
The most common argument in recent years in Major League Baseball (MLB) has been regarding the lack of a salary cap in the league. There is currently not a salary cap in the MLB, nor has there ever been, despite how many teams would benefit from it. The MLB is aware of what kind of positive effect a cap would have on the league, but the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) will forever be against it due to the ability star players have in receiving some of the biggest contracts in the history of professional sports. The debate has taken place for years, but many believe there will never be a salary cap established in the league due to the agreement between the MLB and MLBPA made in the 1994 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) that ended a strike of players in the 1994 season. Despite this, the debate will remain one that is constantly analyzed, since the MLB is the only professional sports league in America without a salary cap. Due to the number of teams that are placed at a disadvantage  because of free spending in the MLB, compared to the small amount that actually benefit, it is clearly time for a salary cap in Major League Baseball. 

A salary cap is something that prevents teams from spending an outrageous amount of money in player salaries. Many ask why the MLB still does not have one, as the benefits of a salary cap are seen in other professional sports leagues around America, and there are not many disadvantages: “the reasons for having a salary cap overwhelm the reasons not to have one,” (Bryant). While most owners in the MLB support a cap, most players are strongly against it as it would  likely lower their levels of pay.

The reason many are in favor of a salary cap in Major League Baseball is because of the significant advantage that wealthier teams have over those playing in smaller markets. Regardless of a team’s success, the franchise’s market is very influential over its ability to spend in copious amounts. Since there is no salary cap, teams can spend as much as they please on star players, so teams in bigger markets often have more powerful rosters because they can go after bigger players. 

When referring to “big market teams” taking advantage of their higher level of revenue, the New York Yankees are normally the top team of reference. An example of the Yankees partaking in big spending is their signing of star hitter Mark Texiera in 2009. The Yankees gave the slugger a deal of 8 years, worth $180 million, one of the largest contracts in Major League history at the time and currently the 18th largest in MLB history (Bloom). This contract was even more significant as it came soon after the club signed pitcher CC Sabathia to a 7-year deal worth $161 million. The two contracts totaled $341 million, which is higher than many teams are able spend on their entire roster. In 2009, the Yankees had the highest payroll in the league at $201,449,289, nearly $70 million more than the second highest spending team and the average payroll in 2009 between all thirty Major League teams was $89,324,353.87 (Associated Press). Soon after the signings, Barry Bloom (MLB.com) reached out to Milwaukee Brewers’ owner Mark Attanasio to ask him his opinion on these signings and the lack of a salary cap in the MLB. Attanasio replied, “At the rate the Yankees are going, I’m not sure anyone can compete with them. Frankly, the sport might need a salary cap.” The Yankees are not in the wrong with their level of spending, as it is perfectly acceptable in the current system. There is a threshold on player spending, not a cap, and exceeding the threshold only results in higher taxes, which the large market teams are able to pay along with their large contracts. Attanasio addressed this by saying, “[The tax] doesn’t seem to stop them. But I do not blame the Yankees, I blame the system. The Yankees are playing within the rules of the system… You can’t blame the team so you have to change the system… I’m sure they’re working within their economics.” Along with Attanasio, Crane Kenney, a chairman for the Chicago Cubs, also agrees the system must change: “I have no problem with what they’ve done. They’ve done it within the confines of our agreement… they’ve got a $1.3 billion stadium coming online.” The statements from Attanasio and Kenney make it clear while some teams are clearly at a major advantage over others, they are playing fairly within an unfair system that must be fixed with a salary cap (Bloom). 

