The Marlins are among the teams that have shown interest in free-agent righty Michael King, per Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic. Miami has frequently been linked to prominent bullpen arms in the offseason’s early stages as well, and the Fish are apparently planning to spend more heavily in free agency than in recent years (although that’s a pretty low bar to clear).
Skeptics will presume that the Marlins, like the A’s last offseason, are wary of running into a grievance pertaining to their allocation of revenue-sharing funds. Optimists will look at Miami’s hot finish to the 2025 season and the steps forward from young core pieces like Kyle Stowers, Jakob Marsee and Edward Cabrera as the driving factor behind the ostensible spending push. In reality, some of both are likely to be true.
Rosenthal and Drellich write that the Marlins are believed to be pulling in around $70MM annually in revenue-sharing. Teams that allocate under 150% of the revenue-sharing funds they receive to the roster (in terms of CBT obligations) can draw the union’s ire and fall subject to a grievance. That’s not true in every instance. Miami’s CBT ledger in 2025 came in around $85MM, per RosterResource. The Fish are projected for about $70MM of CBT considerations right now, however.
It seems that falling shy of that 150% threshold in consecutive seasons is what truly triggers the risk of a grievance. The A’s were the only perennial payroll cellar-dweller who seemed to be subject to a potential grievance last offseason. (They responded by signing Luis Severino and Jose Leclerc and extending Brent Rooker and Lawrence Butler.) None of the Pirates, Marlins or Rays seemed to face the same pressure.
However, each of Pittsburgh, Miami and Tampa Bay had been well over $100MM in CBT considerations in each of the preceding seasons. The A’s trotted out CBT numbers between $68MM and $84MM from 2022-24 before finally opening the wallet a bit to avoid that potential grievance. Rosenthal and Drellich also suggest that the Marlins may want to avoid any in-fighting with other clubs during the upcoming CBA talks, where luxury tax payors could argue that the Marlins aren’t using their funds properly. Readers are encouraged to check out the piece for full, more granular details on the matter and thoughts from other club officials and agents who weight in when chatting with The Athletic duo.
Regardless of the motivation, the fact that King is on Miami’s radar is notable. He’s a former Marlins draft pick, though that came under prior ownership and a different front office regime, so those ties are minimal at this point. King would step into a rotation that also includes the previously mentioned Cabrera, Sandy Alcantara, Eury Perez, Braxton Garrett and Ryan Weathers — with prospects Thomas White, Robby Snelling, Dax Fulton and Max Meyer (on the mend from surgery) all factoring in as possible options as well.
King, 30, has been excellent since moving from a swingman role with the Yankees — who acquired him in 2017’s Garrett Cooper swap — into the rotation late in the 2023 season. His 2025 campaign was shortened by a nerve injury in his shoulder and a knee injury late in the season, but King boasts a terrific 2.93 ERA (3.50 FIP, 3.66 SIERA) with a 27.4% strikeout rate and 8.3% walk rate in 53 starts since moving to a rotation role full-time.
Adding King would give Miami a playoff-caliber starter to pair with arms like Alcantara, Cabrera and Perez. He’d also make it easier for the Fish to entertain offers on young pitching, whether that be Cabrera, Weathers or some of those vaunted prospects (headlined by White). The Marlins could also give stronger consideration to dealing Alcantara if they add a veteran starter, but they’d still be selling somewhat low on him (and trading Alcantara would offset much of the payroll gains they’d obtain by signing King).
The Marlins are on the lookout for meaningful offensive upgrades, but the free agent market is generally thin on impact hitters this offseason. If the Fish instead choose to further deepen an organizational strength, they could use their stock of quality young arms to explore the trade market in search of more meaningful upgrades at the infield corners, designated hitter and/or in right field.
King rejected a $22.025MM qualifying offer from the Padres. The Marlins would pay the lightest of three penalty tiers for signing him, due to their status as a revenue-sharing recipient. Signing King would require Miami to its third-highest pick in the 2026 draft.
Well, they can’t, because MLBTR users think he’s going to the O’s, Padres or Yankees…
Said it before. I’ll say it again. For some reason I can see Jarren Duran as a marlin in a trade for SP.
What did Jarren Duran ever do to you?
Nothing at all. I love him dearly. He could thrive in south Florida (whatever that actually means).
