At the time of this writing, there has not been an agreement reached to avoid a lockout, and the two sides aren't even formally meeting to discuss the situation.
Baseball is at a crossroads.
Those five or six teams are usually among the top eight to ten in payroll. The New York Yankees have won four of the last five world championships. They out-spent almost all of the competition over that period of time. The Atlanta Braves, New York Mets, Florida Marlins, and Cleveland Indians are among the other recent championship contenders, and they all are high-budget teams with gargantuan payrolls. Everyone can agree that baseball needs to address this issue during this year's collective bargaining agreement negotiation.