Rob Manfred spoke with reporters after this week’s quarterly owners meetings. Jorge Castillo of ESPN, Ronald Blum of The Associated Press and Evan Drellich of The Athletic were among those who relayed the commissioner’s comments.
Manfred spoke publicly for the first time since the league and Players Association exchanged initial economic proposals last week. Those were worlds apart, with the most notable development being MLB’s first official proposal for a salary cap since the 1994-95 players strike. The league proposed a $245.3MM cap and $171.2MM floor. That would come with a 50-50 revenue split between players and ownership, which requires holding some of players’ salaries in escrow in case the league underperforms projections.
[Related Podcast: CBA Standoff Begins]
MLBPA executive director Bruce Meyer unsurprisingly blasted the proposal on Monday, reiterating the union’s opposition to a cap — which he called “a form of institutionalized collusion.” Manfred didn’t directly respond to Meyer’s comment but took his typical approach, framing it as a competitive balance issue.
“We have tried mightily over several rounds of bargaining to use a competitive balance (luxury) tax to address competitive concerns,” Manfred said. “And sometimes you’ve got to admit you failed.” Manfred didn’t expressly state that a cap was the only solution but implied that drastic changes were necessary.
“We made a proposal on one set of topics. At the outset of negotiations, I went and said myself, ‘We’re open to whatever ideas people have, but we need a realistic framework that addresses the fans’ concerns about competitive balance.’ You just can’t ignore that financial penalties have not gotten it done for us.” The luxury tax has been in place since 2003.
That’s a standard talking point for the league. The union’s initial proposal called for more revenue sharing and a “competitive integrity tax” penalizing teams that spend less than $150MM on payroll. The union favors maintaining the luxury tax setup and proposed raising the base threshold dramatically to $300MM.
Of course, both sides are going to push for competitive balance measures that are in their favor on revenue split. Fixing spending on players would also go towards owners’ goals of escalating franchise values. It’s debatable whether either really cares about competitive balance, though that’s obviously a primary concern for many fans — especially those of smaller-market clubs.
An offseason lockout seems inevitable once the current bargaining agreement expires on December 1. The 2021-22 lockout lasted 99 days and narrowly avoided the cancelation of games. “Of course I do,” Manfred replied when asked if he was worried about a more disastrous work stoppage like the ’94-95 strike. He declined to answer a question about whether the league’s desire for a cap would make an extended lockout worthwhile, saying he wouldn’t “speculate about work stoppages.”
There’s no incentive for Manfred to answer that question. The extent of both sides’ willingness to tolerate a lockout that’d cost them game revenue is a pivotal piece of information that neither will disclose publicly. It behooves both parties to stress their resolve more generally.
The commissioner also touched on a few non-CBA topics. He provided an update on the sale agreement that values the Padres just shy of $4 billion. That’s still pending approval from the other 29 owners. Manfred said that’s “not ready for a vote today” but is likely to come up at some point this summer. He also touched on expansion, noting that’s a topic which will be on the back burner until a new CBA is in place.
“No sir,” said the horse. “I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.”
A salary cap? A Three hundred million luxury tax threshold?
Well, at least they are talking, but have serious talks, with serious suggestions.
Hey Rob,
I suggest a league wide Ohtani lockout bobblehead giveaway once the new CBA is ratified.
Maybe defer receiving the bobblehead in honor of those who can’t understand deferrals.
You only get like 2% of the bobblehead for 10 yrs and then the rest.
Piece of metal
Just get a Cap! Fans dont care how long it takes. Lock them out for 5 years if necessary, but get the Cap
Fans of hockey, that is.
Caps are available for purchase at the Dodger stadium gift shops. Shipping is extra.
Players and fans don’t trust the accounting as teams don’t open the books…
Yes they do !!!! This is myth. Players and union see the books. Each pobo signs off on them, is legally culpable for their accuracy and they go to the union. It’s one of the reasons the union never talk year to year profit. Just franchise value. They know the year to year situation.
.
There is dispute about what exactly constitutes baseball revenue, though.
In the CBA proposal…… yes.
I’d imagine the “legally culpable” limits the variation in year by year numbers.
Fans do care and I DON’T want a cap as it will solve nothing. There is parity already in the league 30 teams, 25 years and 15 different world series winners even more have reached the world series but just have not won. Tell me you are seeing that in the other three leagues.
