SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Spring training may be underway, but it’s very clear that winter is coming to Major League Baseball.

With Wednesday’s news that Bruce Meyer had been unanimously elected as the interim executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), the stage is set for what could be a brutal set of talks around the new collective bargaining agreement between MLB players and owners.

The current CBA is set to expire on Dec. 1, and there is every indication that the 2027 season could be heavily disrupted as the two sides draw lines in the sand over several issues, the biggest being the potential installation of a salary cap.

A salary cap is an idea MLB has avoided throughout its history, while the other major sports organizations have instituted it. It’s also an idea that has gained steam outside of the MLBPA, as the Los Angeles Dodgers have continued to spend at high levels and use deferred payments to land superstars, thanks in part to a television contract that is unlike any other in baseball.

Those who want a salary cap point to the Dodgers as the team ruining baseball. Those who don’t say that Dodgers deferrals (which total more than $1 billion through the 2046 season) are within the rules and just a creative way to use resources.

The Dodgers, of course, are in the NL West with the Rockies, and those deferred payments have drawn the attention of Colorado owner Dick Monfort, who will be one of the leading figures for the owners in the upcoming CBA negotiations.

“Something’s got to happen. The competitive imbalance in baseball has gotten to the point of ludicrosity now. It’s an unregulated industry,” Monfort told Denver Gazette colleague Mark Kiszla last March.

While Monfort will be on one side of the bargaining table, the views of Kyle Freeland, the Denver native and veteran of nine seasons with the Rockies, will be on the other, serving as Colorado’s player representative.

“We’ve always known that Dick’s kind of been the head of that labor union for the owner’s side,” Freeland said. “And I think Dick has done a great job of this, and us, as players, have done a good job of this. Whoever the rep has been of, when our paths cross in the clubhouse or wherever, there’s a respect there that both sides are trying to get something done to better themselves. I believe Dick respects that, and we respect that.”

The respect may be there, but Freeland, serving in his first year as a player rep, also isn’t hiding what is coming.

“Everything that we’ve seen on TV and in the media, MLB has come out and said that they’re going to lock us out when the CBA expires, and we’ll see if they do that when that time comes,” Freeland said. “But right now, we’re doing our work inside the union of how we feel and how we’re going to position ourselves going into this.”

While hope may spring eternal as 30 MLB teams report to February camp, there are certainly clouds building for what could come after the World Series ends in October or November.

And that World Series could come with the Dodgers once again hoisting the trophy, just like they did the last two seasons. A team that added All-Star outfielder Kyle Tucker and top closer Edwin Diaz this offseason to an already stacked roster improved itself from the squad that finished 50 games ahead of the Rockies in the NL West last season.

Even before Colorado lost 119 games last year to help provide part of the chasm between the top and the bottom of the division, Monfort had his eyes on what was going on at Chavez Ravine.

“The Dodgers are the greatest poster children we could’ve had for how something has to change,” Monfort told The Denver Gazette. “Sports are supposed to have some sort of fairness, right? There’s got to be some purity.”

While all eyes are on Los Angeles right now, it’s easy to forget that a different team won the World Series every year between 2014 and 2023. It’s also easy to forget the dynasties of the Chicago Bulls and New England Patriots centered around superstar rosters. Even the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning have hoisted Lord Stanley’s Cup twice each this decade.

Spending money doesn’t always guarantee winning (ask the New York Mets or Yankees about that). However, when it comes to the Dodgers, it has certainly guaranteed a bullseye on the back of their jerseys and upcoming conversations between players and owners that Freeland said could get “hairy.”

Winter is coming … and it could be a long and dark one.