carries its time stamp. These are market prices and model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice.
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Why This Fight Is Different: The Salary Cap
The last time baseball stopped, the 2021-22 lockout, ended with a higher minimum salary, a $50 million bonus pool for young players, a universal designated hitter and a 12-team postseason. The owners are asking for something bigger this time: a different system.
MLB's proposal, tabled on May 28, caps team payrolls at $245.3 million starting in 2027, with a floor of $171.2 million. It also limits free-agent deals to five years and $202 million for a player changing teams, and six years and $265 million for one staying put. The union's reply: "Player share under their proposal would go down... players would lose over half a billion dollars."
Both sides have spent the summer saying where they stand. Bruce Meyer, the players' association's interim executive director, calls a cap "a form of institutionalized collusion." Commissioner Rob Manfred answered in July: "I have an ownership group that is more united than any group in my entire time of baseball." A day later, Meyer told reporters, "Salary cap is the ultimate excuse not to compete." President Donald Trump sided with the owners on June 5, per CBS Sports: "If you don't have a salary cap, you don't have a sport."
The union's counterproposal, per the Associated Press, raises minimum salaries, expands revenue sharing and charges a "competitive integrity tax" to teams that do not meet a minimum payroll. It has no cap. On August 27, MLB offered roster changes, including "quiet periods" that limit free-agent signings, but only if the players accept a cap. Meyer called the signing window "a game of musical chairs pitting player vs. player."
Meyer said in March that he would "be shocked if they didn't do a lockout, when the agreement expires," per Yahoo Sports. A lockout on December 2 would freeze free agency and trades, as it did in 2021, and cost no games until spring. ESPN's labor explainer puts that point at early to mid-March. Opening Day is scheduled for Thursday, March 25, 2027, with one standalone game the night before. Kalshi's separate contract on a new deal landing before December 2 trades at 5 cents bid, 8 cents ask.
What Happened The Last Times Owners Wanted A Cap
Labor fights have cost North American leagues games before, and the cause of each one matters more than its length. MLB season totals below are from MLB's own records.
| Stoppage | What It Was About | Length | What It Cost The Season |
|---|---|---|---|
| MLB 1990 lockout | Owners' salary cap proposal | 32 days | Nothing: the full schedule was kept (2,105 games) |
| MLB 1994-95 strike | Owners' salary cap proposal | 232 days | 1994 stopped at 1,600 games; 1995 ran 144 per team (2,017 games) |
| MLB 2021-22 lockout | Minimum pay, young players' pay | 99 days | Nothing: canceled games were made up, all 2,430 played |
| NHL 2004-05 lockout | Owners' salary cap demand | 310 days | The whole season: 0 of 1,230 games |
| NBA 1998-99 lockout | Revenue split, cap structure | 204 days | 50 of 82 games per team |
| NBA 2011 lockout | Revenue split, a hard cap | 161 days | 66 of 82 games per team |
| NHL 2012-13 lockout | Revenue split inside an existing cap | 119 days | 48 of 82 games per team |
Twice before, MLB owners put a cap on the table. In 1990 the lockout lasted 32 days and ended without one. Opening Day moved back a week, and the season ran three days long to fit every game. In 1994 the players struck on August 12, the rest of the season and the World Series were canceled on September 14, and the strike ran 232 days until Judge Sonia Sotomayor's injunction on March 31, 1995. It also ended without a cap.
The one North American league ever to lose a whole season, the NHL in 2004-05, lost it over a cap. The owners demanded what they called "cost certainty," the players rejected six league proposals as caps by another name, and the season was canceled on February 16, 2005. The players came back to a $39 million cap and a share of league revenue cut from 76% to 54%. The NHL's lost season is the whole case for the no-season contract.
The offseason baseball lockouts point the other way for the every-game contract. Both 1990 and 2021-22 ate into spring, and in 2022 MLB had already canceled the first two series on March 1 before the March 10 deal. Those games were made up. A late-March settlement with a rebuilt schedule would still pay the every-game line, even with a late Opening Day.
The Board
We handed the question to nine AI models: Claude Fable, Claude Opus, Claude Sonnet, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, Kimi, GLM and DeepSeek. None saw a price. Each model split 100% across six ranges of games played, from none at all to every game, and all five Kalshi lines were read off that one forecast. Then each read the others' reasoning with the names hidden and chose whether to revise. The table shows the panel's middle answer beside Kalshi's live quote and the range each line traded in the first week of September.
| Line | Kalshi midpoint now | Panel | Bid / ask now | Traded Sept. 1-7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No games at all | 19.5¢ | 6% | 19 / 20 | 6 to 8 |
| More than 600 | 60.5¢ | 87% | 57 / 64 | 91 to 92 |
| More than 1,215 | 75¢ | 76% | 73 / 77 | 81 to 83 |
| More than 1,930 | 57.5¢ | 60% | 57 / 58 | 74 to 76 |
| Every game (more than 2,425) | 24.5¢ | 43% | 24 / 25 | 61 to 62 |
Kalshi quotes as of October 24, 2026, 3:20 a.m. ET (Saturday). The more-than-600 quote is a thinned book, explained in the section below; its last trade of size was at 80 cents. "Traded Sept. 1-7" is the range of prices traded in the first week of September, in cents. The panel figure is the panel blend: the seat median of the nine models after the revision round, from the September 15 run. These are market prices and model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice.