Manfred needs to stop saying “the number one concern of our fans” as if he actually cared about fans, he doesn’t, he is about making money for owners and that is it. A cap will only make money for owners.
If he cared about what fans were concerned about he probably wouldn’t have called it a “piece of metal”.
Just stating the obvious.
No. The obvious is that he wants to take the game in a differant direction to you personally. Hence childish rubbish posts.
Foppert
Are you saying I’m posting childish rubbish? Just verifying, as the reply function on this site isn’t always accurate.
Previously Manfred said the spending by Los Angeles was good for baseball now he’s suddenly concerned about what the fans think regarding competitive balance.
The difference is now he is getting pressure from most of the owners to fix the competitive balance problem he allowed to fester all these years.
Pressure from fans too
“It’s debatable whether either really cares about competitive balance”
Really, it’s hard to discuss the bargaining meaningfully without accepting the fact that neither side does. It’s never been more than a smokescreen for either.
Yep. Here we go again, but at least this article acknowledges something we should all already know to be true: that neither the owners nor the players care much about competitive balance. Not that this knowledge will change the discussion any.
I do not agree with this at all. I’m certain some owners and lots of players do care about competitive balance.
There is competitive balance!!!!!! Do the research and don’t be a sheep just repeating the spew from Manfred. 30 teams, 25 years and 15 different winners plus many more teams have made the world series but not won.
The fact the Dodgers were smart and used deferrals and won three world series in 5 years everybody thinks there is no competitive balance, so I ask this what about when the Yankees won three in a row in the late 90s- 00s? Where were all the “league lacks balance” people?
How can you be so certain? If you want to know what they care about most, look at what they do, not at what they say.
Is there competitive balance when the small market teams have to plan for a 3-4 year competitive window every 10 years while the big market teams reload year after year with their checkbook? Don’t confuse the randomness of winning the WS with there actually being competitive balance in baseball. There isn’t.
Darthyen
There is competitive balance!!!!!! Do the research
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I will wager any amount that the top-10 spending teams win more games than the bottom-10 spending teams. The top-10 averaged 88.3 wins. The bottom-10 averaged 76.6.
I like a lot of your suggestions. Id like to add a penalty for not reaching the minimum. Let’s say you’re 25 million short. Well now you gotta divy up 25 million to every 40 man on the roster. So bonus money for the players who had to be part of that team.
owners would love this, especially 60/40. any time you introduce aprons it benefits ownership.
There is no floor without a cap. I don’t know how many times people can be told this. Even with sharing evenly 100% of local TV money which should be part of it. No more sweetheart deals on the side.
Why does the floor need a cap. The whole point of the floor is to ensure teams are actually reinvesting in the team. If a team wants to spend more than the floor, good for them!
If you don’t think the above scenario would in essence create a salary cap you’re nuts. No team will forfeit 50% of their IFA… would even hurt severely to lose 25%. Only thing I didn’t see was increased revenue sharing ..which would be needed.
Put simply, it is because the owners will never agree to a floor unless there is also a cap. So there’d never be an agreement reached.
You’ll either get both or neither.
Because the whole idea is to reduce the gap between the lowest and the highest.
Joemo
The whole point of the floor is to ensure teams are actually reinvesting in the team.
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No, the point of a floor is not to ensure that players get paid more.
It is to ensure more competition, and even with a $150M floor, a team will not be competitive with a $350M payroll.
Ticket price cap before a salary cap if you care about your fans
bro, cmon. we all know beer and ticket prices will plummet if a cap is instituted.
How would they even make money selling only slightly overpriced products to large groups of people? Profit margin on a $2 beer is only 10x wholesale.
People need to think about how many Steinbrenners and Guggenheim execs will starve because of these communist price controls.
Relegation!
Super League!
As usual Manfred lied. The cap and floor as proposed would place the players with a lower percentage of revenue than the 41% they had in 2025. Since revenue has grown in 2026 according to Manfred and will likely grow more in 2027 and will absolutely skyrocket in 2029, his statements are flat out lies.
If its about competitive balance, then the answer is easy. More revenue sharing between the teams including 100% revenue sharing from media. That is something the owners can do themselves without the involvement of the players.
Since they are not doing that or even offering that, the cap and floor have nothing to do with competitive balance. We have already seen that a cap and floor has not created competitive balance in any other sport since baseball has had the highest percentage or teams play in and win the championship this century.
