We’re now less than a month away from the expiration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the Major League Baseball Players Association and the league’s owners, with a lockout a near-guarantee starting in early December.
For months, owners and the league office have been promoting the lockout to fans as necessary to address the sport’s imaginary competitive balance problems. That this lockout wouldn’t be like the others, because baseball needs a salary cap, the league said.
The gap in spending, the marketing campaign went, made it impossible for small market teams to compete thanks to the disparity in payroll. Fast-forward to the end of the 2026 World Series, and it’s hard to imagine an argument aging worse than that one.
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The Milwaukee Brewers, who ranked 19th in team payroll in 2026, completed one of the most dominant postseason runs in the history of baseball. They went 11-2 in October, with their two losses coming by a combined total of two runs. Not two losses by two runs each, literally two runs total. They swept the high-powered Los Angeles Dodgers, never once seeming in doubt of losing a game, let alone the series.
They were three outs away from sweeping the World Series and becoming the first team in history to go undefeated in the NLCS and World Series. Even after blowing that lead with Shane Drohan, they easily handled game five behind likely Cy Young winner Jacob Misiorowski.
It was an obliteration. Oh, and that team they played in the World Series? The Tampa Bay Rays, the team with the 28th highest payroll. The team Tampa beat to advance to the World Series? The Cleveland Guardians, who ranked 30th in the league in payroll. Dead last.
The New York Yankees didn’t reach the ALCS, and by October 2027, it’ll be 18 years since their last World Series title. The Mets didn’t even come close to reaching the playoffs, and haven’t been remotely near a championship since Steve Cohen took over and raised payrolls to the highest in the league. Philadelphia didn’t reach the World Series, losing in the wild card series. And the Toronto Blue Jays finished in last place.
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The timing couldn’t have been worse for the owners, now hoping to make their case for a salary cap after the 2026 season showed how little need there is for it.
Instead? On Tuesday afternoon, they pushed for a salary cap yet again, publicly releasing a new proposal that would start their cap and floor system a year later, in 2028.
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“We recognize that clubs will need a full offseason to prepare to operate within the cap and floor system,” said MLB spokesman Glen Caplin, per MLB.com. “Therefore, with this offseason already underway, we proposed today to begin the cap and floor system in 2028. This proposal would allow a smoother transition into the cap and floor system without delaying key player benefits, including earlier free agency, a $1 million minimum salary, a 30% increase to the pre-arbitration bonus pool, and transactional reform that will reduce roster churn.
“The projected salary cap and floor for 2028 continues to provide more money for Major League players while leveling the playing field and giving more teams the ability to participate in the free-agent market and retain their homegrown stars so that every fan believes their team has a fair chance to win it all.”
A statement so thoroughly disconnected from reality, it makes you wonder if the league office has been watching political ads for ideas.
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In response, the Players Association predictably stated that the cap system is a non-starter, while correctly identifying that the cap proposal is there for one reason, and one reason only: to make owners more money.
Details of the proposed cap and floor system are complicated, but suffice it to say, the league’s contention is absurd and would have nothing to do with competitive balance.
The floor, a proposed “$180 million,” shows how much money small market owners are currently pocketing. That figure would correspond to an increase of tens of millions, if not over $100 million dollars more than teams like the Guardians and Rays are spending. Yes, the cap would require more revenue sharing, but by the league’s own admission, there are 12 teams that need to increase their “payroll” by $636 million combined to get to the floor. There isn’t enough revenue sharing from the Dodgers or Mets to increase that would cover that difference.
Which demonstrates that these owners are simply spending much less than they can already afford. They’re choosing not to, because it’s so much easier for the fans, and they complain about small markets instead.
Obviously, as 2026 demonstrated, there is no argument to be made that competitive balance requires a cap. The Dodgers, for their market size and payrolls, are 3-14 in their last 17 attempts at winning a World Series. A New York team hasn’t won since 2009, and the Mets are up to 40 years since their last title, the seventh-longest streak in baseball.
The Padres have paid into the luxury tax for years now, and their reward is one win in the NLCS.
But all these mistakes are the real issue: baseball has no competitive balance problem, because the gaps between teams are so small that competitive balance can never actually be a problem. For some perspective, in the NBA, the better team wins a best-of-seven series roughly 80% of the time. In order for that to happen in MLB, the series would have to be a best-of-75.
The Dodgers had a $250 million payroll advantage over Milwaukee, and a 58-42% probability of winning in the series in pre-NLCS projections. They’d have had a similar advantage over the Guardians or Rays. It’s just not possible to predict baseball, or buy it, because there’s a limit to how much better one team can be than another.
Where this should end up is that the big revenue teams like the Dodgers, Mets, and Yankees pay more in revenue sharing, with strict controls and oversight on how small market teams are allowed to spend it. Teams like the Marlins have avoided spending on players by taking advantage of a loophole in the rules that can go towards things like improvements to facilities. The Pirates went a decade between signing free agents to multi-year contracts, and even then it was two years. Owner Bob Nutting just doesn’t care very much.
Instead, we’re jeopardizing the future growth of the sport in order to increase the Pirates’ franchise valuation from $2.4 billion to $2.57 billion.
Good stuff.
