PHILADELPHIA — The All-Star Game is common ground for the players and the commissioner’s office. The players love the camaraderie and the status. The owners love the ratings and the marketing. Everyone’s a winner, even if you’re on the losing team.But let’s say you enjoy the All-Star Game so much that you swing on over to Instagram or X to follow the official MLB social media feeds. In both places, right there in the bio section, you’ll find a link to a website called “Level The Playing Field,” where the league makes its case for a new economic system with a salary cap and floor.You’ll find the same theme in campaign-style commercials shown during games on MLB.TV. There’s no childish name-calling (OK, maybe they’re not like political ads), but the league has polished its messaging to help shape public opinion for the coming labor negotiations.We don’t want to drown you in numbers today, unless they’re home run distances or radar gun readings. This is a time to marvel at the boundary-bashing feats of some of the greatest athletes to ever wear cleats.But one of the privileges of All-Star workout day, when you cover this sport for a living, is the chance to ask the All-Stars whatever you want. On Monday afternoon, they sat at individual tables on either side of Ashburn Alley above center field at Citizens Bank Park — 45 minutes for the National Leaguers, 45 more for the American Leaguers.This was their chance to counter the very public stance of the commissioner’s office by answering one simple question: What is important to you about the collective-bargaining agreement? A cross-section of players from big-spending and thrifty teams alike responded with a consistent message.The last CBA found ways to address some issues that mattered most to players then, like tanking and service-time manipulation. Along the way, the league has implemented popular, sensible on-field measures like the pitch clock and the automated ball-strike system.It has all contributed to the feeling players strongly shared: the game is in a great place, so let’s not mess it up. The players will push for incremental gains, to be sure. That is standard in any negotiation. But mostly, they sound quite happy just the way things are.Justin Verlander, Detroit Tigers“I’m really worried about it, to be frank, because the game is, in my opinion, in a really great place. Viewership is doing great, the fanbases are responding, I think some of the changes that were implemented — the pitch clock has been fantastic for the game. I personally don’t love the strike zone, the ABS, but the fans want to see it, we get the calls right and we need to compete with the other leagues that have replay and challenge systems. So I think it’s been a good, seamless transition. Ultimately, the game’s in a good place and I would hate to see that get disrupted and lose momentum that we have and the opportunity that we had to continue to grow the sport. I mean, you see the star power that we have and franchise values are (rising). There’s so many reasons why I think a real work stoppage and losing games would be detrimental.”What Verlander's retirement announcement says about him as a playerCody StavenhagenNick Martinez, Tampa Bay Rays“I think it’s important to preserve the right to reach free agency, and be able to take advantage of all the hard work that it took for you to get to that point. It’s not easy to do and it seems like every year it gets harder to get to that point.“I don’t think there’s a direct correlation (between payrolls and winning). You look at the Dodgers and they spend the most money, but that’s not the only thing they do. They have a culture, they have a way of going about their business. They also sign guys that hold themselves to that standard of being absolute professionals and playing the game the right way. So yeah, they go out and get the biggest names in free agency a lot of years and we don’t — and we win ballgames, too. So I don’t think there’s a direct correlation.”