It’s a debate that rages every year, but has become only more pronounced in the shadow of a salary cap fight in the upcoming Collective Bargaining Agreement, and in the wake of two of the sports smaller-payroll clubs making the World Series.
How much does big league player payroll actually matter for competitive balance? Are the haves and the have-nots actually throwing things out of whack, or are there just some outliers in both directions here and there?
The Athletic dug into that very topic to try to put some numbers on it:
Competitive balance sits at the heart of the fight that will soon shut down MLB. So @TheAthletic took a deep dive into what the state of parity in MLB really is. @enosarris ran the numbers, the league and union were interviewed — and two takeaways stood out. Unlocked: t.co/Yntz2fstn8
— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) October 23, 2026Under the current CBA, based on The Athletic’s calculations, variance in a team’s win rate was just about 17% attributable to payroll. In other words, roughly 17% of the difference in win totals between Team A and Team B could be explained by Team A spending more money on payroll than Team B.
Now, there are a couple ways you could go with that 17% figure. On the one hand, it’s pretty small, relative to the 83% “Everything Else.” If you do all of that well, then, yes, you can compete irrespective of payroll. We’ve seen it for years, and we’re seeing it again this year with the Brewers and Rays, among others.
On the other hand, this is a sport famous for trying to find the micro-edges. Trying to find the 0.1% boost here and there, and having it add up to something meaningful over 162 games. Viewed in that light, having 17% of your winning attributable to how much you spend on payroll seems like an ENORMOUS edge!
Of course, the thing is, as we know: it’s the most expensive edge you can buy.
That’s ultimately the competitive balance issue, if you want to make it about that. The Cubs can much more easily afford to spend an extra $10 million for a 0.1% boost than can the Brewers or Rays. And, if they’re smart, the Cubs can ALSO do all the other stuff as well as the Brewers or Rays, too. (They just, you know, haven’t actually pulled that off yet. But there’s nothing stopping them!)
But is this whole discussion ACTUALLY a competitive balance issue? That is to say, are MLB’s owners pushing for a salary cap system because they want to ensure that 17% payroll explanation goes away? Does a salary cap solve any competitive imbalances created by disparate spending around the league?
Of course not.
As we’ve said for months, the cap system is primarily about ensuring a more distributed revenue model and locking in costs, both of which serve to enhance franchise values significantly over a long period of time. If you have your arms more fully around the inputs and the outputs, it’s a whole lot easier to be assured of certain levels of annual return. And if you’re assured of certain levels of annual return, then your value as an enterprise goes up.
The other reason you know the whole thing is not entirely about competitive balance? Because MLB is more or less admitting it, or at least modifying the way they talk about it. From The Athletic piece:
“Our view of competitive balance is not outcome-oriented, it’s process-oriented, it’s opportunity-oriented,” said Morgan Sword, an MLB executive vice president and commissioner Manfred’s economics czar. “In a league where everybody has the same opportunity to be competitive, it’s expected, and actually great if certain teams emerge as the dominant teams given that set of rules.”
A salary cap, Sword acknowledged, also would not promise more playoff appearances for smaller-market teams.
“No, no, I don’t think it would, and I don’t think it needs to,” he said.
At the end of the day, the most accurate way to describe what MLB is focused on might not be “competitive balance.” The league wants to change something narrower: how much money can be spent on players, which is one of many factors that contribute to a team’s success.
I wonder if this slight adjustment to the framing we saw early in the year is at least partly responsive to a World Series that features the Brewers and Rays.
Hence then, the article about how much does payroll actually impact competitiveness some but arguably not a ton was published today ( ) and is available on Bleacher Nation ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( How Much Does Payroll Actually Impact Competitiveness? Some! But Arguably Not a Ton )
Also on site :
- Knicks reveal $3.7 million plan for employee championship rings after coming under fire for phishing email ‘mistake’
- UCLA continues bid for historic rise, will rock championship-inspired unis vs. MSU
- Canadian pro cliff diver Molly Carlson makes history as she becomes first woman to dive off iceberg