MLB owners propose salary cap

That's a higher floor than I was expecting.

Just glancing at the numbers it looks like it would add more payroll than it eliminates, but I didn't do the math.

I'm just really hoping there isn't a work stoppage. But the owners and Manfred seem to actually hate baseball so I don't know how realistic that is.

Is Ohtani's part of the LAD's numbers? I thought they did some trick to defer most of his salary in order to be able to afford other players now?

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That's a higher floor than I was expecting.

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It's roughly 70% of the cap. The NFL is 90% and NHL is about to be 85%.

what about the tv contracts?
That's where teams like the Yankees and Dodgers have such huge advantages
With the collapse of the regional networks how do you help the other teams that are falling behind

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I thought they did some trick to defer most of his salary in order to be able to afford other players now?

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Just looked, about $25m of Ohtani's yearly salary isn't hitting.

Will this proposal also do away with that accounting trick?


ETA;

Another view shows that 45m this year, but only 2m cash hit this season. I'm confused which is correct.

His annual is close to 71m

disgusting owners...

Based on 2026 opening day figures, eight teams would have to cut payroll to get under the cap. The teams over are the two-time reigning World Series champion Dodgers, New York Mets ($379.2 million), New York Yankees ($339.6 million), Toronto ($319.5 million), Philadelphia ($315.2 million), Boston ($263.7 million), San Diego ($260.1 million) and Atlanta ($247.9 million).

Twelve teams would be required to increase payroll by a total of $617 million based on 2026 numbers: Miami ($81.8 million), Cleveland ($95.7 million), Tampa Bay ($108.2 million), the Chicago White Sox ($108.6 million), St. Louis ($114.4 million), Washington ($119.1 million), Pittsburgh ($122.6 million), Minnesota ($125.6 million), Milwaukee ($130.9 million), the Athletics ($139.2 million), Colorado ($142.2 million) and Cincinnati ($148.8 million).

Owners and the union agreed to a luxury tax in 2003 designed to slow spending, but teams feel it has had little or no impact on the Dodgers and Mets in recent years. The last small-market MLB club to win a World Series was Kansas City in 2015, although Cleveland, Tampa Bay and Milwaukee all lead their divisions as of Thursday, while the Mets and Red Sox are in last place.

MLB said its revenue has grown by 247% since 2003 and player payroll has increased by 149% in that span.

LINK

This is just an opening offer I'm sure they realize both the cap and floor will end up higher before an agreement would be struck. Maybe like 300cap 200floor.

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The NBA is also 90%

They are going to need to raise the floor

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I don't think they can

Unlike the NFL/NBA, it's a sport that inherently produces a ton of standings parity that understates the actual gaps between teams.

A bottom 5 NFL team only wins ~25% of their games and a bottom 5 NBA team only wins ~25-30%. But a bottom 5 MLB team wins ~40-45%

If every MLB team is forced to spend between 90-100% of the cap, you're then forcing extreme talent parity to the standings equation and the result is we may never see a 100-game winner ever again. The logjam around .500 would be absurd

The win 60 / lose 60 / define your season over the remaining 42 thing...that quickly turns into 70 / 70 / 22 if the floor's too high

A floor of 70% forces teams to be more competitive but any more and you risk breaking the competitive balance in the other direction