What Moved Since October 18
Every Kalshi price on the board above was read at 3:20 a.m. ET on Saturday, October 24. The panel's numbers are still the September 15 run. This is the week the full-season line broke. The every-game contract, which had spent five weeks drifting from 47 cents to 38 bid, 40 ask, is 24 bid, 25 ask this morning, down 14.5 cents at the midpoint, and the no-season contract, bought on Monday and again on Wednesday, is back to 19 bid, 20 ask, the book this page was stamped at on September 15. Between them, the chance of a season of somewhere between one game and 2,425 games is 56 cents at the midpoints, from 44 on October 18 and 33 when this page was written. One more number before the tape: the 1,931-to-2,425-game bucket, a season that loses some games and plays most of them, is 33 cents this morning, from 25.5, and for the first time on this page it is worth more than the every-game line itself.
| Line | Oct. 18, 5:00 a.m. ET | Oct. 24, 3:20 a.m. ET | Change (midpoint) |
|---|---|---|---|
| No games at all | 16 / 18 | 19 / 20 | up 2.5 cents |
| More than 600 | 82 / 84 | 57 / 64 | down 22.5 cents (thinned book; last trade of size 80) |
| More than 1,215 | 76 / 78 | 73 / 77 | down 2 cents |
| More than 1,930 | 64 / 65 | 57 / 58 | down 7 cents |
| Every game (more than 2,425) | 38 / 40 | 24 / 25 | down 14.5 cents |
Bid / ask in cents on each date. Changes are midpoint to midpoint. The more-than-600 quote on October 24 is a book with its orders pulled, not a traded price; the section below reads it against the order book and the line's last trade of size, 237 contracts at 80 cents on Thursday afternoon.
Monday, October 19, did most of it, and the no-season contract went first. At 11:39:54 a.m. ET, five fills in one second bought 2,473 contracts at 18 cents. At 12:24:39 p.m., 500 more were bought at 19, and at 2:02:04 p.m. four fills in one second bought 3,500 at 19, which cleared the offers at that price: through 3:42 p.m. a handful of contracts printed between 21 and 35 cents, two of them at 35, and at 4:53:43 p.m. seven fills in one second bought 247 at 22 to 24. Those prints, from 2:03 p.m. on, were the first above 19 cents since this page was written. The day finished at 6,766 contracts, 6,743 of them bought at the offer, the contract's busiest session since October 10, and the book closed at 19 bid, 20 ask. The number of contracts open on both sides fell by 225 on the day, so almost all of that volume changed hands between an existing holder and a new one rather than adding to the positions in the market.
The three lines below it were sold the same afternoon, in the same hours. At 2:11:28 p.m., 155 more-than-600 contracts were sold at 82; at 2:21:38, 120 at 81; at 2:23:25, two fills in one second sold 2,000 at 81. Monday's 2,575 contracts on that line were 2,275 sold into the bid and 300 bought, and the number of contracts open fell by 2,275, the same figure, so on at least 2,275 of the 2,575 a holder was getting out while a short covered. The bid went from 82 at the October 18 reading to 80 by the close. At 2:16:04 p.m., 262 more-than-1,215 contracts were sold at 76, and that bid went from 76 to 73. The more-than-1,930 line took 334 contracts sold at 64 between 2:05 and 2:19 p.m., and at 4:53:44 p.m., one second after the no-season buy at 22 to 24 and in the same second as 281 more-than-600 contracts were bought at 83, 301 were sold at 53, eleven cents under the bid the day had opened at. It closed Monday at 57 bid, 65 ask.
The every-game line is the one that moved the most and traded the least. Fewer than eleven contracts changed hands on it on Monday: one at 18 cents, 9.83 at 39, and two prints of a hundredth of a contract at 12 and 20. The bid went from 38 to 20 anyway. That is a bid being pulled, not sold through: whoever had been bidding 38 and 39 for a full season withdrew, and the next bid down was 20. The line was quoted 20 bid, 23 ask at Monday's close and 24 bid, 34 ask on Tuesday, and it did not trade in size until Wednesday evening.
We found no bargaining session, proposal or statement from the league or the union on Monday, and no report of a session since October 8. The one owner-side item written up that day, OutKick's 8:18 p.m. ET piece on Baltimore Orioles owner David Rubenstein telling an Economic Club of Washington audience that team owners are "making more money than I'm making in private equity," came out after the buying and concerned remarks BaltimoreBaseball.com had reported on October 16, before the prior reading. Read Monday the way this page has read September 29 and October 7: a position changing hands across the ladder without a headline, this time with the no-season line bought and the three lines below it sold.
Wednesday, October 21, brought a statement from an owner at a podium and the week's one trade of size on the full-season line, in that order. At the New York Yankees' end-of-season news conference, reported by SNY at 2:54 p.m. ET, Hal Steinbrenner, who sits on the league's labor policy committee, said of the owners' proposals, "I support those proposals in their entirety," and, per OutKick, "I'm optimistic we're gonna get a deal done, and we're gonna get a deal done that's favorable for both sides." At 6:01:58 p.m. ET, five every-game contracts were sold at 27, and at 6:02:30 six fills in one second sold 1,836 more from 26 down to 22, 1,448 of them at 22. The number of contracts open on the line fell from 38,914 to 37,140, so on at least 1,774 of those 1,841 contracts the seller was a holder getting out and the buyer was covering a short, and the line closed at 23 bid, 25 ask. About two and a quarter hours later, at 8:17:23 p.m., four fills in one second bought 3,965 no-season contracts at 19, 20 and 21 cents, 3,400 of them at 20, including a single 3,200-contract fill, the largest the contract has printed above 19 cents since this page was written; the number of contracts open fell by 565 on the day. The two trades pointed the same way, less on a full season and more on none, and nothing we can find was published between them.
Thursday was quiet, and its two trades on the complement legs were paired: at 4:01:58 p.m. ET, 249 no-season contracts were sold at 18, and 30 seconds later 237 more-than-600 contracts were sold at 80, the last trade of any size on that line. Earlier, higher up the ladder, at 3:36:33 p.m., four fills sold 221 more-than-1,930 contracts at 56 to 59, which is part of why that line sits at 57 bid, 58 ask. Then on Friday afternoon, October 23, between 1:22 and 1:24 p.m., five prints totaling less than one contract went through on the more-than-600 line at 59, 48, 54, 56 and 55 cents, and four prints totaling less than one contract on the more-than-1,215 line at 73. After them the more-than-600 line was quoted 57 bid, 64 ask, which is what the board above shows, and it should not be read as a price.