 The Major League Baseball season in 1994 ended abruptly on August 12, when MLB players went on strike in protest of the 1990 Collective Bargaining Agreement (Corcoran). The strike lasted 232 days, the longest work stoppage in any professional sport at the time, and caused over 900 games, the entire postseason, and the World Series to be cancelled. Most of the MLB’s owners had been striving to implement a salary cap in the league for years and, as their efforts failed, some owners began to collude against free agents to try and minimize spending in the 1985-87 seasons. The owners’ collusion was discovered and resulted in an immediate growth in player salaries which caused a sudden and clear gap between teams located in large markets versus those in small markets. Teams in larger markets became able to spend more than those in smaller ones, giving large-market teams an advantage in player spending, and eventually talent. Revenue-sharing became rather obvious to all at this time, but the owners and commissioners were adamant on including a salary cap into any new revenue-sharing proposal, “and it was that issue on which neither side would budge in 1994” (Corcoran). The 1990 CBA was set to expire in December of 1994, so the players decided to take a stand before the new one was implemented. The players went on strike expecting it to end the same way each of the seven previous work stoppages in the MLB had ended: with the owners caving first and giving in to the players’ wants. This particular situation, however, took a different path. 

The MLB’s owners surprised the MLBPA in 1994, by forming a unity between almost every owner in the league. The tables hypothetically turned against the players when it was discovered that many of the MLB’s owners were in agreement that they would rather cancel the rest of the 1994 season and the entire 1995 season before they would agree to continuing without a salary cap in the MLB. In December of 1994, the owners declared in impasse in the negotiations and established a salary cap (which never went into effect), as well as other major changes to the game when it came to salaries and free agency. Soon after the calendar flipped to 1995, the MLB’s owners announced games would be played with players from the minor leagues and non-union Independent leagues. 

Spring training games were played by the replacement players in 1995, to which the MLBPA, did not support. The players got the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) involved, and the NLRB found the salary cap implemented in 1994 was illegally imposed. The salary cap was retracted by the owners in February, but the players still did not return from strike. After the owners hired these new players for the exhibitions, the NLRB filed for injunction against the owners for unfair labor practices. This injunction was approved by US District Judge and future Supreme Court judge Sonia Sotomayor on March 31, 1995, and the players returned to the game less than a month later on April 25, 1995 (Corcoran).

Major League Baseball is the only professional sports league in America without a salary cap. This makes them unique from other leagues, such as the National Basketball Association (NBA). One of the NBA’s franchises, the Miami Heat, is based in Miami, Florida where there are no income tax laws (FindLaw). This is significant since, in 2011, the Heat became the Yankees of the NBA based on their spending by signing stars Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh. Each of these contracts given out by the Heat were incredibly pricey, and many wondered how they could sign all three. The lack of income tax in Florida made Miami able to offer the players contracts of less money than what was being offered to the stars from other teams (Engler). In total, there are seven states in the country that do not collect income tax: Florida, Alaska, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming (FindLaw). Major League Baseball has franchises in three of these states. Of the five MLB teams in these states, the Miami Marlins are the only one in a large market, and they showed off their ability to spend by signing Giancarlo Stanton to the biggest contract in MLB history of $325 million over 10 years. If a salary cap were established in the MLB, the Marlins, along with the Texas Rangers, Houston Astros, Seattle Mariners, and Tampa Bay Rays may be able to benefit similarly to how the Miami Heat did when signing their “Big Three.” This would cause a salary cap to be less effective, so if the MLB ever did establish a salary cap, they may have to include a clause to lower spending abilities for these franchises to even the playing field. So, while a salary cap would lead to evening the playing field in the MLB, there would still have to be certain fine print attributes that would give the cap its true benefit. 

Some argue for the establishment of a salary cap by using data from other leagues that do use the idea of a cap, or by using the opinions provided by executives around Major League Baseball. That said, the counterargument is also argued intensely, especially by the few franchises around the MLB that significantly benefit from the league’s lack of a ceiling. While many are in favor of a salary cap in Major League Baseball, there are many that are very content with the league the way it is and are very against a cap. In an article posted to Fox Sports “Why a Salary Cap is No Solution,” many alternatives are given that would help even the competition in the MLB, along with ideas on why salary caps are not as effective as some believe them to be. The article claims that it is not a salary cap that is needed, but rather a restructure of the MLB’s revenue-sharing model. It states that a higher percentage of net local revenues must be shared, and not necessarily used towards player salaries but rather recruiting academies around the world, higher quality scouting staffs, and higher quality minor league instruction. While it is true that a higher portion of revenue sharing could be spent on these things and positively affect the league, it is still inevitable that the larger market teams will be able to spend more on the results of what the shared revenue went to. Even if the Yankees share twice the amount of revenue than any other team, they are still in the heart of the biggest market in America. As the improved talent enters the league, the Yankees would still be able to pay the new players a significant amount more, and as more money is spent on better players, the team will begin to make more off merchandise, ticket sales, and overall direct revenue from the fanbase. 

