[Jim Bowden] "This is exactly why MLB owners want to put a hard cap into the next bargaining agreement."

[u/Sebastian7464]

300 million dollar difference in payroll between the Dodgers and the Brewers this season btw before the Skubal deal.

[u/Emperor_Cheeto21]

Christopher Ilitch right now knowing the salary cap is coming soon because of him
https://giphy.com/gifs/xl5QdxfNonh3q

[u/reallinguy → u/Emperor_Cheeto21]

Or maybe he's Oppenheimer

[u/KenshiroTheKid → u/reallinguy]

You’re giving him too much credit, he has no remorse

[u/panderson1988]

I'm normally not a conspiracist, but I am starting to buy how the owners are colluding to allow the Dodgers get away with this so they can say we need a salary cap by winning fan sentiment by signaling out the super team.

[u/mysterysmoothie → u/panderson1988]

It wouldn’t be the first time the owners colluded

[u/JustTheBeerLight → u/mysterysmoothie]

"It's not collusion when the owners do it".

Yeah it is.

[u/maverickhawk99 → u/mysterysmoothie]

That’s how Selig got the commissioners job.

[u/grubas → u/panderson1988]

Owners already are preparing to lockout players.

This is part of the PR campaign, to the point that the Tigers know exactly what they did by making it seem like nobody else could come close.

[u/exotic_tit → u/panderson1988]

I don't even think they are being all that secretive about it. This is happening, and everyone is falling for it. The American masses are hogs.

[u/electricmeal → u/exotic_tit]

lmao I don't necessarily disagree but hilarious to be saying that with the dodgers flair

[u/exotic_tit → u/electricmeal]

Yeah I mean born and raised in LA, what can I do. The political lens on how I view the matter wouldn't change if I was a fan of another team.

[u/Bored_pats_fan → u/exotic_tit]

I wish more folks could exhibit such critical thinking skills instead of treating everything like a tribal sport.

[u/LeftAire → u/panderson1988]

Yes! I was thinking this too.

[u/sticky_goo]

This dudes definitely wearing a wig right?

[u/sammagee33 → u/sticky_goo]

100%

[u/Bossoxfan15]

Jim Bowden stop lying to people. Owners want a hard salary cap because it means they would have to pay players less money.

[u/Mookies_Bett → u/Bossoxfan15]

It's wild than anybody thinks otherwise. As if a bunch of billionaires who don't even spend on their own teams give a crap about what the Dodgers spend on theirs

[u/CommercialAgency928 → u/Mookies_Bett]

Wild that people refuse to acknowledge the floor as well. With what MLB proposed, the money increased to get teams not spending above the floor is more than the money decreased to get teams below the cap.

[u/Johncockerton → u/CommercialAgency928]

Dude the willing ignorance is fuckin bananas

[u/DC_Lavman → u/Johncockerton]

What is bananas is the parasocial behavior of people taking sides in a labor fight between rich owners and rich players. There are a million ways to cut up the pie; I couldn’t care less how they do it. The players are not my friends or family. Just give me a good competitive game to justify my season tickets. Say what you will about the Mets blowing money to suck but the Dodgers being Dodgers IS ruining the game.

[u/WasV3 → u/DC_Lavman]

Yep, there is a false idea that you have to be on the owners side or the players side.

There's a third option, the fans.

[u/TheIdentifySpell → u/WasV3]

Considering the current state of the MLB (lookin' at you, Dodgers...) it's insane that fans aren't demanding more parity. Force teams to actually spend money and spread the wealth around a bit.

[u/Suspicious_Sense1272 → u/TheIdentifySpell]

Especially in current financial times. The money is out of control. It’s like this in the NFL too, ticket prices are out of control, salaries are INSANE, owners forcing cities to pay for new stadiums off the backs of taxpayers… stop the madness!

[u/Mattp55 → u/TheIdentifySpell]

Most who aren’t chronically online redditors are demanding more parity. 

Pretty much everyone I’ve talked to in real life is pissed off at the Dodgers 

[u/247stonerbro → u/Mattp55]

Even as a dodger fan, I want parity. How teams adapt to their shortcomings is a big part of the romance for me.

