The facts don't support Players Association position that a salary cap system would be bad for MLB

If Bruce Meyer somehow is unsuccessful at transforming his interim position as executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association into a fulltime job, there’s no doubt what his next move ought to be: run for office.

Because if there’s any profession in which one can become successful by artful truth-twisting and occasionally venturing beyond, politics is the game.

Of course, nothing Meyer said about the value of a salary cap system in MLB was original when he met with the media Tuesday. It was the same garbage his predecessor, Tony Clark, chucked during the 2025 All-Star Game festivities. Clark subsequently resigned following an internal MLBPA investigation. Not sure his is an example to follow, but what is colloquially known as “the union” apparently only has one playbook when it comes to public discourse about a cap system.

With the league’s collective bargaining agreement set to expire in December -- and the possibility of a lockout looming that could consume the 2027 season -- MLB owners appear more determined than ever to follow the course set by the other major men’s leagues in the U.S. and Canada: installation of a cap system that includes a “floor” all teams must meet in terms of payroll and a limit that would prevent the wealthiest teams from buying the best players each time they’re available on the free agent market.

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This approach has accelerated the growth of the NFL, NBA and NHL in terms of revenue and popularity, and the franchise values of teams in those leagues. And because the cap systems are tied to each league’s collective revenues, with something on the order of a 50/50 split between owners and players, overall salaries have risen dramatically. MLB players reportedly receive 46 percent (or less) of revenues.

The NFL cap was $155 million just 10 years ago and will be $301 million this autumn, a 94 percent increase in just a decade. Total combined salary growth sits at 80 percent. That’s a much healthier growth rate than MLB salaries, which have gone from a combined $3.9 billion to $6.1 billion – a 56 percent increase – in the same period.

The MLBPA often hides behind the guarantees of their salaries as opposed to other sports. NFL contracts most often aren’t guaranteed in full, although signing bonuses are. NBA deals can be subject to “escrowing”, although most money withheld from players in recent years has been returned once it was assured that revenue was sufficient. However, in MLB, more than a third of players earned the league’s (relatively) paltry minimum salary in 2025, and essentially all of them were on one-year contracts. Even a guy like Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz, an All-Star twice in four seasons, is on a one-year deal for $800,000 this season.

The MLB minimum salary for 2026 is $780,000, at last no longer the worst figure among the four long-term big-league sports. But the NHL is jumping to $850,000 starting this autumn. In a recent CBA proposal that outlined a cap system, MLB offered to lift the baseball players minimum to more than $1 million. The union seemed unimpressed.

“We have a great game. Our game is in a great place overall,” Meyer said Tuesday. “We have record attendance, record ratings, worldwide interest, youth demographic coming back. We had a great season last year — great playoffs, great World Series, great WBC."

Let’s start with the first item, which is so preposterous it’s astounding it was said without a laugh track. In the 2025 season, a total of 71,409,522 attended MLB games during the regular season. That was up a massive seven fans per game from the year before. It still was down more than 8 million fans – about 3,300 per game – from the actual record set all the way back in 2007. I know: That 71 million was a record for the 2025 season. No 2025 season has ever done better!

When Meyer told the truth, even that contained the kind of spin you might see on a Mason Miller slider. A great World Series? Sure – for the Dodgers, who won for the second year in a row and third time this decade. A little less great for the Blue Jays, but they did enjoy winning the American League.

They are among the six largest markets in MLB. Of course they are. Because that’s who wins in baseball. Nearly every time. Since the year 2000, there have been three teams from outside the 15 largest metropolitan areas that have won World Series titles: the No. 23 Cardinals twice, the No. 31 Royals once.

The NBA has tied that in just the past half-dozen years: No. 41 Milwaukee, No. 19 Denver and No. 42 Oklahoma City. The NBA salary cap system is a bit different than those of the NHL and NFL, but with growing revenues and a change in the penalties for going over the cap, it has served to allow more superstar players to remain with their current teams and still be rewarded financially. In all, the NBA has had eight champions this century from outside the top 15 metro areas.