In the order book a few minutes after this morning's reading, the 64-cent offer on that line was for a hundredth of a contract, and above it sat nothing but dust, 3 contracts at 80 and a tenth of one at 81, until 2,019 contracts offered at 83, with 1,800 more at 84 and 85. The bids that had rested at 80 and above were gone; the first bid of size was 1,528 contracts at 55. A book that wide is a missing order, not a view, and the 80 cents that 237 contracts traded at on Thursday is the better reading of where that line stands.
The same thinning shows, less severely, on the other two lines whose quotes widened. The every-game line's 25-cent offer is for a tenth of a contract, with the first offer of size at 35, against a bid of 8,571 contracts at 24. The more-than-1,215 line's 77-cent offer is for a contract and a half, with 4,063 offered at 79. The other two books are two-sided: the no-season line has 533 bid at 19 and 185 offered at 20 with thousands of contracts behind each, and the 1,930 line has 97 bid at 57 and 25 offered at 58, then 28 and 56 contracts at 63 and 64 before 2,450 at 65.
Friday was also the day the two sides spoke. Before Game 1 of the World Series at American Family Field in Milwaukee, the first in 35 years between two clubs in the bottom half of payroll, Commissioner Rob Manfred and Bruce Meyer, the players' association's interim executive director, held separate media sessions near the first-base dugout, and the Associated Press's Ronald Blum filed at 8:01 p.m. ET. Meyer: "This would be a tough negotiation even without their demand for the nuclear bomb of the salary cap." And: "It is kind of sad that the league and the owners have once again been focusing not on the greatness of the game, not on the greatness of the players, not on the greatness of the playoffs, but they've been focusing on basically telling the consumers of their product that their product is broken." Manfred: "Number one, we have an unprecedented level of unanimity among ownership that this is something that we need to do," and, of a Brewers club in its first World Series since 1982, "It's been 40 years since we're here. Once every 40 years is not enough." On extending the expiring agreement for a year, Meyer said, "I suppose anything's possible. There's been no discussion about that," and Manfred said, "Bruce Meyer's not prepared to do a status-quo deal and the fact of the matter is he's made a lot of demands about improvements that they want." The AP's calendar: the contract expires December 1, management is expected to lock the players out immediately, and that could threaten spring training workouts on February 9 and the first game on March 24. The night before, Blum had quoted Brewers owner Mark Attanasio on the proposal, "The system that's being proposed...will help us compete, but more importantly all of the teams with lower payrolls, too," and Brewers pitcher Trevor Megill: "If they're going to sit there and wave their little magic wand...saying they're going to get a salary cap, it's not going to happen." The Brewers won Game 1, 3-2, and the only trades on the five lines after 9 p.m. were 300 no-season contracts sold at 19 cents, at 11:24 and 11:32 p.m. The quote did not move.
The separate deal-before-December-2 contract traded 3,447 contracts over the six days, 2,903 of them bought at the offer, and printed 8 cents at 11:45:43 p.m. Monday, 240 contracts in the same second as 881 were bought at 7, its first print at 8 since September 20. Buyers paid 8 again every day from Tuesday on, 587 contracts at 10:54 p.m. Friday, and the book this morning is 5 bid, 8 ask, from 4 bid, 5 ask on October 18: the 6- and 7-cent offers were lifted and not replaced. The number of contracts open rose from 22,326 to 24,550, and the week's buying at these prices still comes to a few hundred dollars. Meyer's "There's been no discussion about that" on an extension is the closest thing to news on this contract, and it points the other way.
Put the week together. On October 18 the no-season and more-than-600 midpoints added up to a dollar even. At the quoted midpoints this morning they add up to 80, which would leave 20 cents for a season of 1 to 600 games; measured at the more-than-600 line's last trade of size, 80 cents, they add up to 99.5, half a cent for that stub, and that is the reading we trust. The move that does not depend on that book is at the other end of the ladder. The every-game line gave up 14.5 cents, the 1,930 line 7 and the 1,215 line 2, so the chance of a shortened season rather than a full or lost one went from 44 cents to 56, and the 1,931-to-2,425 bucket went from 25.5 cents to 33. Six days before this reading the market priced a full season at 39 cents and a nearly full one at 25.5; it has swapped them. The panel's median season is 2,200 games, inside that bucket, and its every-game number is 43%, which this week went from 4 points above the market to 18.5. The week before this one, when the middle of the ladder moved for the first time and a 5,714-contract sweep ran the 1,930 line to 91, is the section below.
What Moved Since October 11
The history and tape in this section are kept as written from the October 18 reading, 5:00 a.m. ET on that Sunday; the move since is above. For the first time since this page was written, the middle of the ladder did the moving and the top of it barely did: the two lower lines came down a cent and a half, the 1,930 line went up two, and the no-season contract, which has carried every earlier section on this page, traded 2,190 contracts in seven days, fewer than the 36,000 that went through it in one second on October 7. Four of the five quotes were also two cents wide that morning, against one cent on October 11 and at every earlier reading on this page.
| Line | Oct. 11, 5:21 a.m. ET | Oct. 18, 5:00 a.m. ET | Change (midpoint) |
|---|---|---|---|
| No games at all | 16 / 17 | 16 / 18 | up half a cent |
| More than 600 | 84 / 85 | 82 / 84 | down 1.5 cents |
| More than 1,215 | 78 / 79 | 76 / 78 | down 1.5 cents |
| More than 1,930 | 62 / 63 | 64 / 65 | up 2 cents |
| Every game (more than 2,425) | 39 / 40 | 38 / 40 | down half a cent |
Bid / ask in cents on each date. Changes are midpoint to midpoint.
The selling came first, and it started at the top of the ladder. On Sunday, October 11, at 1:28:36 p.m. ET, 1,795 every-game contracts were sold into the 39-cent bid, and five seconds later 1,675 more-than-1,930 contracts were sold at 62, three fills in one second. Before dawn on Monday the same pattern moved down two rungs: at 4:34:25 a.m., 2,000 contracts on the more-than-600 line were sold at 83, three fills in one second, and at 4:35:27 a.m., 62 seconds later, 852 on the more-than-1,215 line were sold at 78, four fills in one second. Another 1,500 were sold at 82 on the 600 line at 2:10 p.m. Monday and 825 more at 82 that evening.