The league’s proposal sets a 50/50 split of standardized baseball revenue with commitments to higher total player compensation and equal sharing of future growth, rather than any cut below prior levels under different definitions. Revenue percentages depend on accounting choices, which is why the offer pairs the split with a cap and floor that narrow payroll gaps and force broader investment across markets. Greater media revenue centralization is included to fix blackouts and expand the shared pool, but redistribution alone cannot prevent high-revenue teams from dominating talent without spending limits. The cap and floor together curb hoarding at the top while requiring minimum investment at the bottom. Other capped leagues show imperfect parity because execution still varies, yet they limit extreme concentration better than uncapped systems, and MLB’s recent championship variety could extend further with these tools rather than allowing resource gaps to grow. The package links enhanced sharing with spending discipline to keep more teams competitive as revenues rise.
The MLB proposal CLAIMS to set a 50/50 split, but the proposed cap and floor would have guaranteed only $5.1 billion in CBT calculations of payroll, what the cap and floor would be based on, with $13.1 billion in revenue in 2025. Go ahead. Grab your calculator. What percentage of revenue was that? So what is the REAL split?
Manfred has already said that revenue is rising again in 2026 and those figures are proposed for 2027.
The MLB proposal offered way for the union to verify revenue figures. No third party audit. I guess the union is just supposed to trust Manfred as laughable as that is.
MLB has more parity than other leagues in what is important, winning. If the owners were actually interested in more competitive balance, they would not even need to consult the players. Just institute greater revenue sharing and a penalty for not spending a certain amount of the revenue sharing money. But nope. What they REALLY want is to cap spending so they can pocket more profits and see the increases in team values that other major sports are experiencing.
Don’t delude yourself into thinking a cap helps anyone other than the owners.
The league’s proposal for 2027 onward uses a 50/50 split of standardized baseball revenue that scales with growth, including the significant increases expected from new media deals, rather than locking in a fixed low percentage based on 2025 figures. The cap and floor numbers represent a compressed payroll range designed to narrow spending gaps, not the full measure of player compensation which includes benefits and other elements under the defined revenue base. Revenue verification mechanisms are part of the offer to provide transparency without requiring external audits that could complicate negotiations. While MLB already shows strong championship diversity, additional revenue sharing alone has not prevented resource concentration because it does not require teams to invest in rosters; the cap and floor pair redistribution with mandatory spending floors and upper limits to promote actual on-field competition across more markets. Franchise value appreciation in other leagues has occurred alongside cost controls that support broader league stability, and the same dynamic can benefit MLB by keeping revenues expanding for all stakeholders instead of allowing unchecked escalation to benefit only the largest clubs.
MR, there are no verification procedures or proscribed methods of increasing or decreasing the cap or floor other than the 50/50 you mentioned. Its illusionary without transparency.
Left field – As a fan, you don’t need to be Team Players or Team Owners, you can be Team Baseball. Did Manfred lie? I don’t know what all he has said so I’m not commenting on that, but MLB’s initial offer included a proposal for a 50% revenue split with the players. Now the devil is in the details, and the sides will need to define “revenue” (ie: what all does it include and exclude), but I thought MLB made a pretty good opening offer (far better than the Union’s). Keep in mind, if you google the percentage of revenue paid to players by all leagues, google says MLB is already right around 50%, the same as the NFL, NHL and NBA, and MLB isn’t looking to change that. I don’t know how you come up with a 41% figure. Anyway, get off the Players Only Island and join Team Baseball. We just want a deal that improves competition. I don’t care how the league’s revenue is split so long as we get a deal before games are missed and where the lower spending clubs aren’t outspent 3-5X by the bigger market teams (keeping spending to within 50% at most would be fantastic). As a Rays fan, I want a cap and more revenue sharing because I believe that will help the Rays most and baseball overall. I don’t care how much money goes to the Owners/Players though.
Mp, MLB’s proposal had a laughably low floor and cap.
Lets start with the floor. In 2025 the lowest revenue was $335 million. That team, the Marlins, could afford a $167.5 million CBT payroll if there was a 50/50 split of revenue. So with no changes at all, the lowest revenue team last season would only have needed to increase payroll $3.7 million to meet the floor being proposed.