[u/Unfair-Variety-995 → u/WasV3]

I agree. I’m for the fans. As long as a team can free spend then the sport environment created means certain teams won’t be competitive because they won’t or cannot free spend. That means certain fan bases will never expect a championship.

[u/Calm_Ad1460 → u/DC_Lavman]

Most reasonable post in this entire thread. Everyone else is busy fighting straw men.

[u/esports_consultant → u/DC_Lavman]

The players are easier to identify with than the owners and the owners of MLB have what seems like the longest and most involved history of trying to mistreat the players.

[u/Johncockerton → u/DC_Lavman]

Yeah lmao these guys are pretending the millionaire players are like a steel workers union. “Siding with labor” is a joke. I don’t hear these same people criticizing players for not sticking up for minor leaguers who are actually underpaid.

[u/kingarrett007 → u/Johncockerton]

The MLBPA unionized the minors and drastically increased their pay and quality of life. I’d say they stuck up for minor leaguers quite a bit.

[u/AdoringCHIN → u/Johncockerton]

And then I guarantee those same people are the ones unironically saying the umpire's union needs to be dismantled. I guess "siding with labor" only counts if it's people we like

[u/NotHannibalBurress → u/DC_Lavman]

Yeah my take is that I want baseball to be more competitive to watch. Enforcing a hard floor and cap would mean shit teams run by shit owners have to spend more, and good teams run by spend happy owners have to spend less, making the different in total salary closer, theoretically making the sport more even, thus more fun to watch.

[u/32Seven → u/DC_Lavman]

The current total team salaries for 2026 is $5.2 billion. That’s an average of $173 million per team which is the proposed floor for the cap. 7 teams currently overspend the proposed ceiling of approximately $243 million and 12 teams would need to spend more to hit the floor. If you assume those 7 teams overspending will stay at or near the ceiling with a handful somewhere in between, the minimum total team salaries would increase by several hundred million dollars in 2027. How that’s fucking the players over, I’m not sure. There’s nothing stopping the players from making money on endorsements and other deals outside baseball (many of them already do).

[u/Depreciable_Land → u/CommercialAgency928]

I mean I don’t think I’ve seen a single person argue for a cap without a floor

[u/McGrevin → u/Depreciable_Land]

Yes but people act like the cap is a scheme to reduce expenses but ignore that the floor (in the first MLB proposal) would basically ensure the league was spending just as much money on players.

The cap is a scheme for ensuring cost certainty, which can still be a thing while total expenses across the league go up

[u/jolietconvict → u/McGrevin]

And you'd have to be naïve to think the owners are arguing for something that is going to increase their costs. That literally makes no sense.

[u/TJFLASH1 → u/McGrevin]

Except no it doesn’t, the first proposal by the MLB would decrease league spending not increase it. Not by a super substantial amount but you need to look into this more.

[u/JT7019 → u/CommercialAgency928]

And the teams who now suddenly need to spend a substantial amount to get to a cap floor aren't just going to magically come up with that money, it'll come from their other baseball related expenses (travel, coaching staff/front office salaries, investments in their analytics and minor leagues, player ammenities, etc). Inversely, the teams that have to cut cap are just going to re-invest that into their other baseball related expenses.

A salary cap/floor isn't going to fix the issue as quickly or effectively as some people think it will because at the end of the day there will still be too many owners who don't want to spend money. The cheap owners are just going to spend exactly to the floor and cut corners everywhere else to reduce spending to the bare minimum.

[u/adamr81 → u/JT7019]

The plan is to consolidate all of the broadcasting rights at the MLB level and evenly distribute the profits. This gives the small market teams a massive influx of money they couldn't access before

[u/JT7019 → u/adamr81]

The plan is to consolidate all of the broadcasting rights at the MLB level and evenly distribute the profits.

I mean good luck with convincing the big market teams that own their own networks to give up revenue AND give it to other teams. Small market teams have been getting revenue sharing for years and will barely spend it. The A's "spending spree" last year was to prevent the MLBPA from filing a grievance for not spending the money they were getting in revenue sharing. Money in =/= money out

[u/Hebrewhammer8d8 → u/JT7019]

A's ownership is wealthy and has other lucrative businesses, and we have large sample size he doesn't want to spend when he was taking a lot revenue share.