Monday's 4,981 contracts on that line were all sold into the bid, and the bid gave way a cent at a time, 84 on Sunday morning, 83 before dawn, 82 by the afternoon. Contracts open on the line fell from 26,856 to 23,781 on the day, so on at least 3,075 of those 4,981 contracts both sides were closing, holders of the yes getting out and shorts covering, and the price moved anyway. The 1,215 line's open contracts fell from 8,168 to 7,590 the same way.
Nothing from the bargaining table explains the week, because there was nothing from the bargaining table: we found no session, proposal or statement from the league or the union between the October 11 and October 18 readings, and the October 8 session in the section below is still the last. What the week produced instead was a World Series between two of the smallest payrolls in the game. ESPN's Jeff Passan wrote on Wednesday morning, October 14, that the owners' "insistence on a cap and floor" "remains firm no matter who wins the Fall Classic, according to sources," and that talks "have been at a standstill since the league in May proposed a 50-50 revenue split with a $245.3 million ceiling and $171.2 million floor," a standstill the October 8 session did not break, since every proposal in it was conditioned on the cap. On Thursday night the Milwaukee Brewers, 19th in payroll, finished a four-game sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium, 6-4, with the final out at about 10:59 p.m. ET. The Associated Press's Ronald Blum wrote on Friday night, October 16 that the win "set up the first World Series between two of baseball's smallest spenders in 35 years," as the owners argue that such clubs need a cap to compete: Milwaukee's opponent will be Cleveland, 30th in payroll, or Tampa Bay, 25th. That series was tied at two games apiece going into that Sunday's Game 5; Tampa Bay went on to win it, and Game 1 of the World Series was October 23. The Dodgers, Mets and Yankees each spent more on their rosters this season than those three clubs combined. The AP story restated the two positions rather than reporting a new one, Commissioner Rob Manfred's "It defies human experience to ask a fan to think that the bottom end of that gap has the same opportunity to win as the top," and Bruce Meyer's "They all have the resources to compete," and it gave the date this board cares about in one line: "A lockout is likely to start Dec. 2." Reuters had experts divided the same day over whether any of it reaches the talks. Tony Torain, a labor lawyer at McDermott Will & Schulte: "I think we'll have a lockout and the league will still try to use that leverage. But in terms of making the argument for why they think they need a salary cap, the Brewers undercut it." Bob Dorfman, a sports marketing analyst: "I don't think it's going to change anything that happens for those CBA talks."
The tape did move on Thursday night, on every line and in small size, and the timing is worth setting down without claiming a cause. At 10:44:21 p.m. ET, in the last minutes of the game, three fills in one second bought 1,483 contracts on Kalshi's separate deal-before-December-2 contract at 6 and 7 cents. At 11:16:05 p.m., about seventeen minutes after the final out, 295 no-season contracts were bought at 19 cents, the highest print on that line since October 7, and sixteen minutes later 250 were sold at 17 and 16.
At 11:47:05 p.m., two fills in one second bought 2,000 more-than-600 contracts at 84, and inside the next thirty seconds 250 more-than-1,215 contracts were bought at 77, 247 more-than-1,930 contracts at 62 and less than three every-game contracts at 39. The number of contracts open on the 600 line rose by 1,984 on the day, so that buying opened new positions rather than covering the week's earlier selling.
Then, at 12:25:30 a.m. on Friday, October 16, about 86 minutes after the final out, twelve fills in one second bought 5,714 contracts on the more-than-1,930 line and cleared the book from 63 to 91: 598 at 63, 2,200 at 65, 100 at 70, 510 at 74, 223 at 86, 1,518 at 89, 433 at 90 and 133 at 91. Ninety-one cents is the highest price that line has traded since this page was written; its previous high in that span was 69, on the night of September 17. That is what a sweep looks like on a thin book: 2,798 of the contracts cleared at 63 to 65, and the other 2,917 paid between 70 and 91 for a line that was quoted 65 bid, 66 ask by the end of Friday. On Saturday 130 contracts were bought at 65 and 66, and it was 64 bid, 65 ask that morning, two cents above October 11 at the midpoint. Contracts open on the line fell from 20,100 to 17,046 on the sweep, so on at least 3,054 of them the buyer was closing a short and the sellers whose offers were lifted were holders getting out.
The deal-before-December-2 contract kept trading after that, and its week is the odd one. It printed 7 cents on Thursday and Friday nights and through the day on Saturday, on 4,939 contracts over the seven days, 4,524 of them bought at the offer, more than the 3,475 it traded the week before and the most since the 5,374 of the week that ended October 3, and the number of contracts open on it rose from 18,056 to 22,151, more than double the 10,734 open on September 15. The prints did not stick in the quote: the resting book that morning was 4 bid, 5 ask, a cent under the 5 bid, 6 ask of October 11, because the buyers lifted the 6- and 7-cent offers and the next offer was posted lower. At those prices the whole week's buying comes to about $300, most of it in the three days from Thursday night: a small bet on a deal before the deadline, placed at a price the resting market does not share.
Put the week together and the two books that had been over a dollar since October 7 were squared. At the midpoints the no-season and more-than-600 contracts added up to 100 cents that morning, a dollar even, from 101 on October 11 and 103 on October 7, so a season of 1 to 600 games was priced at exactly nothing rather than less than nothing, the first of this page's readings on which that was the number. The chance of a season of somewhere between one game and 2,425 games was 44 cents at the midpoints, the same as October 11, but it was spread differently: the 601-to-1,215 bucket was still 6 cents, the 1,216-to-1,930 bucket fell from 16 cents to 12.5, and the 1,931-to-2,425 bucket rose from 23 to 25.5. That is a market that spent the week moving a little weight from a half-season toward a nearly full one, with the Brewers and the Guardians or Rays on television and no bargaining session that we could find.
