Evan Drellich
Evan Drellich focuses on how power, money and rules shape Major League Baseball, rather than on-game results. He is a senior writer for The Athletic, covering baseball at a national level and author of “Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball’s Brightest Minds Created Sports’ Biggest Mess.” His coverage centers on collective bargaining, media rights, ownership and scandals, making him a key voice on the sport’s off-field battles.
Labor negotiations and MLB collective bargaining
Drellich’s defining thread is sustained, detailed reporting on MLB’s labor negotiations and collective bargaining agreements.
In coverage of the players’ first labor proposal that sought to double the minimum salary and introduce a soft payroll floor, he breaks down the economic structure behind those demands and how they would redistribute money between clubs and players. Across his labor work, he explains proposals in concrete terms - minimum salaries, roster rules, trading windows and enforcement mechanisms - and ties them directly to leverage on each side of the bargaining table.
His CBA reporting includes stories on MLB’s push to revamp the offseason calendar, such as creating signing windows for free agents and “quiet” and “frozen” periods when transactions would be restricted. He describes how the league’s vision would limit when players can sign with new teams, institute roster-setting rules that mirror fantasy formats, and hinge key changes on players accepting a salary cap that they strongly oppose.
In a labor mailbag examining whether teams are truly losing money and how unified owners are, he fields reader questions and answers them with industry context while noting that both MLB and the players’ union were given chances to respond directly.
Drellich also reports closely on the union’s bargaining positions, as reflected in coverage highlighted by Sports Business Journal of MLBPA proposals to expand active rosters, adjust the trade deadline, allow limited post-deadline trading and change how “outrighted” players can be moved. He follows changes to the joint drug agreement and other policy issues, showing how incremental rule shifts can alter careers and competitive balance. His own writing often describes him as a “baseball labor writer,” underscoring that this is not an occasional subject but his central beat.
Baseball’s business, TV money and ownership
Beyond bargaining tables, Drellich’s work tracks the business infrastructure of MLB - especially media rights and team finances. He has reported extensively on the financial troubles of the FanDuel Sports Network regional channels, detailing how Main Street Sports Group’s losses put television income for nine MLB teams at risk and complicate an already slow free-agent market.
His stories on those stations explain how renegotiated rights fees, potential contract cancellations and operator losses filter down to team budgets and player spending.
Drellich regularly covers TV deals, expansion discussions, the Minor League Baseball union and the often adversarial relationship between the commissioner’s office and the players’ association. He connects technical financial issues - such as debt loads, revenue streams and rights-fee negotiations - to practical outcomes like roster construction and competitive balance.
His reporting on a Mark Cuban-backed group buying a stake in the Athletics, for example, walks through the rise of private equity in sports and what a dedicated sports investment firm means for a franchise’s long-term direction.
Profiles of his work describe this business-side focus as “labor-heavy,” emphasizing that he sits at the intersection of economics and labor rather than traditional game coverage. He treats media-rights disputes, investor activity and league office decisions as part of the same system, repeatedly showing how off-field money flows shape the environment in which baseball is played.
Astros cheating scandal and investigative reporting
Drellich’s investigative work on the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal is a major marker in his career and informs his broader reporting style. He helped break the story of how the Astros used live video feeds to steal pitching signs during their 2017 championship season, work that led directly to one of the most prominent discipline cases in recent MLB history. That reporting culminated in his book “Winning Fixes Everything,” which examines how decision-makers inside the organization built and tolerated the system that produced the scandal.
In interviews on outlets such as NPR, he has discussed the league’s penalties for the Astros and what they reveal about MLB’s approach to enforcement and accountability. Those appearances cast him as a baseball business reporter who can explain both the technical sign-stealing operation and the institutional response.
The same investigative instincts appear in his beat work, where he probes ownership decisions, league office strategies and contentious negotiations rather than stopping at official statements.
Off-field power, politics and the future of the sport
Drellich routinely explores how baseball interacts with political and cultural power, not just economic structures. In one recent piece, he reports on MLB approaching the Trump administration about staging a game at a national park, a story that combines federal politics, public land use and the league’s brand strategy. He situates that kind of event within MLB’s broader efforts to shape its image and reach, showing that venue choices and political partners are part of the same calculus as rule changes and expansion.
His work often steps back to consider the future of the sport: new rule sets, changes to the on-field product and how those decisions are sold to fans. On radio programs discussing MLB’s evolving rules, he explains why certain changes are being pushed by the league, how they connect to larger business interests, and which stakeholders benefit or lose. Across these subjects, Drellich treats baseball as a complex institution, applying a consistent lens of power, governance and economics whether he is writing about a potential lockout, a media-rights crisis or a high-profile scandal.
Earlier in his career he has worked as a team beat writer and radio host, experience that adds understanding of clubhouse dynamics and local markets to his national coverage. That background supports his current focus: stories that are grounded in the realities of players and teams, but driven by how decisions in boardrooms, bargaining sessions and broadcast deals change the sport over time.
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