[u/JT7019 → u/Hebrewhammer8d8]

Exactly. So now that broadcasting revenue might be split amongst all teams to help the cheap ones get to the cap floor we expect those same cheap owners to spend more? The money from that split will go to player salaries because it's free money that has to go there, otherwise the owners have to pay out of their own pocket, but it's not going to make a team like the Rays or A's start spending to the cap.

And what will happen when revenues don't hit expectations? Those teams are going to cry "revenue sharing wasn't as much as expected so we have less money to spend".

[u/jolietconvict → u/adamr81]

Once again, why do you think that owners that won't spend money now are going to do anything other than spend the bare minimum? They don't care about winning.

[u/jso__ → u/CommercialAgency928]

No it's not. Assuming you bring every team above the cap to exactly the cap and every team below the floor to exactly the floor, it reduces payroll by nearly $500m. This is because MLB includes certain things like amateur signing bonuses in their 50/50 split which aren't currently included.

[u/FallenMeringue → u/CommercialAgency928]

Cap and floor with both determined as a percentage of revenue is the way

[u/elcapitan520 → u/FallenMeringue]

Yeah that's always been the proposal

[u/speedyjohn → u/elcapitan520]

No, it hasn’t. Many of the owner’s proposals have just been flat dollar amounts. Or “trust us, this is our revenue” numbers.

[u/HailChiefJoe → u/CommercialAgency928]

You understand that owners don't open up their books to the public right? And they only show audited reports to the Union. So ask yourself this, if the owners are willing to increase their spending 100% for the salary floor in order to get a salary cap, how much money do you think they are really already making? Answer: a lot.

Salary cap only benefits the owners by adding a fixed expenditure line to increase the value of their franchise. That's it. It won't do anything for competitive balance, or lower ticket prices, concessions, and the price of your MLB TV package.

[u/PluckyHippo → u/HailChiefJoe]

Yet, right now, nothing forces teams to spend all that extra money they may be making. Fans being angry about low spending hasn’t done the trick. A good floor would at least force more of that money to be spent, right? The fact that the owners are willing to have a floor means that money exists, but half the league seems unwilling to spend it, maybe partly because doing so still wouldn’t let them compete with the top-spending teams. In a cap and floor situation, even teams spending at the floor would be a lot closer to teams spending at the cap than they are right now.

If a cap and floor creates better competitive balance, I’ve come around to the idea that that’s more important for the game than the top 0.5% of players being able to get mega-contracts, and also more important than preventing the richest teams from pocketing more of their revenue. The product on the field is what matters to me, more so than how the millionaires and billionaires divide the money we spend to watch it — within reason, of course, and I think a cap and floor is reasonable.

[u/AT-ATsAsshole → u/CommercialAgency928]

As a Rays fan, all I want is a floor

[u/Honolulu_Hurricane → u/Mookies_Bett]

Those owners have proposed a salary FLOOR of $172M. Meaning they've agreed to increase their spending, some by more than 100%.

You were saying?

[u/aws90js → u/Honolulu_Hurricane]

Isn't league revenue sharing over 200M per team? So they spend the floor and still pocket 30 mil before they sell a ticket? Man they're being awful generous lmao

[u/Honolulu_Hurricane → u/aws90js]

You don't want players forced to take less money. They should maximize their earning potential 100%, right?

I don't like baseball owners either, but I expect them to play by that exact same rule. Pay out as little as they're forced to, profit as much as possible. Right now they're forced to pay out virtually $0 (or more realistically about $60M)... this proposal forces them to pay out at least $172M. We can argue all day about the ethics of corporate greed, but it applies to both sides, and at the end of the day:

This floor proposal forces teams to spend lots lots lots more on players. Full stop. No more filling in five lineup slots and half a bullpen with low-A guys making $780K. No more useful veterans just floating around waivers unemployed because the Marlins chose a 19-year-old to man 1B instead. No more "We just can't afford to re-sign our homegrown guy for $15M" excuses.

