The Issue of No Salary Cap in the MLB
February 12, 2021
The MLB is the only league of the big five sports associations in North America – NFL, NHL, MLS, NBA – to not have a salary cap. This move is constantly criticized by baseball fans and pundits alike. But why?
A salary cap, according to Wikipedia is “is an agreement or rule that places a limit on the amount of money that a team can spend on players’ salaries.” The main purpose of the salary cap is to prevent rich, big-market teams from gaining an unfair advantage over smaller teams by splurging on elite-caliber players to form an unbeatable dynasty. Eighty percent of the big five Northern American leagues, like the NFL for example, have a salary cap in place for this reason.
From this, one can extrapolate why the MLB faces so much heat over this. It allows its big-market teams, like the New York Yankees or the Los Angeles Dodgers, to build dominant super teams that easily crush their opposition en route to the coveted World Series trophy. One hundred million dollars plus payrolls have been around since 2001, and since then, out of the 19 World Series winners, 15 of them had a payroll exceeding $100 million, since free-agent stars demand big contracts.
Let’s look at the Los Angeles Dodgers, one of baseball’s big-market teams. After acquiring free-agent Trevor Bauer to bolster their rotation, the Los Angeles Dodgers will hold the MLB’s largest payroll this season, at $238 million dollars. Compare this to the team with the lowest projected payroll this season, the Cleveland Indians, who are projected to pay their players $36 million dollars this season. The Dodgers are able to spend over six times as much as Cleveland, which not only is crazy, but it also makes it nearly impossible to compete. The Dodgers have been in the playoffs every year since 2013, making the World Series three times, while the Indians have made it an impressive five times since then.
If the lack of a salary cap presents such an unfair advantage, then why hasn’t it been implemented? The reason is due to backlash by the MLB Players’ Union and Yankee’s ownership. They are strictly against a salary cap, as it would restrict players from making as much money as they possibly can. As a matter of fact, a lawsuit has been threatened if the MLB were to consider such actions.
What do you think? Should a salary cap be introduced into the MLB? Make sure to comment down below with your opinions.
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Sid D. • Oct 17, 2021 at 8:18 pm
A salary cap is needed, I live in a smaller market city and I no longer go to games because our team is not able to compete for the division title and are buried in the cellar by the all star break. The problem with the rising salaries produced without a salary cap is the cost of the big contracts are passed on to the fans. Eventually it will be too expensive to attend games, especially for families. For these reasons I will no longer be a baseball fan. I love football and it doesn’t take 4 hours for a game to be completed. The rising salaries can’t continue forever. Eventually baseball will fold up from lack of support. As it is — playoff games are no longer carried on the major networks.
Karl Chiang • Sep 2, 2021 at 7:53 am
As I am writing this the Dodgers are on their way to winning another back to back World Series. It was predestined after July deadline acquiring Trea Turner and Max Scherzer. Look at their roster and their payroll which even tops the Yankees at $270 million. They exceeded the luxury tax by a mile and said so what? The game of Baseball needs a salary cap like the other professional sports to make it fair or fans will continue to leave. Who wants to watch Dodgers win every year except people in LA? The Players Union is obviously stupid because only a few are getting the big contracts. If there is a salary cap the big teams like NYY and LAD will not be able to buy up every elite player which means they will have to go other teams who will still pay them well. Overall salaries will probably increase just as in the other professional leagues. I think they are getting poor legal representation. I will NOT watch the Dodgers win again this year or next year.
Samsf • Aug 30, 2021 at 10:00 pm
I absolutely think there need s to be a salary cap . We need fair competition across baseball not all teams have the luxury of getting free network money from have a large expansive population. If the players union cry’s about it let the players get paid 35 dollars an hour and see what they think the time of the 300 million dollar contracts needs to end . No player is worth it . Most of the players who do get these huge contracts seem to spend a vast amount of time on the DL . Just my opinion
John Mcdermott • Aug 24, 2021 at 7:07 am
Not having a salary cap is killing baseball and small market’s. There would be a big back lash at first from the players Union. And probably a big fall out from the fans if there was a strike. But it needs to be done for the future of the game. Small market’s like Pittsburgh have the fan base look at the Steelers put a completive team on field. Fans will come. A cap needs to be done !!
Robert Alexander • Jun 12, 2021 at 9:14 am
I am much in favor of a salary cap for the MLB. It would level the playing field, create more equitable competition, and mostly end the big market, small market financial gap. It would make the game better for all of the fans and not just for those rooting for big market teams.
Digital_Dawg95 • May 15, 2021 at 1:01 pm
I’m just going to state the obvious and say yes of course there should be some system in play where a professional sport such as baseball should have the opportunity of being an equal competitive sport. After all isn’t this America? Isn’t this why we love sports so much because anything could happen and the competitiveness of the such games? MLB, NFL, NBA, & NHL are all considered a sport. How could someone consider anything a sport that is almost predictable every time and knows what’s going to happen? Once upon a time when the sports were invented someone decided they’re going to make a little organization out of it and get people to play for entertainment so that the audience can watch in excitement. They made the rules of their sport and welcomed certain cities to build and name their team to compete under the sports rules. I’m sure when MLB was invented they didn’t think that a century later there would be greedy players with such amazing talents that only cared about money. I understand these players have families and could easily have career ending injuries, but with that being said the amount of money they make in one year even if they got injured would take care of their families for the rest of their lives. But I’m all for players making good money if people are willing to pay it for their team. I just believe that the lower market team should have the same amount of money to pay and have the same chance to woo the free agent so to speak to see if they want to come to that city. Free agency should be just as even and equal as the sport should be. Certain MLB players in the New York Yankees should be ashamed of themselves. This is why football in the NFL is America’s new pastime. No one wants to watch a baseball game when they already know it’s going to happen. And it will get worse and worse and attendance will too. I dug in a little deeper to do a little quick research and over the years little by little there’s a pattern of less and less people total attending games and less and less people watching on television. It just goes to show what I’m talking about. The whole reason why we watch sports is because of the competitive edge. After all isn’t this why we love America so much?