LOL the Marlins arent signing King. I think he signs for more money than we expect.
@VegasSDfan
Maybe the guy likes Florida and is willing to take a pay cut to just enjoy pitching on a professional baseball team. Not everyone wants to be a professional baseball player and making hundreds of millions of dollars. Maybe he just wants $2M or $5M. Who knows….? 🙂
Sure. But what about his agent, wife, etc.?!?
See? If you better incentivize cheap teams to spend more, you’ll get better teams even at the lower end of spending.
They haven’t signed the dude, and won’t. Because one of the big spenders will sign him. Proving the point that MLB finances are a mess and need to be repaired. Including a cap.
For my Astros, I’ve placed the targets on Framber Valdez reunion/Ranger Suarez. I know that isn’t likely (even though I hope it is). If that isn’t likely, will the Marlins really do it?
I mean, when was the last time they offered 90+ million.
The Giancarlo Stanton extension. But until the Fish actually sign someone, it’s all posturing, they’re getting the CB money alongside the MLB shared revenue check, which is also $100M+ per season. As Screwface said in Marked For Death (1990) “Everybody want go heaven. Nobody want dead.”
Hard pass on a salary cap in baseball, for me.
Parity isn’t an issue.
Dreaming of a true cap has to include a fantasy of the owners truly opening their books. If they did and the PA and the league were actually partners, it could work. What blows me away is the $70m in revenue sharing.
A cap is in your dreams.
Seamaholic, my goodness gracious, it’s rich seeing a comment like that from yours when you’re one of the most infamously bootlicking pro-owner guys in the comments along with JoeBrady.
A cap isn’t happening. It’s fine for Manfred and some owners to toss out, like a hand grenade, the vague word “cap” , but they can’t come up a with a concrete, detailed proposal for a labor negotiation that would meet approval from both big market and small market teams, Not that the union would accept a cap, but I’d like to see Tony Clark call their bluff and say let’s see, in detail, what you have in mind. There’s also a long term risk for the owners with a cap. Yes, NFL has a cap, but it has no international competition. MLB is still a far away #1, but NPB and KBO are getting better both talent wise and compensation wise. They won’t steal away the superstars (at least not right away). but valuable players getting squeeze by a salary cap have alternatives there. And MLB has to be aware that the Saudis have spent extensively to build both a world class soccer league and a competitive golf association. A salary cap would play right into their hands.
So if MLB puts a salary cap on the players and MLB attendance TV money and everything else they make money on and it’s a huge number for every team ….so let’s put a cap on what the players make so the owners can keep more of money ? I’m far from being a math expert but putting a cap on players will fix the problem? I do agree there needs to be tweaks on the financial side but a cap is not the solution.
And per my own experience with MLB baseball in almost 50 years as a fan and later, a sports editor, each and every one of the lockouts/strikes/work stoppages, etc. has been about saving the owners from themselves. I’m not going to sit through another one and happily return because they juice the baseball again.
However, many Dodgers fans want to focus on the poor ownership frustrations of the small markets in order to point fingers, while they ignore the vast disparities in market revenue potential that allows the Dodgers to be “born on third with a big lead” in the equity game.
I point at my personal experience of having Frank McCourt as the Dodgers owner. He was extremely cheap, didn’t care about putting a winning team on the field, and sucked all the profits into his personal accounts.
I never once thought it was the Yankees fault for spending so much.
Never once did I think the Marlins winning two world series and stripping the team bare the following off-season was terrible for baseball. I didn’t like it for the fans, but damn they won twice.
Never did I complain about other teams doing better. The CBA, the players union, etc.
Your team owner might be cheap, but they’ll never be Frank McCourt bad.
And now that the the Dodgers fortunes are reversed, I’m happy the new ownership is all in on winning. And show it in everything they do top to bottom in the entire organization.
Money is helpful certainly. But owner attitude and perspective matters more than most fans care to admit.
As a dodgers fan I’ve experienced both. A well as the family style of the O’Malley’s, which was great as well.
@ADF – But you are only looking at it from your own personal experience as a fan of one team over time, and that is not the issue.
I am also now lucky as a Phillies fan. No, we can’t compete in market revenues with the Dodgers and Mets and Yankees, but we are still a larger market with a terrific owner (and we mostly experienced bad ownership for decades).