MLB’s proposal guarantees only a $5.136 billion or 39% CBT payroll share of MLB revenue, and that was based on the $13.1 billion revenue figure Manfred released for 2025. That is already lower than the $5.372 billion or 41% of the $13.1 billion revenue figure that Manfred released that players earned in 2025 by CBT payroll calculations. Including CBT fines paid by teams it was $6.062 billion, but the difference was not paid to players. The current methods used for CBT payroll calculations is the method that MLB is proposing be used to calculate payroll figures for the floor and cap.
Manfred has already said that revenue will rise in 2026. If there are no games lost, it will go up in 2027. For the 2029 season it will go up substantially when new national and international TV deals are negotiated and 2 expansion teams are announced. MLB’s proposal contains no mechanism to raise the floor and cap.
MLB’s proposal provided no independent verification method of MLB revenue. Not even a 3rd party accounting audit. No open books for the union to look at. Nothing. Just “believe me, its a 50/50 split”.
“Team Baseball” says that the owners should solve the problem they caused. Any competitive balance issues is because large market teams were allowed to individually negotiate TV deals. That is not possible in any other sport. In baseball it created the haves and have nots in terms of revenue by allowing that to happen. The solution is simple and it doesn’t have to be negotiated with the players. Simply share revenue evenly for local TV like they do for national TV and require teams to spend a minimum amount of the money they receive from TV and streaming. Problem solved. They don’t even have to talk to the players to do that.
Don’t try to claim I am in any court. I want to see my team take the field come March 26th next season. That is all. Get in there and negotiate and stop lying. What I am concerned with is the truth.
The truth is that competitive balance is not an issue for the players to help the owners solve. They didn’t cause the current revenue differences and a cap won’t solve it. A cap won’t help create greater competitive balance. MLB already has the most competitive balance of any North American sport. Only greater revenue sharing will solve it.
The truth is that Manfred is not telling the truth about the results of the proposal the owners made and that could cause there to be a work stoppage that will cost ME time at the ballpark while games are lost.
So why are they not doing that? Because the cap is not about competitive balance. It’s about maximizing franchise value by capping spending. Team values are not rising as fast as in other sports because in baseball team’s don’t have any idea what they will need to spend each season to get the best players.
Let me repeat, being on Team Baseball means place the responsibility for revenue parity squarely where it belongs, on the shoulders of the owners. Only changes to revenue sharing can do that. Being in favor of a cap means you are in Team Owner, because in no way does a cap help anyone other than the owners. Certainly not the fans, because a cap has not helped more teams be competitive in any other sport. MLB is the most competitive sport.
MLB’s proposal is to split revenue 50-50% and to make that happen by increasing revenue sharing. You’re attacking that proposal as if MLB released a full contract worthy breakdown of every little detail of their plan. That was never their intention. Those details have to be negotiated, but first the parties have to agree to a cap/floor system that sees 50% of revenue paid to the players. MLB isn’t playing hide the ball or lying. They submitted an opening offer to frame future negotiations. That’s how negotiations work.
The players didn’t create the problem and so they have no obligation to help fix the problem…? There is no competitive balance problem…? I’m sorry, but those are ridiculous statements in support of the player’s position. Everything the Union has done at the negotiating table the past several decades has led to the current problems/standoff just as much as what the Owners have done. They are both to blame, and it will take both sides to fix the problems. Yes, there is a competitive balance problem. When some teams can only afford to keep their best players if they lock them up in their rookie years, you have a problem. When the top free agents only ever sign with 1/3 of the league, you have a problem. The players need to stop pretending the system works just fine. It isn’t working and more and most fans want change.
The problem is revenue distribution between the teams. The players didn’t create the problem. The owners did. The owners can solve that problem without a cap or even talking to the players, since revenue distribution doesn’t require changes to the CBA.
Since MLB has the best competitive balance of any major sport, there is no competitive balance problem. There is a revenue distribution problem. That is why some teams cannot afford to sign the very top FA or extend players like Soto. Some teams are getting a larger share of MLB revenue than other teams. Again, not a problem caused by the player and one the owners can solve that without a cap and without the involvement of the players.
Revenue is growing. Manfred told us at the Winter Meetings that every team other than the A’s who chose to move into a minor league park and the Rays who were forced to play in a minor league park by nature, saw an increase in revenue and that MLB as a whole had record revenues.
Attendance is increasing. TV and Streaming viewership is growing.
MLB has the most competitive balance of any major sport in this hemisphere. That is not a problem.
The system is working.
Not sure why you feel it necessary to insult people when you are shown to be wrong.
