Last week was a tumultuous one in the early phase of the looming (ongoing?) labor dispute in baseball. The head of the MLB Players Association was ousted, an interim director was selected, and the war of words about the expiring Collective Bargaining Agreement ratcheted up.
Amid that early sparring, Jon Heyman reported that the owners were as united as ever in seeking a salary cap in the new CBA, while we know that the players are united as ever in opposing it. The tea leaves for a long lockout look particularly easy to read.
In that reporting, and then reiterated in new reporting, Jon Heyman indicates the early ranges for caps and floors that the owners could be seeking: “Very early estimates suggest the proposed cap (ceiling) might be set around the $260M-$280M range and the floor around $140M-$160M.”
I thought it worth reiterating those numbers because, after a week during which he would’ve been able to receive pushback, Heyman is reiterating them. So it’s a good bet that they are the numbers that MLB’s owners really do plan to open the discussions with.
I also thought it worth spotlighting that, heading into the 2026 season, the following clubs would be outside that payroll range if it were already in place (even at the widest listed margins):
Dodgers (too high)Mets (too high)Yankees (too high)Blue Jays (too high)Phillies (too high)Brewers (too low)Reds (too low)Rockies (too low)Twins (too low)Pirates (too low)Cardinals (too low)A’s (too low)Nationals (too low)Rays (too low)White Sox (too low)Guardians (too low)Marlins (too low)(via FanGraphs Roster Resource)
Soooo, that’s 17 teams – MORE THAN HALF OF THE LEAGUE – currently outside the reported range, which, by the way, is a MASSIVE range between cap and floor compared to the NFL and NBA. This would, uh, shape a lot of new behaviors going forward.
Some of my previous thoughts on the matter:
Let me say that, although I’m not sure a cap/floor system will ultimately be right for MLB, I am increasingly certain that the *ONLY* way it could work is if the spread between the cap and floor was much larger than the other sports, and if the players received significant increases in money in the early years of their career (i.e., higher minimum salary and earlier free agency). The fact that this is already in the reporting is a good sign in that regard – the owners are being realistic about the lengths they’d have to go to in order to get the players to even consider a cap/floor system.
That said, it’s not like the players have equivocated over the years. The fight against a cap in any form has always been a firm one. It’s hard to imagine them bending, because once a cap is in place, it’ll never, ever go away again. Their argument boils down to: the owners wouldn’t want a cap unless it reduced the total amount they’re paying out to players. And even if the cap/floor setup looks OK initially on paper, once its installed, the owners can chip away at the value to the players over the next 20+ years.
I think there’s probably something there – it’s just logical – but that does not allow for two things: (1) owners want a cap because that kind of certainty going forward can dramatically spike franchise valuations (without an attendant cost to the players, in theory), and (2) if a cap/floor/revenue-sharing system somehow helped the league better grow overall revenues, then it’s at least conceivable that the players could overall get more than they are now.
Ultimately, what this side of the fight could come down to is the extent to which owners are willing to guarantee a larger share of the revenues overall than the players are currently getting on average, and the extent to which the owners are flexible on what gets included in “team revenue” for CBA purposes. That stuff is where the REAL money lives, and it’s also where I suspect we’ll see the biggest fights among the union and owners, and among the owners and themselves.
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