Something that the Fox Sports article also states is that a hard cap would simply be “transferring wealth from millionaires (players) to billionaires (the owners)” (Foxsports). This is not completely true. While a salary cap would inevitably lead to a good deal of savings that the owners would be able to collect, the argument is not about profitability but rather to evenly spread the competition between teams. From the perspective of one that loves the game of baseball, I do not really care how rich any franchise owner is or how rich any player is. I enjoy following the mega deals handed out by clubs these days, and a hard cap would prevent that from continuing, but it would nearly completely even the playing field between every Major League team, leading to better competition in what actually matters, the game itself. I would rather see intense late inning games or stressful playoff races than I would Alex Rodriguez receive the second and third highest contracts in Major League history. While a hard cap would take some wealth away from players and give it to owners, that is no issue. The players and owners are all wealthy, to the extent their wealth reaches is irrelevant to me. A salary cap in baseball would cause the competition in the game to become significantly more even, which is something hopefully every baseball fan wants to see. 

Another counter to this salary cap is made in a CBS Sports article titled “No, baseball (still) doesn’t need a salary cap.” The article takes an interesting approach, as it points out the number of different champions the MLB and the NBA had in the ten years leading up to 2011. The NBA had only five champions over those ten years, and the MLB saw nine different teams win the title in that period. This statistic can be used to argue that a salary cap does not make play even, as the league without a cap saw nearly twice the number of champions over the same amount of time as a league with a cap, indicating the salary cap lacking MLB was more even than the NBA. What this article also mentions though, is the amount of non-playoff teams over the ten-year span examined above. Over those ten years, the MLB saw five teams with zero playoff appearances, while the NBA saw zero teams go without making the playoffs (Perry). 

The regular season in any sport determines which teams make the postseason, and the postseason is a much shorter time but does determine the eventual champion of the season. What we see when examining the number of championship teams in each league from 2001-2011 is that certain teams held a stronger reign in the NBA (the Lakers, 4 titles, and the Spurs, 3 titles), and that the MLB playoffs went slightly more evenly, with the Boston Red Sox being the only repeating champions. These statistics truly only illustrate the randomness that can come from baseball, especially in the postseason. The amount of non-playoff teams in each league from 2001-2011 is a very true and meaningful statistic when observing the competitiveness of each team in each league. The MLB’s regular season is 162 games, and the NBA’s is 82, so each league has quite a sample size to determine the deservingness of each team in reaching the postseason. Each league also features exactly 30 teams, making the sample sizes closer to even as possible. From 2001-2011, five MLB teams did not make the playoffs a single time, and each of these five teams were small spenders back in this time period. In the same span, every single team in the NBA reached the postseason at least once, which represents a relative evenness through the league due to the presence of a salary cap. If the MLB had established a salary cap, it would have been less likely to see the playoff droughts of those five teams, especially from my Baltimore Orioles, whose drought lasted from 1997 until 2012 (Perry).

It is commonly said by many that MLB’s owners will never come to an agreement with the MLBPA regarding a salary cap, and that the league will never see one. Thus, the debate may live on forever. That said, there are major changes that must be seen in the MLB, and a salary cap would take care of many problems in the league. The lack of competition that some teams bring can be seen in every professional sports league, regardless of if the league has a salary cap or not. But the MLB provides a lower amount of competition league wide compared to the NBA or National Football League, two leagues with salary caps. With the establishment of a salary cap, the MLB would see much tighter competition, which is something any fan of the game would love to see.