Yes, exactly — though I would not go so far as to say that Manfred lied. When he opens his mouth, the voice of the owners comes out. He works for them, and thus he is making their case on their behalf.
Two problems with the revenue split proposed by the owners: First, we know this has to be based a net revenue calculation of some kind. Net what, and how much, we don’t know, only that some revenue will doubtless be excluded. Second, MLB is a financial black box. Only the owners know what’s in the box, and they plan on keeping it that way. The players will never agree to a revenue-sharing system that keeps the data on which it is based mostly a secret. It’s pretty easy to see why.
All of this preliminary maneuvering is kind of a bore. Neither side is getting their wish list fulfilled, and they know it. So why not forego all these months of positioning and just get down to brass tacks?
We can dream.
Oh Pads fan. Is it outinleftfield for the CBA and Web for everything else ? Is that the new deception ?
Revenue sharing hasn’t worked. Obviously. The disparity is getting worse. Obviously.
The owners are divvying up the TV cash instead and proposing a 50:50 revenue split. The owners hard floor is higher than the 150 soft floor offered by the Union. They just need to hammer out what constitutes revenue.
I have to ask, in what way has revenue sharing not “worked” when its sole purpose is to virtually guarantee profitability for all of the owners of MLB? This is what it was designed to do, not to reduce disparities. So don’t confuse the priorities of fans with ownership’s priorities. You won’t be on the same page. Not even in the same book, really.
Mate. Enough with the profitability. An ex POBO tells me the real situation all the time. Thru don’t make money year to year. I believe him over you. For obvious reasons. I know that crushes your massive all important ego but unfortunately you are going to have to deal with it.
It hasn’t worked in that the gap between payrolls is widening. Fans of 2/3 of the comp have no chance of being involved in FA. Their team can’t afford to be. Hate that. Everyone should be in the game for a sporting thrill.
MLB polled the fans. Crazy how you folks think they are incompetent. Fans want more parity and no lockouts. MLB is fixing both by taking control of TV, spreading the cash and ending lockouts.
By all means, continue with your profit fixation. It’s weird to me, but it’s your call. I’m going with the best info available.
Nope. You are being served dog food and happily eating it.
The franchises play all sorts of financial games to show operating losses, but this is based on immense depreciation allowances on purchase prices and salaries, and undisclosed revenue streams from related businesses, including media contracts, that are held separately. This is the way it works. You could look it up. Resorting to childish insults only goes to show the weaknesses of your argument.
And again, the point you refuse to get: What the fans want and what the players and owners want are not the same thing. The “fixation” with profit is not mine; it is a “fixation” of those who buy multibillion-dollar businesses. Despite what you seem to believe (beyond any reach of logic, facts, or reason), they aren’t doing it as a hobby, they do it to make a _____.
No. You don’t know. The guy who I listen to does. That’s just reality. The “feeding dogshit” rubbish is just the modern American way. You think I haven’t been here long enough to recognise that. “The guy is saying stuff I don’t agree with. He must be lying or have some mysterious agenda”. Yeah. Nah. Go for your life. That is exactly why so many people don’t respect Americans anymore. Total ego driven refusal to absorb information. Ugly as fark.
Their fixation is on the buzz of owning a team and a massive payday at the end. That’s what people close to the action reveal.
Sorry. I’m still going with the knowledge of someone close. The plan sounds good. Maybe up the cap so the spread is $100m and get on with it.
I could take a $10 million salary and pay my kids exec level salaries to be VP of envelope stuffing and my company would lose money on the books too. It would all be very legal. It still wouldn’t make my company a losing proposition and my companies value would continue to rise.
Its laughable that you get banned on the foppert3 account and come back with this account, then claim others have multiple accounts.
Get him into Cooperstown now
We have seen in any other sports league, most more popular than baseball right now, they have a cap and a floor and players are still making loads of cash. Not just on the field either. Fans go into a season knowing they have a chance at their teams greatness unlike baseball where only about a dozen teams do. You can’t ever guard against bad management.
Of course large market fans don’t want to lose their extreme advantage and don’t care about the long term health of the game. If there are only eight teams eventually or the game dies in the future, they could care less.
All of the other sports organizations only play 82 games (or much less in the NFL), carry fewer players on their roster, and don’t have 4 minor league teams behind each major league team organization.
Football has a shorter season, games wise, but with training camp, preseason, regular season, and playoffs it’s still as long as baseball. Larger rosters too.
