Report: MLB discussing adding salary cap, floor

Report: MLB discussing adding salary cap, floor

Major League Baseball has been the only one of the major American Sports to operate without a salary cap for two decades. However, discussions reportedly sparked between executives during the commissioner’s meeting this week–two years ahead of when the current collective bargaining agreement expires.

“MLB officials have discussed adding both a salary cap and a salary floor, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private,” Alex Sherman and Lillian Rizzo of CNBC reported Thursday. “The Major League Baseball Players Association, however, has long been against a salary cap, and the group says its position hasn’t changed.

“The result is a potential lockout in December of next year when the current CBA expires — one that appears increasingly likely given the opposing positions of both sides.”

This isn’t the first time that MLB has kicked the tires about a salary cap, and it won’t be the last. The delta between the teams’ spending leaguewide has only grown–especially with the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets pulling money from every drawer to pay superstar talents such as Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto.

The NBA has a soft salary cap with multiple tax aprons; the NFL has a hard salary cap that teams must get under every March; the NHL also has a hard salary cap that teams cannot pass, barring injury.

In MLB, there are four competitive balance tax brackets–beginning at $241 million–but there’s still no limit to how certain teams can spend, nor is there any floor. For example, according to Spotrac, the Dodgers have roughly $332 million in payroll. The Miami Marlins, who are dead last, have just $68.7 million on their books.

Typically, teams who spend put themselves in the best position to win. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out, but there are still teams–such as the Marlins, Chicago White Sox or Pittsburgh Pirates–who barely spend regardless of their revenue share.

“I am really cognizant of it, and I’m sympathetic to fans in smaller markets who go into the season feeling like they don’t have a chance in the world to win,” Manfred said, according to Michael Schmidt of the New York Times. “I think our game turns on fans having hope when you enter the season. I think it’s a really important issue that we need to pay attention to.”

There is a disproportionate number of teams willing to spend. Bigger markets can better afford it, but the photo above suggests they’re gutting most of their revenue share unlike some of these smaller markets that are intentionally uncompetitive.

Guess what? It lends winning results.

We know most owners in sports think of owning a sports team is a money grabber instead of actually prioritizing winning–but it’s still embarrassing how few MLB owners want to put a winning product on the field instead of saving a couple of bucks.

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