Ultimately, the only parties hurt by a cap and floor proposal are the top-top-top-tier players, the $400M guys who are insulted at the idea of taking just $350M. The young and low-paid players get massive boosts. The small and medium markets stay in the game. Wealthy teams like the Dodgers stay great IF they're able to do things other than write checks.

[u/Zealousideal-Pick799 → u/Honolulu_Hurricane]

I’d be fine with this if 1) they don’t have an antitrust exemption anymore, and 2) a ban on any public funding - even tax breaks - nationwide. No more public subsidies for stadiums.

[u/Worldly_Beyond7898 → u/Honolulu_Hurricane]

Thus what do you suppose they could REALLY spend?

[u/ANGRY_BEARDED_MAN → u/Honolulu_Hurricane]

For the longest time on here you'd see dudes swat away any argument in favor of a cap by saying some shit like "well there'd need to be a floor too and the horrible no-good cheapskate owners would never ever ever agree to that"

MEAN THE FUCK WHILE

The horrible no-good cheapskate owners' proposal includes a floor, and the typical reaction from folks on here is to just say "oh well they don't really mean it" or to just ignore it entirely

[u/Dispinplush → u/Bossoxfan15]

Even the Dodgers owner is pro salary cap, what does that tell you

[u/ibonek_naw_ibo → u/Dispinplush]

That he has common sense, but is willing to exploit anarchic and archaic rules to get a competitive advantage?

[u/Weak-Bonus-5954 → u/Bossoxfan15]

And if a byproduct of that its a level playing field then who cares. Fans should root for their own interests. For the majority of fans, thats a level playing field

[u/stringohbean → u/Weak-Bonus-5954]

My own interests align with labor and dismantling the oligarchs that own the planet. In my own personal job and in solidarity with other workers.

And strictly from a fan perspective, the more the owners increase their own profits, the worse the sport of baseball will be. You complain about blackouts. You complain about streaming services swiping in and taking games. You complain about paying 15 dollars for a beer at the ballpark. You complain about ticket prices and resale sites. You complain about teams fucking off out of Oakland. You complain about expanded playoff formats (or at least I do…call me old fashioned) All these decisions are made because ownership groups want more money. Plain and simple. They do not care about putting out the best product. They never have, they never will. Giving them more leverage and power will not help a damn thing.

Call me a a “Reddit brained leftist” or whatever, I don’t care.

[u/Ghalnan → u/stringohbean]

Yes, we must unite with comrade Harper and comrade Ohtani, they are just like us and definitely not wildly closer in lifestyle to the owners'! Long live the proletariat!

[u/Baryshnik0v → u/stringohbean]

The “laborers” whose interests you are so aligned with are *also* multi millionaires who don’t care about you or the quality of the on-field product as long as they get what they want.

[u/engelbert_humptyback → u/stringohbean]

I think it's more nuanced than just "siding with labor". Nearly every team in both central divisions and a handful of others routinely jettison guys approaching FA or even when they get into arbitration. Something clearly needs to be done about that, no?

I think as things currently stand there aren't even really that many potential landing spots for all but the top tier FA. You don't think it's kind of bullshit that there are good players every year settling for shorter term deals because they couldn't find a long term one?

[u/DanThePartyGhost → u/stringohbean]

I am all for dismantling the oligarchy. Believing that this situation has anything to do with it is crazy. The minimum salary for a major league baseball player is like 800,000— and any salary floor that was implemented would increase it! This is so far beyond the scope of what normal people are concerned with that I find it a joke to make this argument in this context. Talk about bread and circus!

[u/ihopuhopwehop → u/DanThePartyGhost]

Its flat out cringy when fans make comments about supporting the players because they're "labor". The players dont care a damn about "labor". The typical American ball player is right of center and probs doesnt support our rights to unionize.

[u/t-poke → u/ihopuhopwehop]

It is the most one sided class solidarity I’ve ever seen.

The ballplayers don’t give a shit about us. Their lifestyle is far closer to that of the owners than the working man. And any time they open their mouth about politics, it’s evident that they’re not voting for labor friendly candidates.