In the NHL, the total is 12 such winners this century, including the reigning champion Carolina Hurricanes, whose market is listed at No. 40. The NFL is the parity champion, in a sense, with 13 teams that properly might be called “small market” that have claimed Super Bowl titles.

In baseball, they try to present Houston as a small market any time the Astros win it, which happened in 2017 and 2022. The Houston metro area contains just short of 8 million people and ranks No. 5 in the U.S.

Meyer complained on the one hand about the presence of dynasties in capped sports; indeed the Chiefs won three Super Bowls and reached two others between 2019 and 2024. Kansas City, remember, is one of the smallest markets in major pro sports. In another instance, though, Meyer called a cap system “a form of subsidized mediocrity.” Well, which is it, then? Does it depend on who’s asking the question at the moment?

“The fact of the matter is: Baseball has better competitive balance than the cap sports,” Meyer said, choosing to define “balance” in a way no baseball fan in Cincinnati or Pittsburgh or Baltimore ever would consider – as no one with the slightest commitment to the truth would dare.

As Mark Feinsand of MLB.com pointed out, the beautifully run franchises at Tampa, Milwaukee and Cleveland have made 19 postseason appearances in the past decade. The Rays and Guardians turned that into one World Series appearance each, both defeats, and only five of those combined appearances even reached in the league championship series round.

Since 2016, only four of the 20 NLCS contestants were from outside the top 15 metro areas. The Dodgers were involved seven times in those 10 seasons. In the American League, it was three out of 20. In the NFL, the combined total was 23 out of 40 participants in the conference championships. So there’s your difference: 18 percent in MLB, 58 percent in the NFL. Anyone trying to assert there’s greater competitive balance in baseball either is delusional or trying very, very hard to delude you.

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There’s only one way to genuinely define competitive balance: If management doesn’t screw it up, does your team have a reasonable chance at the championship? NFL fans beyond the largest markets can look at the Chiefs, Tampa Bay Bucs, Indianapolis Colts, Baltimore Ravens and others for examples this century. NHL fans have the Las Vegas Knights, Tampa Bay Lightning and St. Louis Blues, among others. MLB fans can look back 10 years to the Royals, even farther to the two won by the Cardinals.

“We need to make sure that fans in markets at the beginning of the season have a realistic belief that their team has a chance to win,” commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters.

“I think that we need a system where fans, particularly in smaller markets, can have some hope that the players that are signed and developed by their organizations can actually stay there through free agency. And honestly, I think we need a system where there is a more robust free-agent market, so if you don't want to go to New York or Los Angeles, you have a realistic opportunity to get a viable free-agent contract.”

Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes was selected for his third All-Star Game in three seasons and appeared at the pre-game press conference event Monday. He was responding to a question when a reporter in the gathering could be overheard saying, “Just got the best interview of all time with Paul Skenes. Future Yankee.”

Skenes handled the situation well, later saying he wants to win in Pittsburgh. Because that’s where he is now. And maybe he’ll stay there if a cap system is introduced. But the last elite pitcher the Pirates drafted, Gerrit Cole, wound up with the Yankees. Blake Snell lasted five years in Tampa and now is with the Dodgers. Tarik Skubal has won two Cy Young Awards in Detroit, the No. 14 metro area, but he’s a free agent at the end of this season and widely expected to find another team able to spend in the $350 million range for his left arm and all that goes along with it.

The teams that see these players leave frequently are called cheap. It's lazy analysis, if we want to be so generous as to call it analysis. It’s instructive to do at least a little math. The Pirates earn an estimated $30 million from their local television contract and have a 2026 payroll of roughly $102 million, according to Spotrac. The Dodgers’ local TV deal is worth $334 million a year, and Spotrac places their adjusted payroll at $301 million.

See the difference?

It’s right there.

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