The 1,930 sweep was the one move on this board bigger than a cent and a half that week, and it came on 5,714 contracts, less than a sixth of the 36,000 that went through the no-season line in one second on October 7. The difference is depth. The no-season book took 36,000 contracts at a single price and re-formed four cents higher; the 1,930 book ran out of offers at 65 and the next 2,917 contracts paid up to 91 for it. The week in which that deeper book was tested twice, once at 1 a.m. and once in daylight, is the section below.
What Moved Since October 7
The history and tape in this section are kept as written from the October 11 reading, 5:21 a.m. ET on that Sunday; the move since is above. By that morning four of the five lines had not moved since the morning of Wednesday, October 7. The fifth, the no-season contract, had given back two of the five cents it added that night, and it did so within hours.
| Line | Oct. 7, 7:00 a.m. ET | Oct. 11, 5:21 a.m. ET | Change (midpoint) |
|---|---|---|---|
| No games at all | 18 / 19 | 16 / 17 | down 2 cents |
| More than 600 | 84 / 85 | 84 / 85 | none |
| More than 1,215 | 78 / 79 | 78 / 79 | none |
| More than 1,930 | 62 / 63 | 62 / 63 | none |
| Every game (more than 2,425) | 39 / 40 | 39 / 40 | none |
Bid / ask in cents on each date. Changes are midpoint to midpoint.
The 18-bid, 19-ask book that the 1 a.m. buying left behind lasted about six hours. At 7:16:00 a.m. ET on October 7, sixteen minutes after the last reading, fourteen fills in one second sold 4,985 contracts into the 18-cent bid. At 10:00:42 a.m. another 3,350 were sold at 17, five fills in one second, and 335 more went at 16 before noon. Buyers came back in the afternoon, 3,017 contracts at 17 in two bursts, and the book closed the day at 16 bid, 17 ask. The session finished at 50,103 contracts, 41,433 of them bought at the offer and 8,670 sold into the bid, the contract's biggest day since September 29. Contracts open on both sides ended the day at 56,272, down from 68,669 at its start, which means that on at least 12,397 of the day's 50,103 contracts both the buyer and the seller were closing positions rather than opening them.
Thursday, October 8, was the one day in the window with bargaining news, and the no-season contract barely traded on it: 572 contracts, 537 of them sold at 16. Nothing traded on Friday. The news was a bargaining session at which MLB proposed cutting the regular season from 162 games to 154 starting in 2029, expanding the Division Series to best-of-seven, and letting the higher seeds in the first two rounds pick their opponents beginning next year, per the Associated Press and Reuters. MLB spokesman Glen Caplin said a 154-game schedule "would allow us to introduce a weekly off day, which is good for player health, while also creating a new national broadcast window to showcase our most exciting teams and players." The union's statement: "Unfortunately, the league once again made clear that all of its proposals are contingent on players' agreement to a salary cap, a system that guts player rights and compensation, as well as its other anti-player proposals."
For this board the detail that matters is the year. A 154-game season is 2,310 games, which would put the every-game line, more than 2,425, out of reach, but the proposal starts in 2029, two seasons after the one these contracts settle on, and the only piece of it dated to 2027 is the seeding rule. Nothing in Thursday's proposal changes the 2,430 games on the 2027 schedule. The every-game contract did have its busiest day since September 30 on Thursday, 3,390 contracts, 3,286 of them sold into the 39-cent bid, the largest a 1,490-contract fill at 9:57 p.m. ET, and the number of contracts open on it rose from 35,634 to 38,623, so that was new money taking the under on a full season rather than holders getting out. The bid held at 39, and the quote did not change.
Then Saturday repeated October 7 in miniature, and in daylight. At 4:06:01 p.m. ET on October 10, four fills in one second bought 6,679 contracts at 17 cents, the largest 3,623. At 9:48:42 p.m., three more fills in one second bought 6,297 at 17, the largest 4,839. The day's 12,982 contracts were all but three bought at the offer, and this time the offer held: the book was 16 bid, 17 ask before the first fill and 16 bid, 17 ask after the last, so 12,979 contracts cleared at 17 without lifting the ask a cent. Kalshi's count of contracts open on both sides read 55,770 both before and after the Saturday session in our pull, so we cannot say from it whether that buying opened new positions.
The more-than-600 line traded against it in the same minutes, the third time in this story the two legs have moved together and the second time that line was the one being sold. At 4:07:00 p.m., 59 seconds after the first no-season buy, 1,937 contracts were sold at 84 cents, with 470 more at 4:57 p.m.; at 9:48:56 p.m., fourteen seconds after the second, two fills sold 5,561 at 84. Saturday's 7,973 contracts on that line were all but three sold into the bid, and the bid held at 84, as it did on October 7. Contracts open on that line fell by about a thousand on the day, from 27,303 to 26,300, so part of the selling was holders closing out rather than new weight on the under. The two legs still pointed the way they did on October 7, more on no season and less on a season of more than 600 games, and neither price changed, because both books were deep enough to take it. At the midpoints the two contracts added up to 101 cents that morning, from 103 on October 7, and the chance of a season of somewhere between one game and 2,425 games was 44 cents, from 42.
The 1,930 and 1,215 lines traded 288 and 52 contracts and did not move. Kalshi's separate contract on a deal before December 2 moved up a cent, to 5 bid, 6 ask, on 919 contracts bought at 5 cents in two fills at 2:27 a.m. ET on Friday, October 9, and the number of contracts open on it went from 17,428 to 18,056. A cent on a five-cent contract, the day after the union called the league's proposals anti-player, is not a move we would lean on.
Read the four days together and the market did two things. It took back part of the October 7 night within hours, in daylight, and then on Saturday bought the no-season contract again at the lower price without being able to move it. The one bargaining session in the window produced a proposal about 2029 and almost no trade on the contract this page is about. The night that set all of this up is the section below.