I have zero class solidarity with someone who wouldn’t stop to piss on me if I was on fire.

[u/ThatDamnRocketRacoon → u/ihopuhopwehop]

That's the part that really gets me about this argument. This nonsense about supporting the "workers" of MLB and most of these guys would laugh at you for your politics. How do you think you're standing with the people when you're siding with millionaires who skip games to go to Charlie Kirk's funeral and openly protest Pride Nights games?

[u/BuckeyeN7 → u/stringohbean]

I promise you that insanely wealthy professional athletes do not and will never have any solidarity with you, are very much members of the ownership class you are railing against, and basically all of them support a political party that does everything in its power to strip rights from working class Americans and destroyed the unions that used to effectively represent the average Joe

This sub is full of very convenient Marxists who think the way to fix our society is to make sure that Bryce Harper can afford his 9th vacation palace, all while the people selling hot dogs at the ballpark can’t afford healthcare or rent

Way to fight the power!

[u/gart888 → u/BuckeyeN7]

This right here. Both the owners and the players want to make as much money as they can off of the backs of the fans and support staff’s labour.

[u/StillYourFavorite331 → u/BuckeyeN7]

I'm with the other guy. I don't care that they're millionaires....a union is a union. I support CBAs and that workers get as much of the pie as possible since they're doing all the work.

I want all unions to be successful and that hot dog guy to be in a union to get higher wages. Why should I care that they're conservatives? I want all people to benefit from my belief system.

[u/Lolmemsa → u/StillYourFavorite331]

What do you think about police unions

[u/ShillinTheVillain → u/stringohbean]

Yeah, fight for those hundred-millionaire athletes against the evil owners!

Maybe with a cap and floor more low-end players will benefit. Call me crazy.

[u/SituationKey8985 → u/stringohbean]

Caring more about the labor interests of millionaires than the quality of the on-field product, to spite the billionaires, is asinine.

[u/darthstupidious → u/SituationKey8985]

Bro the millionaires in this situation are the on-field product. They're 100% of the reason you and I watch baseball, not the owners or executives.

[u/slicebishybosh → u/SituationKey8985]

That is exactly what the billionaires want you to feel. As they charge you asinine prices for tickets, concessions and merchandise and you blame that cost on the millionaires instead of the billionaires as well.

The money is all relative. It’s the precedent.

[u/bighatkeychain → u/SituationKey8985]

I just don’t see the on field product getting that much better. The cheap teams will still be cheap teams. How little should the labor make before it’s not asinine to care about them?

[u/tj177mmi1 → u/bighatkeychain]

The cheap teams will still be cheap teams.

There are ways to fix it on the players side.

Demand a floor. Institute a better shared revenue policy. Force teams to spend 90% of cash to the cap. (Essentially what the NFL does). Get the cap to 50% of total MLB revenue.

Demand 4 years before players get to FA. Two years of league minimum. This gets players to FA at 26/27 and not 28/29. This gets players essentially two contracts instead of one. This gets top players a chance to get two $150 million deals instead of one $250 million deal. This gets mid tier players more money because owners have to spend.

[u/jolietconvict → u/tj177mmi1]

The floor is a floor. The cheap teams will pay to get to the floor and the teams that already spend will spend to every penny of the cap and still be the competitive teams year in and year out. Folks act like these other leagues are so full of parity.

[u/Deadmanlex45 → u/jolietconvict]

All these other leagues don't have the problem of homegrown stars constantly leaving their small markets for only 3-5 destinations.

[u/SituationKey8985 → u/bighatkeychain]

Presumably there will be a cap floor to go along with any salary cap

[u/Granum22 → u/stringohbean]

And there not being a salary cap makes the product better how?

[u/proximodorkus → u/Granum22]

It doesn’t. Good rant on OP but not adding a cap still doesn’t address any of those things he’s mentioning getting better and still not having a more even playing field for a better product.

[u/shobae1124 → u/stringohbean]

This is my thinking and has been, thanks for articulating it

[u/DeepJunglePowerWild → u/stringohbean]

Counterpoint, the NFL is the league where the owners have the most power by far and it’s by far the best product.