The 22 week NFL season consisting of training camp, preseason, and regular season is nearly 10-11 weeks shorter than MLB’s 32-33 week long spring training and regular season.
I’m a Phillies fan and I’d like to see more competitive balance. Even we are $100 million short of the Dodgers. And not as good.
Reds, then why has a lower percentage of teams in the NFL, NBA, and NHL gotten to the playoffs, been to the championship series, or won a championship than they have in MLB since there has been a cap in all of those leagues?
Because no other sport is as affected by SSS randomness as baseball. In football, the best team almost always wins. Basketball and Hockey are less so, because of the small number of players on the court/ice and the impact a hot shooter or goaltender can have. In baseball, you never know how the playoffs are going to go. A couple bats get hot at the right time and a team can go on a run. That does not mean there is competitive balance. A team like the Dodgers goes to the playoffs every year. When they have a hole on their roster, they fill it with another 4 win player. Small market teams plan years in advance for their 3-5 year competitive window to open and then hope to god they don’t lose their small handful of very good players when the rest of the team is peaking. That’s not a fair system. Never was, but hopefully things will change.
I will try to make this simple enough for you to understand.
Since there has been a cap in the other major sports, MLB has had a higher % of teams make the playoffs, play in the championship series, and win the championship.
That means there is more competitive balance. More teams are competitive. I do hope that was simple enough for you.
A team like the Guardians, Rays, or Brewers are all in first place and make the playoffs most years. When they have a hole in the lineup they bring up a young player that they have developed or trade for or sign a player to fill the position.
There are more teams in last place with a top 10 payroll (3) than teams in 1st place in their division (2). There are more teams with a bottom 10 revenue teams in 1st place than teams with a top 10 revenue.
Last season 50% of Division winners were in the bottom 10 in revenue. The team with the most wins was in the bottom ten in revenue.
Stop making excuses for the owners not fixing the revenue distribution problem they caused.
I like a lot of these ideas, but I’d go harsher with the penalities at that second apron and above. Limit the funds they can spend on incoming players, if they make trades they need to have more money going out than coming in, can’t sign free agents to deals above 1 year / league minimum, etc. If the penalty is an actual penalty, teams will try to get under – like the Boston Celtics this year in the NBA. They still did well after the JT injury and trading away a ton of assets to get under the second apron.
Didn’t like the “editorializing” in this piece. The writer shouldn’t just imply that neither side cares about competitive balance. I’d wager many owners outside of LA do, given the Dodgers’ unending ability to spend and defer. I’d guess many small market players do too.
I suspect the competitive balance issue is an “issue” now because the fans of the NYY, Phillies, Red Sox etc… (ie: big market teams) now believe THEY are being hurt. Those fans didn’t care about competitive balance when it only affected the small market teams. But baseball is a business and if the Big Market fans are disgruntled, then change is coming.
As a RS fan:
1-I’ve always admitted my privilege of being an enormously wealthy team.
2-And I’ve admitted that ‘some’ type of cap/floor seems reasonably fair. The fans that support their team should be rewarded for that. But there shouldn’t be $150-200M gaps in spending.
Support Labor! Not Management oligarchs! No salary cap!
You are literally supporting millionaires. Silly to think they are not oligarchs, Comrade.
Players are employees. That means they are not oligarchs.
By the actual definition most team owners are not either.
An oligarch is an extremely wealthy business leader or elite individual who uses their vast fortune and commercial assets to exert significant influence over a country’s government, economy, and society.
highflyballintorightfield
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By not having a cap, you are supporting the elite over the commoners. More for the Ohtani’s of the world, and less for the Tyron’s of the world.
If capping Ohtani’s salary resulted in Tyron Guerrero getting paid $1.5M, plus minor league raises, and better service time accruals, would you support that concept?
I don’t like this salary floor.
1. 12 teams are under this threshold. Too many teams need to increase their payroll to get up to it. The teams that can’t afford to raise payroll because they’re in a small market or can’t get enough attendance will have to raise prices of tickets, merchandise, food, etc to pay for it. The fans are taking on the money for the floor, not the owners.
2. More money spent doesn’t mean money spent well. Just look at the Mets. In theory it will make the team “more competitive”, but it doesn’t necessarily accomplish that.
Teams under the floor will get a boatload more revenue sharing to allow them to spend more.