What Moved Since October 2
The history and tape in this section are kept as written from the October 7 reading, 7:00 a.m. ET on that Wednesday; the move since is above. Four of the five lines were where they had been on the evening of Friday, October 2. The fifth, the no-season contract, was not.
| Line | Oct. 2, 9:01 p.m. ET | Oct. 7, 7:00 a.m. ET | Change (midpoint) |
|---|---|---|---|
| No games at all | 13 / 14 | 18 / 19 | up 5 cents |
| More than 600 | 84 / 85 | 84 / 85 | none |
| More than 1,215 | 78 / 79 | 78 / 79 | none |
| More than 1,930 | 62 / 63 | 62 / 63 | none |
| Every game (more than 2,425) | 39 / 40 | 39 / 40 | none |
Bid / ask in cents on each date. Changes are midpoint to midpoint.
By that morning the no-season contract had nearly made the round trip. It was quoted 19 bid, 20 ask when this page was stamped on September 15, was sold down to 12 on September 29, held 13 to 14 into October 2, and was 18 bid, 19 ask at 7 a.m. on October 7. It got there in two sessions, both outside normal hours. On Saturday, October 3, at 7:31 a.m. ET, 12,392 contracts were bought at 14 cents in a single second, thirteen fills, and 600 more at 15 ten seconds later. The day's 13,619 contracts were almost all buying, and the number of contracts open on both sides rose from 56,168 to 68,093, so that buying opened new positions rather than covering old ones. Sunday through Tuesday the contract traded 695 contracts in total, at 14 and 15.
Then, at 1:11:26 a.m. ET on Wednesday, October 7, eleven fills in one second took 36,000 contracts at 15 cents, the largest of them 10,000 contracts in one print. Another 2,074 went through at 15 over the next minute, 300 at 16 two minutes after that, and from there the offers were gone: the only trades after 1:15 a.m. were three fills totaling 42 contracts at 19. Every one of the session's 38,416 contracts to that point was a buyer lifting an offer, the mirror image of September 29, when five of every six were sellers hitting bids, and by 7 a.m. it was already the contract's biggest session since that day. Almost all of it was paid for at 15, and the book re-formed four cents higher behind the sweep, at 18 bid, 19 ask, with only those 42 contracts actually traded there. Contracts open on both sides fell on the session, from 68,669 to 58,321. Open interest only falls when both sides of a trade are closing, so on at least those 10,348 contracts the sellers were holders getting out, some of whom may have bought at 12 and 13 on the afternoon of September 29 or at 14 on Saturday, and the buyers were covering shorts, which makes part of this session September 29's sellers buying back rather than new money.
The more-than-600 line moved with it, in the same minutes and the opposite direction, as it did on September 29. Between 1:12 and 1:52 a.m. ET, 10,758 contracts were sold at 84 cents, 5,000 of them in a single second at 1:12:07, and 100 more at 4:42 a.m. The bid held at 84, so the quote did not change, but the two legs pointed the same way: more weight on no season, less on a season of more than 600 games. At the midpoints, the chance of a season of somewhere between one game and 2,425 games was 42 cents that morning, from 47 on October 2 and 33 on September 15.
The rest of the board did not trade enough to move. The every-game contract had 819 contracts change hands in five days, the biggest a 707-contract sale at 39 cents at 7:34 a.m. ET on Monday, and sat at 39 / 40. The 1,930 line traded 10 contracts, the 1,215 line 13. Kalshi's separate contract on a deal before December 2 was still 4 bid, 5 ask that morning. It printed as high as 7 cents on Saturday and Sunday, on 3,182 contracts across its two busiest days since September 15, and the number of contracts open on it rose from 13,840 to 17,428.
No bargaining news explains either session: we found no session, proposal or statement from the league or the union between the October 2 and October 7 readings. The one dated item is from a front office, not the table: on Tuesday afternoon, October 6, The Baltimore Banner and The Baltimore Sun reported that the Orioles had laid off business-side staff, "at least in the teens" according to the Banner's sources, in a memo from president of business operations Catie Griggs. The Sun's headline put the cuts "ahead of expected MLB lockout"; the Banner wrote that "sources said these moves were not made with that in mind." The buying began about ten hours after those reports, shortly after 1 a.m. on Wednesday, when nothing else was being published. Read it the way we read September 29: a large position changing hands without a headline, this time in the other direction.
What Moved Since September 15
The history and tape in this section are kept as written from the October 2 reading, 9:01 p.m. ET on that Friday; the move since is above, and the panel-versus-market paragraphs after this section use this morning's prices. The board on September 15, at 9:13 a.m. ET, was 19 / 20 on no games, 81 / 82 on more than 600, 75 / 76 on more than 1,215, 65 / 66 on more than 1,930 and 47 / 48 on every game.
| Line | Sept. 15, 9:13 a.m. ET | Oct. 2, 9:01 p.m. ET | Change (midpoint) |
|---|---|---|---|
| No games at all | 19 / 20 | 13 / 14 | down 6 cents |
| More than 600 | 81 / 82 | 84 / 85 | up 3 cents |
| More than 1,215 | 75 / 76 | 78 / 79 | up 3 cents |
| More than 1,930 | 65 / 66 | 62 / 63 | down 3 cents |
| Every game (more than 2,425) | 47 / 48 | 39 / 40 | down 8 cents |
Bid / ask in cents on each date. Changes are midpoint to midpoint.
Both ends of the ladder fell, and the two lower lines rose. That is the shape of a market moving from "either nothing or almost everything" toward a shortened season: at the midpoints, the chance of a season of somewhere between one game and 2,425 games was 33 cents on September 15 and 47 cents on October 2.
The no-season contract made its move in one afternoon. From September 16 through September 28 it traded between 18 and 19 cents on about 2,250 contracts in total. On Tuesday, September 29, 129,585 contracts changed hands, about half of everything the contract had traded to that point, and five of every six contracts were sellers hitting bids. The first wave came at 12:33 p.m. ET: nine fills in a single second, 61,274 contracts, all at 18 cents, with another 14,900 at 18 inside the next minute. By 1:58 p.m. a further 25,896 had gone through at 16 down to 13. The low print of the day was a two-contract fill at 9 cents at 2:01 p.m. Buyers came back at 12 and 13 cents, 9,616 contracts in the two o'clock hour, most of it at 12, and 12,444 more at 13 at 9:05 p.m., and the contract held 12 to 14 through October 2. The number of contracts open on both sides went from 20,751 to 69,264 that day and stood at 56,168 on October 2, so a large share of the selling opened new positions rather than closing old ones; open interest more than tripled on the day.