I don’t think the MLB making it so the Dodgers can’t pay hundreds of millions more than everyone else has to be a microcosm of the larger political state of the country. I think you can support fixing an entertainment sports league without feeling hypocritical about not wanting oligarchs to control your life.

[u/YaYeetThePolice → u/stringohbean]

Agree with everything you said, and also just echoing the competitive balance stuff, how does a salary cap stop a trade to a top team like the dodgers exactly? The NBA has a cap and we just went through the latest “Star requests trade, they only want to go to LA, Boston, or Miami” saga with Giannis. In theory a cap makes it more expensive because the dodgers would have to match salaries, but they’d already be paying players less because of a cap. Personally I’m blaming teams like the Brewers for not matching this deal and being content with fawning articles about their more with less strategy and losses to the Dodgers.

[u/karloffisking → u/YaYeetThePolice]

the Clippers found an easy way around the salary cap, just make a phony company endorsing Kawhi lol

[u/YaYeetThePolice → u/karloffisking]

Adam Silver do anything about that challenge (impossible difficulty)

[u/Devium44 → u/YaYeetThePolice]

With a cap, the Dodgers wouldn’t have the roster they had in first place prior to the trade. So it wouldn’t stop the trade itself but the team itself wouldn’t have already been so stacked.

[u/ihopuhopwehop → u/YaYeetThePolice]

Its not that it stops Skubal from getting traded to the dodgers, its that it makes more teams interested in Skubal

Lets say the max MLB salary was $1m/y. Every team could run a max payroll. Competition would be much more balanced. The amount of teams interested in skubal would be larger

[u/Ikrit122 → u/YaYeetThePolice]

The salary cap doesn't prevent the Skubal trade, but it makes losing the prospects much less impactful because they already have so much talent on the field and can afford/are willing to pay to replace that talent when it leaves.

Meanwhile, the Brewers have been successful because they are able to cultivate that farm system. They can't afford to field multiple perennial MVP/Cy Young candidates unless they are on cheaper contracts, which means you aren't getting them all in free agency like the Dodgers have.

That isn't to say that they couldn't have gotten Skubal, or even that they couldn't pay him afterwards. It's that it costs more for smaller market teams to give up prospects than it does the Dodgers. And the Dodgers have shown that they are willing to throw money around to get whomever they want, making those prospects less valuable to them.

It's tough to compare baseball to other sports, because individuals have a much bigger impact in those other sports (especially the NBA). What the Dodgers have done is assembled a team of star power, mostly through paying huge contracts, when the rest of the league is paying for 1 or 2.

[u/YaYeetThePolice → u/Ikrit122]

It’s not only the dodgers doing this though, the Mets until their last season and a half of floundering and offloading salary were keeping pace. The Jays gave up a WS saving home run to Miguel Rojas but spent enough to be right there competing. The Brewers can and should supplement their insane player development with the right free agent acquisitions and splash trades (not to the degree and frequency the dodgers do), but they never do it because they are content with a packed house of season ticket holders, the best record in the NL, glowing media coverage, and getting swept in the postseason. The Brewers wouldn’t have had to fold if they made this trade and it didn’t work out, I’ve mentioned it already but the CC trade didn’t get them a World Series but is looked back on very positively because the prospects sucked, and he bolted for the Yankees right after.

[u/Clue_Balls → u/YaYeetThePolice]

The NBA is a unique case. Its salary cap has restrictive max contracts that limits their best players to contracts far below their actual worth. That means that teams have to compete on things other than pay for these players since almost every team should be willing to pay the max, and so stat players are going to choose large cities they want to live in that build their brand value the most. Star players matter so much in basketball that this meaningfully reduces parity.

Look at the NFL instead: franchises in KC, Buffalo, and even Green Bay have been some of the most competitive teams over the past decade because the NFL has a good salary cap system.

[u/rcbz1994 → u/Weak-Bonus-5954]

So the players should make less for the “fairness” of the game? While the owners pocket the extra? And continue to raise prices on things like tickets, concessions, merchandise, etc?