If you give the Marlins or Pirates et al a terrific ownership group, they are still at a big disadvantage from the word go. They cannot, out of their own revenue streams, even come close to competing in an equitable way with the big guns. They would be able to spend more, of course, and they would be more proactive as well with higher payrolls and hopefully a better run overall organization. But if one team can generate $750M in revenue and the other will generate $300M to play with then the advantages are both clear and inarguable.
The St. Louis Cardinals have hovered in the Top 10 in payroll when they were winning 11 rings, then last year they were ranked 20th.
The Brewers have made constant playoff appearances with a 18-20 ranked payroll because of players doing well and the managing since 2018, in 2016 they were dead last at 30th and it resulted in a dismal record.
Sometimes spending isn’t everything.
As a footnote to the McCourt ownership, I add the dark years of Fox ownership that preceded it. They both disinvested in winning now and longterm viability. So every Dodgers fan can appreciate what it means to have owners who take their fans for granted. The fact that the Dodgers no longer run their franchise this way isn’t a sign that the system is somehow broken.
I remember the Fox days, and in some ways it was worse than McCourt. They had the money to compete but we’re an extremely corporate efficiency profit motivated wrecking ball, which led to McCourt ownership. I would pay money to slap the stupid out of the execs who made those decisions. I was going to say worse, but I’ll leave it there.
I agree, Fox was an even worse owner than McCourt, and that includes their bankruptcy and divorce mess.
You’re right. Getting to the playoffs to get swept is great. You need top tier talent, and that costs money. Real money.
Further more, it’s just simple capitalism. Our country runs on it ands it’s great!
@holycow – You are like most in that you have no idea what you are talking about when the “isms” are discussed.
MLB is hardly free market capitalism – it has an antitrust exemption. In essence, the playing field is tilted in a big way to protect the owners and the league from the very thing that you boast of with respect to your misunderstanding of reality.
The “antitrust exemption” for baseball really only applies to MLB’s control over the number and location of franchises, and is only significant if you believe teams can or should be created ad hoc, and added to the existing leagues or in competition with them. All professional sports functionally enjoy the same “exemption” without the blessing of the courts. The courts have ruled (significantly) that MLB is not exempt from labor laws. They must bargain collectively with the players and cannot collude on salaries.
The most useful way to think of MLB is as one business with 30 owners, because that is exactly what it is. They are capitalists in the sense that as a unit they are selling us the game of baseball, which we can buy or not as we choose. But within that unit, they are business partners.
@blusky – Hence, it is a protected entity. And I am not saying that the reasoning behind is completely wrong either especially as the league was in its earlier stages of development under it. But when one talks about capitalism in the way that so many do, the lack of understanding is markedly noticeable.
Pure, free market capitalism is a myth, but the reverence for what never really was is profound. We are very lucky to have a democratic republic that is based upon an economic approach that leans heavily towards free market capitalism with regulators to avoid the worst of the excesses…that is, until now when it is all coming apart at the seams.
Hence, MLB isn’t functionally more “protected” than any other pro sport, or franchise-based business. You can’t open a McDonald’s anywhere you want. That permission comes from the company. I’m not getting involved in any political or philosophical debates, because none are necessary to understand this basic point. Baseball is an entertainment product that we can either to buy, or not buy.
I see.
Maybe, if you don’t spend, you must give your picks to the non revenue sharing recipients/give back the money. There will be a lottery from worse to better record for the picks among the non-revenue sharing teams.
You must spend at least 50 million or return it before you forfeit your draft picks.
Only spent 40-49 million and didn’t return
2nd pick, 750K from international pool
Only 30-39 million and didn’t return
2nd, 3rd, and 1MM from international pool
Only 20-29 million and didn’t return
2nd, 3rd, 4th, 1.5 million from international pool
Only 10-19 million and didn’t return
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 1.5 million from international pool
Only 0-9 million and didn’t return
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 2 million from international pool
(If you don’t have enough picks, 6th=2nd round pick in the next one, 7th=3rd round pick in the next one)
I haven’t thought it all the way so if you have any suggestions or feedback pls tell me.
Carver, the owners of these teams are all rich men and women; and rich people typically only dabble in things where they turn a profit. Every single team is making money, I guarantee it. If not, the solution is simple: open the books and show the world, ending the debate. The fact that those books are so guarded is telling.
@appalach – We agree that the books need to be opened for the discussions to be more meaningful. But many are still missing the main point.