We found no bargaining session, proposal or statement reported on September 29 that explains a sale of that size. The last dated development before it was the Associated Press's playoff-eve report on September 28, in which players vowed to fight the cap and MLB spokesman Glen Caplin said the cap-and-floor proposal "levels the playing field." NBC News published a piece the morning of the 29th, at 6:08 a.m. ET, on the postseason field's parity and the lockout "widely expected" on December 1, but nothing in it was new to the market. Read it as positioning: someone with a large no-season position, or a large view against one, acted on a Tuesday afternoon without a headline.
The same afternoon the more-than-600 line, the nearest thing to the other side of that trade, was bought up: 20,210 contracts from 82 to 85 cents between 1:39 and 1:45 p.m. ET, and 8,931 more at 85 that evening. Between 10:58 and 11:01 p.m. ET on September 30, 25,817 contracts were sold back at 85 and 84, which is where it sat on October 2.
The every-game contract fell in three steps, and none of them landed on a news day. On September 24, 5,989 contracts were sold at 47 and the bid dropped to 45. On Sunday, September 27, 43,306 contracts traded, its busiest day since at least the start of September: two fills at 10:16 a.m. ET, 9,955 and 15,000 contracts, hit the bid at 45, and 13,084 more were sold at 43 just after noon. Buyers then lifted offers as low as 37 cents at 1:27 p.m., two small fills totaling 97 contracts, which is the low print since the page was written, before the book settled at 42 / 43. On September 30 at 2:04 p.m. ET another 9,500 were sold at 42 and the bid finished the day at 39. Contracts open on both sides went from 9,617 on September 15 to 35,546, so this market is 3.7 times the size it was when the panel ran.
The 1,930 line is the only one that rose first and finished lower. On the night of September 17 buyers took 9,517 contracts at 66 to 69 cents, and the bid sat at 67 or 68 for a week. It gave that back on September 24 and 27, and on September 29 it traded as low as 58 before closing at 62, where the bid was on October 2. The 1,215 line was the quiet one: 39 fills in seventeen days, the bid at 78 since September 16.
Kalshi's separate contract on a new agreement before December 2 was 5 bid, 7 ask on September 15. It was 4 bid, 5 ask on October 2, and printed as low as 3 cents on each of the last four days of September.
Start with the top row, because it is still where the panel and the traders part company, and the gap is back to its full width. The no-season contract sits at 19.5 cents, the midpoint of a 19-to-20 quote, the same book it showed when the panel ran, after a round trip through 12, back up to 18.5 on October 7, 16.5 to 17 for the two weeks after that, and the buying of October 19 and 21. The panel's middle answer is 6%, and not one of the nine seats went above 12%.
On the rest of the board the traders have moved well past the panel on a shortened season. The panel's every-game number is 43%, which was below the 47.5-cent midpoint on September 15 and is now 18.5 points above the 24.5-cent midpoint. Its 1,930 line is 60% against 57.5 cents, the first reading on this page at which the panel sits above the market on that line. The models expect games to be lost. They do not expect the season to be lost, and the market, which had come almost halfway toward them on that by October 2, went back on October 7, gave some of it up over the next two weeks, and this week went all the way back to the September 15 book.
Read the traders' five prices together and they make the bet they made in September. On September 15 the no-season and more-than-600 midpoints added up to 101 cents, one cent over a dollar, which read as either no season or more than 600 games and nothing in between. By October 2 they added up to 98, which left two cents for a season of 1 to 600 games. They reached 103 on October 7, 101 on October 11 and 100 on October 18, a dollar even. This morning the quoted midpoints add up to 80, but that number comes from the thinned more-than-600 book described in the first section after the board; measured at that line's last trade of size, 80 cents on Thursday afternoon, the two add up to 99.5, half a cent for a season of 1 to 600 games. The panel leaves 7% there and puts its median season at 2,200 games, which works out to 146.7 per team. Half a cent says traders still treat a stoppage as close to all or nothing: either the season is gone or at least a quarter of it gets played, with almost no weight on a lockout that ends late enough to leave only a stub of 40 games or fewer per team. The panel's 7% is a bet on exactly that stub, and it is the one bucket the market prices at next to nothing.
Every price and panel number on this board gets graded in public once the season settles, on the full graded scoreboard.
Every Seat's Number
The per-model numbers after the revision round show where the nine actually disagree: how long a stoppage runs once it starts.
| Model | No games | More than 600 | More than 1,215 | More than 1,930 | Every game | Median games |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fable | 8% | 89% | 80% | 67% | 47% | 2,390 |
| Opus | 10% | 86% | 76% | 60% | 38% | 2,200 |
| Sonnet | 5% | 89% | 79% | 64% | 43% | 2,265 |
| ChatGPT | 3% | 94.5% | 89% | 75% | 51% | 2,428 |
| Gemini | 6% | 83% | 70% | 54% | 45% | 2,100 |
| Grok | 11% | 84% | 75% | 58% | 35% | 2,110 |
| Kimi | 5% | 92% | 84% | 72% | 55% | 2,430 |
| GLM | 5% | 87% | 74% | 56% | 33% | 2,000 |
| DeepSeek | 12% | 80% | 62% | 35% | 10% | 1,533 |
| Panel Median | 6% | 87% | 76% | 60% | 43% | 2,200 |
| Kalshi Midpoint | 19.5¢ | 60.5¢ quoted (thinned book; last trade of size 80¢) | 75¢ | 57.5¢ | 24.5¢ |
Every seat on this panel is graded against real market settlements — records to date: Claude Fable 87% on 4,062 graded calls · Claude Opus 86% on 4,151 graded calls · Claude Sonnet 85% on 4,127 graded calls · GPT 85% on 10,808 graded calls · Gemini 86% on 10,117 graded calls · Grok 84% on 8,483 graded calls · Kimi 85% on 5,318 graded calls · GLM 83% on 4,898 graded calls · DeepSeek 83% on 4,787 graded calls. Recomputed daily; the full scoreboard is public.