Yes, spending doesn’t guarantee anything, but keeping overall spending relatively even between all the clubs means there is a level playing field in roster management. Under the present system, if the Rays make a huge mistake like signing a pedophile to an 11 year big money deal, that deal could keep them from competing for a decade. If the same thing happened to the Dodgers or Yankees, they write it off and keep on keeping on. Having deep pockets allows the big market teams to remain competitive year in and year out even if the front office makes a lot of mistakes each year. The small market teams can’t do that. They can’t extend their best players outside the small window early in a player’s career (ie: before year 2 of their MLB career) and they have no chance to sign the best free agents. It’s a totally unfair system that needs to change. Once it does, I suspect we will see that many big market teams will need to drastically revamp their front offices to compete in the new world order.
Blame, the smallest revenue team in 2025 was the Marlins at $335 million. A 50/50 split of revenue with the players would have put them at a $167.50 million CBT payroll. ALL teams can afford $171.2 million floor. That is the problem. The floor is not high enough. Neither is revenue sharing levels.
You do realize you cannot take a team’s gross revenue and just cut it in half and say a team can spend that much on player salaries, right??? There are a lot of costs that go into running a baseball team, like debt repayments, stadium maintenance, other employee costs, minor league systems, food and travel, marketing, etc… Those costs may well exceed 50% of revenue and they cannot be cut or reduced as easily as player salaries. What will change the equation is much greater revenue sharing, but I suspect that only occurs with a cap.
Yes, I can. A 50/50 split of gross revenue is exactly what MLB is proposing.
We know from the Braves and Blue Jays that non-MLB player payroll related expenses did not exceed $137 million for either team.
Travel is already included as part of CBT payroll.
Minor league salaries are public and were less than $6 million total in 2025. We don’t know how much the required housing was, but we do know it was capped at $4k per player per season and we know the total number of players that played in the minor leagues. That would mean it is less than $24 million.
You are a brand new account and taking only the owners side of the argument, so it’s painfully obvious that you work for MLB.
More money spent doesn’t mean money spent well. Just look at the Mets.
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That’s pretty meaningless. Some will obviously out-perform and under-perform.
Which is why a cap and floor won’t help with competitive balance
Profit sharing? These discussions are about gross revenue, not profits.
Fact is competitive balance isn’t a motivating factor on either negotiating side ..they don’t care about it. Now we can hope the eventual results lead to better competitive balance. And the sooner the owners realize a hard salary cap/floor isn’t the only way to accomplish this the better for everyone.
I think the players union is the problem in this situation. The fact is all the other major sports leagues have a cap of some sort. I think the floor and ceiling in the proposal is fair. I feel the 50/50 split is fair, especially that it will be adjusted each year based on revenue. The fact is franchises spend more on player development than the other leagues due to the extensive farm system, which people never talk about. I’m not for the owners or players, but I care about the game itself. People can complain and say a cap only helps owners but I do believe it creates a level playing field. Imagine being a fan of a small market team and realizing you can never sign any of your best players, because the dodgers will out spend you. A cap will help spread out the star players so the won’t be able to sign the top free agent every year. People care about seeing their homegrown talent spend their career on their team, which basically doesn’t happen anymore unless you are a big market club
Very well said!!!
People care about the team they root for winning. If their team signs a new Soto or Ohtai every season to make that happen, they will not care one bit if they are homegrown, whatever the heck that means.
A 50/50 split would be fair, if MLB was willing to be transparent about finances. Since they aren’t willing to open the books or allow an independent third-party audit to verify revenue, its a pipe dream. Until the owners are willing to do that, everything else they say is just spitting into the wind.
A cap has not done any of the things you have claimed it would in any other major sport. It won’t in MLB either.
All a cap does is regulate spending and the only benefit that comes from that is to help team values go up. That’s it. That is the only benefit. It doesn’t benefit fans. It doesn’t benefit players. It benefits owners and only owners.
Additionally, I think they need to cap the length of contracts to 4 years for pitchers and 5 years for hitters. This will make it so teams can’t give out 15 or 20 year deals to reduce the AAV. Plus contracts for greater than 4 or 5 years is ridiculous due to potential injuries or just natural decline in production.
A team is better protected from injury by a longer contract. Pay a top player, the only ones getting long deals, $30 million for 4 years and have them miss 1.5 seasons for TJ surgery and that is a lot larger percentage of investment lost than if you sign that same player for 6 or 8 years and they miss 1.5 seasons to TJ surgery.