If a Dodgers ownership group maximizes the potential of the market out there, and a Pirates ownership group maximizes the potential of their market, the playing field is drastically tilted. It is simple math.
And if the Dodgers and similar high spending teams give money to small market teams, those teams have extra money to use for payroll. It is simple math.
Carver, hypothetically, let’s say they did do a cap. If you’re examining market, LA is still going to be the more appealing market than Pittsburgh. The weather is better; there are more opportunities; the facilities are first class. The NBA has the cap system, and it’s proven stars still prefer certain places over others. Free agents in basketball don’t want to sign with Charlotte or Utah. The NBA has also had more repeat champions than baseball.
The only thing a salary cap does is limit player earnings. The beneficiaries would be the owners, and a small handful of mid-tier free agents that would take an overpay from a team like Pittsburgh.
Payroll and markets don’t need to be “even” for a team to be competitive.
@appalach – First, I did not mention a cap. Second – the markets will never be even. The can be somewhat more equitable however.
And third, I am mostly pointing out that there are a ton of Dodgers fans that only want to point out bad ownership in poor market areas in order to distract from the reality that their team is born on third at the start of every season in this era.
This era.
And there will be another era after this. There was a Marlins era as well as a Yankees era. And a Giants era. And other eras as well.
So relax and the era will change again at some point.
You remain studiously unwilling to acknowledge the reality of the argument, ADF.
The nature of baseball is such that the vast inequities today do not necessarily provide for dominance by money alone. One can certainly compare the ridiculous dominance of the Yankees of yore to the benefits of the Dodgers today, as the Yankees enjoyed even greater advantages in the pre-free agency era due to their market and the nature of the short trip to the World Series.
Using the Marlins and Giants “eras” however shows that you simply do not want to see what is so blatantly obvious.
You act like money is the determining factor in baseball. That because of location, certain teams will generate more revenue than others.
The reason the O’Malley’s sold to Fox was because they couldn’t continue to spend as much as the big spenders.
Fox went super cheap because they couldn’t figure out how to generate income with the team, so they slimmed everything down to almost no spending.
They then sold to Frank McCourt, who didn’t have the money or brains to run a team. He then continued to drain the dodgers name for everything he could to put into his pockets.
Then the current ownership took over with a plan. A baseball operations plan. A marketing plan. A revenue generating plan. And an overarching moto that winning will increase profits.
First thing they did was put money into the farm system, which was barren and beaten close to death.
Then they made somewhat bad deals to get competitive right away while the farm system was growing. It showed the fan base thru were serious, and the fans started spending on the Dodgers again.
The farm system had a string of great players come up to the big team, and things were great. The plan was clicking and fans were happy.
Then still the high priced contracts started falling off and they made the trade for Mookie Betts. And they still had to take on David Price and his enormous contract to get Mookie.
Once they realized what they actually had in Mookie, they determined they had to accelerate their plan and go all in on winning now instead of keeping the pace they were on. That’s when they started paying for free agents and spending big money.
This current spending wasn’t always there for the Dodgers, even under this ownership. They are maximizing this window of opportunity.
I didn’t mention the marketing and revenue building. By paying free agents and making trades to jump start the team back into being competitive, they were able to increase revenue and get the large TV deal thru have today.
Fox is a network and couldn’t figure it out. The O’Malley’s were huge in baseball and legend in Dodgers history and they couldn’t figure it out. McCourt was just a greedy idiot.
All this being said, you say they were born at third base. I say they were at AAA when they bought the team and made it the best organization in baseball top to bottom.
Smart owners can’t find ways to increase profits. Smart owners realize there is more money in a winner. Smart owners realize they need a plan. Smart owners follow the plan.
Fans just want results now. Does the owner of your favorite team have a plan?
The Angels are 30 minutes away from Dodgers stadium. They have no plan, and it shows.
@Carver- Apologies, I did misunderstand what you were saying, thinking you were advocating for a cap because of the comments above.
I’m not a Dodgers fan, and I can still disagree that they have an inherent competitive advantage, though. I would’ve cited the Angels as an example, but ADF already touched on it. The ownership group makes an enormous difference. Arte spent hugely for quite a while, but he rarely spent wisely.
The Mets are also an example. They’re in the same market as the Yankees, but how many times have they struggled to put everything together to build a winner? It isn’t as simple as cutting a big check.
