Major League Baseball owners are “raging” in the wake of Kyle Tucker’s free agency agreement with the Los Angeles Dodgers and it is now “a 100 percent certainty” that the owners will push for a salary cap, one person briefed on ownership conversations who was not authorized to speak publicly told The Athletic.
“These guys are going to go for a cap no matter what it takes,” the source said.
Owner frustration reached a boiling point when Tucker agreed to a four-year, $240 million deal to join the Dodgers, the two-time defending world champions who already had the highest payroll in the sport. But what came in the wake of the Tucker news, a three-year, $126 million deal between the New York Mets and Bo Bichette, also raised dander, the source said, adding that the Dodgers and Mets might be the only teams that will try to stand in the way of a cap.
MLB declined comment Tuesday. League commissioner Rob Manfred’s position has long been that no decision has been formally made.
A cap proposal has seemed likely for more than a year now, but many in the industry expected a Tucker signing would galvanize owners. Two other ownership sources took a softer approach, positioning the Tucker deal as validation of their longstanding positions: that revenue and payroll disparity in baseball need change.
Coming off two straight World Series titles, the Dodgers project to again have a payroll over $400 million in 2026. Only three other teams are expected to be over $300 million. Two MLB teams based in Florida, the Miami Marlins and Tampa Bay Rays, project to be under $100 million.
Owners still have to determine what salary floor and ceiling they’re comfortable proposing, a discussion that’s expected to be a topic at next month’s regularly scheduled owners meeting. The floor, in particular, could be a contentious issue for smaller-market teams, some of which might stand to make more money on an operational basis in the current system. The value of all 30 franchises would instantly rise if a cap is introduced, however.
It would take at least eight owners of 30 to effectively hold up a labor deal, but when it comes to a cap, internal politics will not be the owners’ biggest hurdle. Players have historically been willing to miss many games to avoid a cap system.
“We just completed one of the greatest seasons in MLB history, with unprecedented fan interest and revenues,” union head Tony Clark said in a statement. “While the free-agent market is far from over, it is gratifying to see players at all levels being rewarded for their incredible accomplishments by those clubs that are trying to win without excuses.”
Manfred has tried to walk a fine line publicly both when addressing the Dodgers as well as when speaking on the possibility of a cap proposal.
“I admire what the Dodger organization has done on both sides of the house,” Manfred said in his most recent public comments on the team, in an interview with WFAN in New York this month. “They’ve done a phenomenal job on the revenue side, and they’ve made great baseball decisions. And, you know, getting those two together is harder than you think. And everything they’ve done (has been) completely within the rules.”
The interviewer, Craig Carton, suggested to Manfred that MLB was better off with villains like the Dodgers.
“A large market, like the Dodgers, does drive your business. Whether you say ‘large-market villain,’ whatever, a team that’s winning a lot can drive the market,” Manfred said. “I think the advantage baseball has is it’s a very random sport. The chances of stringing that many (titles) together I think are fairly limited.
“But I do get concerned. We try to listen to our fans, and we do hear from fans in a lot of markets that, ‘Gee whiz, when we look at the resources they have compared to the resources that are available in our market, we don’t feel like it’s quite a fair shake,’ and that’s an issue we’re going to have to deal with.”
Negotiations between players and owners over the next collective bargaining agreement are likely to begin early in the upcoming regular season. The current deal expires in December, when a lockout is likely to begin.
In that radio interview, Manfred criticized Clark and the union for ruling out a cap proposal even before negotiations begin. Top player agent Scott Boras thinks that MLB’s focus should be on media rights deals, where he believes the league has fallen short.
“The Dodgers are not a system issue,” Boras said in a statement. “They are the benefactors of acquiring Shohei Ohtani, MLB’s astatine. Short-lived and rare. No other player offers such past or present. Ohtani is the genius of elite performance and additional revenue streams of near $250 million annually for a short window of history.
“The process of acquiring Ohtani was one of fairness and equal opportunity throughout the league,” Boras continued. “A rare, short-lived element is not a reason to alter the required anchored chemistry of MLB. The mandate of stability to gain media rights optimums is the true solution to league success.”
The biggest question seems to be not whether a cap proposal will be made, but which side caves on the matter first: do owners hold steady on such a proposal into a work stoppage that costs regular-season games in 2027? Do players cave? And how long does the staredown last?
Both sides will project strength, but little is likely to be decipherable until crunch time. During the 2021-22 lockout, a deal was reached in March ‘22, just in time to preserve a full 162-game slate.
