Over the next few months, there’s going to be a lot said about the idea of implementing a salary cap in Major League Baseball.
Of the four biggest professional sports leagues in North America (NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL), Major League Baseball is the only one without a salary cap. With that being said, it is the league in which you see the biggest difference in spending. For example, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ tax payroll right now is just over $420 million, which is the highest in the league. The Miami Marlins have the lowest at just over $80.4 million. Most of the teams don’t have as monumental a difference, but this shows the difference between the top and the bottom. Although it doesn’t have to be that way. There isn’t a salary floor either, so you can have a team like Miami just opt against spending.
It’s not as if the clubs can’t. When the league countered the MLBPA’s initial CBA offer earlier in the week, they proposed a salary cap and a salary floor. The league proposed a floor of $171.2 million and a ceiling of $245.3 million. Now, these numbers don’t tell the full story. The numbers would be less when you take into account player benefits, but they got good public relations throughout the week with those numbers out there. When it comes to the floor number, they wouldn’t propose that number if the owners didn’t agree on it. So, you have the Marlins at $80.4 million right now, but clearly the league is willing to spend more, just on their terms.
It’s going to be a debate over the next few months about what the league and MLBPA should do so. On Friday, Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal, who is on the MLBPA executive subcommittee, weighed in, as transcribed by ESPN’s Jesse Rogers.
“It’s not good for players,” Skubal said. “If you ask any other player in any other union, in the other major sports, they would agree, and they would want our CBA structure. … If you look at the NBA, look at all the tanking that happens in that cap system. They’re racing to lose. You think that’s a good thing? They just had to implement anti-tank rules. Tell me that cap system’s healthy and I’ll tell you that it doesn’t promote competitive balance.”
It’s an interesting concept and there are surely going to be people on both sides of the debate. On the player side, a salary cap would limit the maximum amount a player can make. That’s true. On the owner side, it would limit the amount that they need to spend and therefore theoretically would increase revenue, if you’re already spending above that salary cap number. But one topic that hasn’t been talked about a lot is that if the two sides agreed on a salary cap, it’s not as if it would be one static number forever. Each of the other leagues have different salary caps every year based on revenue.
In 2010, the NBA’s salary cap was just over $58 million. In 2025-26, it was over $154 million. It’s not as if it wouldn’t move. But, again, that’s one argument. There’s merit to both sides and the only thing that is clear is that it’s going to be a fight until the end.
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