I understand it is a nuanced conversation. But, I think it’s vastly unfair to the Dodgers to say they’re starting at 3B.
Hal Steinbrenner just said the Yankees aren’t making a profit. Tell me more about how honest team owners are about their books.
Hmm. I doubt you will outbid the Cubs, Astros, Red Sox, and other teams that are richer and need starting pitching.
5 years, 100 million?
The top ace level starters in this market are…
The Red Sox, Astros, Orioles, Angels, Cubs, and more are all in need of starting pitching. The fact that the Marlins are interested in Michael sounds like the fact that the Pirates were interested in Kyle Schwarber.
1. Dylan Cease
2. Ranger Suarez
3. Framber Valdez
4. Michael King
5. Tatsuya Imai
I’d love King back on the Yankees however does he want to come back to New York? If he returns that definitely allows them to trade Gil in a Kwan package. Realistically is Kwan even available?? Could Yankees expand the trade to include Ramirez? Endless possibilities
I don’t know the Yankees well so if I do make some mistakes and don’t exactly follow their GM’s talk, then I’m sorry. Point that out.
Yankees Get:
Jose Ramirez
Guardians Get:
George Lombard Jr
Spencer Jones
Luis Gil
Kaeden Kent
This would be a large price to pay, but to get multiple MVP candidates on your team? Then I think that if the Yankees want the 28th ring, then this would be a realistic trade package.
Ramirez has a full no-trade clause in his contract.
I was answering mlbyyfan but thanks 4 pointing that out.
I don’t think either team would do that. Not to say that it’s not a good package, but J-Ram is a unicorn for a small market team that they won’t be able to replicate/replace easily.
I’d drive those prospects to the airport for jose ramirez
Ramirez will not consent to be traded anywhere, and has made his preference for remaining in Cleveland very well known.
It seems there is a limit for what ownership will spend so I doubt they’ll be trading from the cheap quality starting depth to sign king unless he signs a nick pivetta style deal.
Cease wasn’t an ace with SD, but now that he’s a FA he’s ace-level? I know opinions are swayed by K-rate, but one exceptional year out of 7 in career doesn’t equate to ace in my book. That said, he’s a cool dude.
Strangely yes.
MLB.com (not MLBTR) listed Cease higher than Suarez, Valdez, Imai, and King. So I guess so.
I get that there’s hype, and that’s why I ask the question.
I don’t view Cease as an “ace” in the sense of like it’s game 7 do or die, who do you want on the mound. Said differently he’s not like a true #1 who you would feel confident going up against anyone. You could get a clunker out of him any day.
That said, he covers a ton of innings and his peripheral stats are really good. If you go by fWAR for the last 5 years he’s been 4.5, 4.4, 3.6, 4.7, 3.4. My guess is that’s probably in the top 10 of fWAR accumulated for the past 5 years. So not an “ace” but one of the most productive pitchers out there.
yes, a durable #2 or #3 on a good team
And nobody keeps up with 32/33 starts year after year anymore. Cease has Giolito/Burnes written all over him imo
In unrelated news, the Michael Trout signing extravaganza is open!! Dont all rush at once with your hats gloves Frisbees
signing?
Signing. Or maybe singing? Not sure, he can croon old blue eye standards being a jersey kid.
I don’t mean to sound like a jerk but are the Marlins looking to spend because they want to or are they being forced to spend because they’re in danger of getting a grievance from the players union, like the Athletics last offseason?
No. I don’t think your sounding like a jerk. I think you actually nailed it Acoss1331, the Marlins aren’t in big need of starting pitching (at least I don’t think so), but they do need to spend. I think that’s one of the reasons.
Acoss check out David Samson on YouTube. I think he has it right. The low spending teams are looking to spend more as they are at odds with higher spending teams. They are after more shared revenue and want to show they’re spending on players. He says it much better than I am.
Thanks guys, and will definitely check out the video!
I like Michael King to the Red Sox. If not, then they will sign either Suarez or Imai. Boston should stay away from Dylan Cease in my opinion.
Honestly, I feel like Valdez is more likely
Sorry, I’ve got DC to Sox in my predictions.
Why even post these silly : teams are in interested in…fill in the blank… articles. Everyone has interest in everyone at the right price.