Every seat put a lockout in effect on December 2 at 88% or higher, which is consistent with the 5-to-8-cent price on the separate contract that pays only if a new deal arrives first. The split comes after it. DeepSeek alone puts its median season at 1,533 games and gives every game 10%.
At the other end, ChatGPT and Kimi put their median seasons at 2,428 and 2,430 games, a full schedule, and give every game 51% and 55%. Both lean on 1990 and 2022, when spring lockouts ended in time to play every game. Those two seats are now 26.5 and 30.5 points above the market on a full season, the widest gaps between any seat and any line on this board that is quoting a real price; the more-than-600 line, whose 64-cent offer is a hundredth of a contract, is left out of that comparison, and the every-game line is in it because 8,571 contracts are bid at 24 even with its offer pulled back to 35. DeepSeek, at 10%, is 14.5 points below it, and its 35% on more than 1,930 games sits 22.5 points under that line's 57.5-cent midpoint.
More live boards from the same panel: Mike Trout next team odds, where the Angels are 89¢ bid, 90¢ ask · World Series 2026 odds, where the Brewers are 73.5¢ bid, 73.7¢ ask after Friday's 3-2 win in Game 1 · AL pennant odds 2026, where the Rays' contract has settled. Prices fetched October 24, 2026.
Where The Panel Changed Its Mind
In the revision round each model read the others' reasoning, labeled only Forecaster A, B, C and so on. Eight of the nine revised, all by small amounts. The panel's no-season median went from 8% to 6%, and its every-game median from 45% to 43%.
Gemini cut its no-season number from 9% to 6% after reading two forecasters who pointed back to the court order that ended the 1994-95 strike:
"convinced by Forecasters D and F that an NHL-style total wipeout underweights the 1995 Sotomayor injunction precedent." — Gemini
ChatGPT went the other way, from 1% to 3%, and the reason was the owners' own words as Passan reported them:
"Forecaster H had the strongest opposing argument: Passan's report that some owners are already pricing zero games makes wipeout more than a token tail." — ChatGPT
Fable trimmed its every-game number from 49% to 47% over a detail of the 2022 ending. Opening Day slipped a week that year and every game was still made up, but a deal that lands later than that may not get the same treatment:
"Forecasters B and E showed a deal landing late March to early April only gets games made up perhaps half to three-quarters of the time, whereas I treated any pre-April deal as full restoration." — Fable
DeepSeek held every number, including 10% on every game, the lowest on the panel:
"With the union calling a cap “institutionalized collusion,” a quick fold is implausible; the NHL 2004-05 template better fits a genuine first-cap fight than 1990’s superficial retreat." — DeepSeek
[Editor's note: MLB owners also proposed a salary cap in 1990 and 1994; the 2026 proposal is the first since 1994.]
What Would Change The Panel's Mind
Three dates and decisions, each one checkable, each with the direction it pushes.
- December 1 At 11:59 p.m. Eastern. A deal before the agreement expires would lift every line toward a full season. A lockout is already in the numbers (every seat puts it between 88% and 95%), so what moves the board that week is whether the talks keep going after the doors close.
- Any Movement On The Cap. The owners trading the hard cap for a tax-and-floor system, or the union agreeing to bargain over any limit on payrolls, removes the cause behind 1994 and the NHL's lost season. Pushes the every-game line up and the no-season line down.
- Mid-March 2027. If MLB cancels regular-season games with no deal in hand, the question becomes whether they get made up, as in 2022. Cancellations without a deal push the every-game line down hard and bring the 1,930 and 1,215 lines into play.
Settlement Timeline
The contract settles on MLB's official count of completed regular-season games. The dates below are the ones that move it.
| Labor Deal Expires | 11:59 p.m. ET, Tuesday, December 1, 2026 |
| Games Start To Be Lost | Early to mid-March 2027, per ESPN's labor explainer |
| Scheduled Opening Day | Thursday, March 25, 2027 |
| Scheduled Final Day | Sunday, September 26, 2027 |
| Settles | Expected Sunday, October 31, 2027, and no later than November 7 |
This page is re-scored when the story moves. Prices last read October 24, 2026, 3:20 a.m. ET. The panel numbers are from the September 15 run.
The Bottom Line
Baseball's labor deal runs out on December 1, the owners want a salary cap for the first time since 1994, and the union will not discuss one. The price of a lost season, a 2027 with no games at all, is 19 to 20 cents, back to the 19-bid, 20-ask book this page was stamped at on September 15, after a month in which its biggest session, September 29, and its biggest since, October 7, both came without a headline. What is new this week is the full-season line. It went from 38 bid, 40 ask to 24 bid, 25 ask in six days, most of it on Monday, October 19, when the 38-cent bid was pulled with fewer than eleven contracts traded, and the rest on Wednesday, when 1,841 contracts were sold into 22 to 27. The no-season contract was bought back to 19 bid, 20 ask on the same two days, 11,609 contracts in six days against 2,190 the week before, and on Friday, before Game 1 of a World Series between two of the game's smallest payrolls, the union's Bruce Meyer called the cap the "nuclear bomb" of the negotiation and Commissioner Rob Manfred said ownership is behind it with "an unprecedented level of unanimity." The price of a full season has fallen from 61 cents in early September to 24 to 25.
Nine models that never saw any of those prices agree that games are in danger. They put a full season at 43%, which was below the market in September and is 18.5 points above it now. They still part ways with the traders on the wipeout: 6% from the panel, 19.5 cents at the midpoint from the traders, the same price the book showed when they ran.
December 1 is the next scheduled deadline. Mid-March is when games start to be lost, and when the lower lines come into play.
Hero photo: a Billy Loes Model A2121 Wilson baseball glove, public domain, via the Digital Public Library of America and Wikimedia Commons.
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