What teams have signed a player to a 15 year deal? One for Soto? That is it, right? And he got $51 million AAV. Not exactly ducking the AAV there.
The biggest issue on top of floor and cap is elimination of deferred money. You pay market value in today’s money taxed on full amount. If you cannot afford to pay the contract without deferred money then don’t offer the damn contract period. Luxury tax imposed on today’s value immediately and watch how fast Dodgers pivot to frugality
And they can win being frugal as well. What’s your point?
They’re not getting a salary cap and they’re not getting $300mm as the basis for the tax. The financial penalties have not stopped the few teams at the top from going crazy, so impose penalties that matter…draft picks & international signings.
*If you exceed X amount, you lose your first round pick (not back 10 spots, but gone), cannot sign ANY international FA’s, and pay X into the pot
*If you exceed X amount, you lost your first, second, & third round picks, cannot sign ANY internal FA’s, and pay X into the pot
*(Highest tier) exceed X amount, you lose you first, second, & third round pounds for three years, cannot sign ANY international free agent for three years, and pay X into the pot.
Something along those lines would definitely limit the number of teams willing to go above—and way above—the tax threshold.
Dude just raise the luxury tax penalties. If you actually took draft picks away from teams that go over the cap I’d bet it wouldn’t happen as often. Dodgers don’t care if their 1st round pick drops ten slots, that is such an insignificant penalty it’s like a slap on the wrist. You need to actually take a teams picks if you want them to comply. Each threshold crossed should remove one pick starting with the third round, moving all the way to first round if they cross all three levels. I guarantee the Dodgers wouldn’t cross the line if they lose their top three picks each year.
No cap is needed. Increase revenue sharing and force cheap teams to spend their revenue sharing receipts.
Manfred doesn’t care about the fans, that’s a smoke screen to increase franchise values.
@gbs42
I concur and I don’t see how a hard cap is going to make teams with bad owners build a competitive team. It’s more likely cause more of the status quo and instead of hearing we can’t compete because we can’t afford it, it’s just gonna give those teams a new excuse to explain why they can compete, and we’ll probably hear this excuse “we tried see we signed player x to this big deal” when everyone really knows you only made that move to be cap complaint. Want a more competitive game get owners that want to win more than lining there pockets.
In addition to requiring with actual penalties that more revenue sharing money is used for player payroll, give owners more financial incentives for playoff appearances. Set aside 5% of revenue sharing or something like that and split it among playoff teams regardless of whether they are division winners or WC teams. You will see many more teams working towards being the 2025 Reds and Tigers in terms of making the playoffs. It might even incentivize guys like Arte Moreno to spend more on scouting, analytics, and player development in an effort to get there more often.
Well, we know a soft cap doesn’t work. The Cohen Tax didn’t work, and everyone was positive it would effectively result in a hard cap. It didn’t come close though. So I say it’s time for a hard cap. So long as the players receive the same share of revenue they have always received, why should they care (besides a deeply ingrained philosophical aversion to a cap that no other league’s players have).
In what way didn’t it work?
The player’s share of revenue would drop with MLB’s current floor and cap proposal. That is based on the $13 billion revenue numbers Manfred gave us. I would be willing to bet that if the books were open for every team, the union or an independent auditor would find it was higher.
mp,
There are lots of ways to address MLB’s insincere complaint about competitive balance. (Guess what, the owners are looking for more money and increased franchise values far more than they’re looking for increased competitive balance.)
Revenue sharing can be increased, taking even more money from the biggest spending teams to the lower-revenue teams. And then those cheap owners need to be forced to spend that money on payroll instead of pocketing it.
It’s not the players’ job to solve ownerships’ issues by volunteering to take less money. As far as the “argument” that every other league has a cap, that’s those players’ fault.
As expected, no answer when asked for specifics.
This ^^^. 100%. GBS has seen the truth.
As a general rule, and more often than not in my long experience, signing top tier free agents is a fool’s errand, and an early indicator of immanent team decline. Conversely, tearing it all down for full rebuild is not tanking, it’s wisdom. Both the owners and the players are full of crap, and you commenters who want floors and caps are shortsighted. Your problem isn’t cheap owners, your problem is bad baseball IQ in front offices. None of these financial/competitive issues are new, they go back to Connie Mack and before. The players situation is fine, you need smarter owners