Pirates interested in Kyle Schwarber
Marlins interested in Michael King
Next thing you know, A’s are interested in Kyle Tucker.
The site is called MLB Trade *Rumors*.
Simple butch, these are what folks call rumours and funny but this sites name is MLBTR or called Major League Baseball Trade Rumours!!! hope that answers your question!!!
Just to pile on because anyone asking these asinine questions when the site is literally called MLB TRADE RUMORS definitely deserves it. Sooo…
Just in case you haven’t heard of it, you are at:
M L B T R A D E R U M O R S . C O M
Thank you for stopping by and reading a said rumor.
I wonder how Roster Resource comes up with these revenue sharing numbers. Very few of the figures required to estimate how much revenue is shared in MLB are public.
Nah not happening. He’ll have offers from better teams and Marlins ain’t breaking the bank for him.
More luxury tax money means more suffering for pirate fans cuz that cheap bum will really never sell then
The system you advocate for just creates an incentive for some cheap owners to spend the bare minimum in order to make a profit. They will never have a desire to build a winner.
Its really just a welfare system to keep up the myth there are 30 teams vying for a championship.
Strange to call revenue sharing “welfare.” MLB is one business with 30 owners. The owners decide how the revenue from their business will be split up. They aren’t divvying up the revenues for the purpose of helping teams build winners, but to guarantee that all of the owners make a return on their investment in MLB.
It’s the season of interest. Every team will show interest in many, many players. Eventually, I’ll lose interest in those that are interested.
Interesting.
There are too many incentives for tanking, and too many for not spending. It’s absolutely true that high revenue teams have an advantage, but a team ownership that won’t spend what it gets from the higher revenue teams demonstrates it doesn’t need the special treatment on things like draft picks, international dollars, etc. either. The Union knows that the trap of a hard cap doesn’t create more competitiveness. It’s willingness to acquire and retain talent–and enough talent to get fans to come out to the park.
Even when a revenue recipient wants to sign a top free agent and offers him everything he wanted a revenue sharer can always offer more. Revenue recipient only have access to players revenue sharers didn’t want. Giving more money to second tier FAs hasn’t worked well for Benintendi, Candelario, Moustakas, Severino. The best recipients can do is hit on a group of prospects and pray for one deep postseason run during their control before blowing it up. In the other leagues every team has the same resources available. It’s the city/team culture that makes a difference for players. In the MLB it doesn’t matter if a recipient team is good with a great manager, they’ve got ZERO chance of signing Ohtani/soto/Tucker/Cole…
Most likely Fish won’t sign King but if they did then trading E. Cabrera to shore up 1B or 3B makes a lot of sense.
They may do that anyway with the strong SP depth the Fish have in the rotation but adding a #2/#3 like King plus a legit closer/set up like Faribanks, Helsley or D. Williams should solidify further the Marlins SP/Bullpen
just another whack-a-mole franchise .. they’ll pop their head up into contention every ten years or so .. just to get whacked in the early rounds of the playoffs.. and disappear back underground for another ten+ years
Alstott – well, just because the facts are against you, it’s easy to say 1997 and 2003 WS banner still flying for Florida.
“Pop their head up in contention every ten years or so … just to get whacked in the early rounds of the playoffs…”
Not to say they are relevant even every 10 years but you don’t seem to even remember they did win 2 of the past 29 years – not too shabby really. Not many teams can say that.
They need to install a salary floor and punish teams under that with loss of draft picks. Concurrently, they should install a salary cap that results in a loss of draft picks if you are over. It makes baseball’s most prized commodity the grammar of punishment. Problem solved. Even the richest teams value prospects to an extreme degree.
Baseball should not be in the situation where 30 individuals make money because of MLB.
In Australia ALL television money goes to the league and then it is evenly distributed to ALL the teams in the league.
I would love to see the reaction from the Dodgers and Yankees fans then and how wonderful the owners are with the same budget as everyone else?
The other teams should boycott playing the Dodgers & Yankees until the television money is shared like most professional leagues around the world operate.
The Marlins foil the Cubs again.
I disagree with a cap but there needs to be a floor. Think of MLB ownership as an exclusive club with hefty dues, if you can’t or won’t pay them there are people waiting in line who will. $150 large measured at the beginning of the year, at the half way point, and at the end of the season. 2 years of failure and you have to sell the team.