It was an unusual year. There was no Juan Soto, Ohtani, Sasaki, etc. Not anyone close.
There a difference between what I think, what other people think, and what the consensus thinks.
The way I see it is the players will get blamed, actually It might end up being closer to both sides being equally blamed but I seriously doubt the players will get any sympathy from the general public when teams are spending over 500-600 million in payrolls (high end I know)