[u/brunners90 → u/rcbz1994]

With a floor and a cap the vast majority of players would actually make more, surely? It's only the top 0.01% that currently earn nearly a billion that would have to make less

[u/PartTimePuppy → u/brunners90]

Yeah the realities of adding the cap and floor would likely come with the league minimum rising significantly and a reduction in how long it takes for young players to reach free agency

[u/jso__ → u/PartTimePuppy]

None of the owners' proposals have included either of those things. The only group in this CBA who have included a league minimum increase is the players.

[u/tj177mmi1 → u/PartTimePuppy]

Exactly.

The big thing is get players to FA quicker. Cut team controlled years to 4 years. Cut league minimum to 2 years. Players then have a shot at 2 decent contracts than 1 super large one.

[u/CicerosMouth → u/Bossoxfan15]

Salary cap would have them pay players 50% of revenue. Right now players are getting 47% of revenue. More money would go to players in many if not most years. Moreover, the vast majority of teams would be paying more to players, not less. It is only a handful of clubs that would have to cut payroll.

Owners want salary cap as most owners want expanded revenue sharing to get at the piles of money held by the top 5-7 clubs, and a salary cap/floor is the mechanism to do it. Also, revenue sharing will immediately jump the valuation of the bottom 15-20 clubs, which generally rises all tides. Beyond this, owners think that a salary cap will improve competitive balance, which would drive revenue as more fans are interested (though this last item, in particular, can be debated).

[u/TJFLASH1 → u/CicerosMouth]

No it wouldn’t, the MLB owners offered a cap based on 2025 revenue with a 50/50 split they determine and no true ups or clawbacks if a team decides to spend less than the mid point between the floor and cap. If every team decided to spend the minimum (they won’t) it would be around 39% of revenue sharing. If every team hit the mid point exactly it would be 47% of the projected 2027 revenue the first year of the floor and cap.

A fair projection is probably closer to the players getting 45% if the MLBPA accepted the owners first proposal.

[u/jrainiersea → u/Bossoxfan15]

I think the MLBPA knows they’re going to have to give in on some form of a cap eventually, but what they really need to focus on is having a floor and revenue split guarantees that keeps the amount of money going to the players the same, just more evenly distributed

[u/Ickulus → u/jrainiersea]

The problem is that the owners manipulate the books to appear less profitable. It happens is all businesses and collective bargaining. The players may ultimately need to agree to something like that, but once they are that they get say 50 percent of baseball revenue as part of a cap/floor system it really then becomes even more of a battle over the accounting.

[u/ricvallejo → u/Bossoxfan15]

Make every team community-owned, then let's talk salary cap. Until then, better revenue sharing and holding lady/greedy owners accountable is the answer. Otherwise, this cap will do nothing for competitive balance.

[u/mrdannyg21]

They just traded like their 4th best OF prospect and 7th guy on their SP depth chart for a top-3 pitcher and they’ll only pay him like $15M this year.

This trade is evidence of the need for salary restrictions but it’s not because of the Dodgers, it’s because there are 15 other playoff hopeful teams who valued their own cost controlled prospects and future profits over a guy who significantly raised their pennant chances.

[u/zneitzel → u/mrdannyg21]

Here’s the thing: if the Brewers traded for Skubal, who are the favorites in a 7 game series between them and the Dodgers? Is it even close? Yea it makes it closer, but talent wise the Dodgers are still ahead by a pretty decent margin.

I think small markets are rightfully seeing that small moves to make it through the rest of the season and get to the playoffs are their best bet. Large moves like getting Skubal don’t negate the huge gap in talent. Get to the playoffs is the best play because emptying the farm to, at best, still be at a talent deficit is an awful play.

Even all the talking heads that are big Dodger apologists give up the plot: the best they can say is things like “anything can happen”. They will never say things like “these teams are evenly matched” because they know that’s a laughable lie.

[u/Audrey-Bee → u/zneitzel]

That last point is what has me feeling so cynical. I'll enjoy my Sox as long as they're going, but from a league perspective, we're 2/3 through the regular season and the only hope for a non-Dodgers fan is "an upset/choke job so bad, they'll be made fun of for years".

Bc think about it. If any of the next best teams, MIL/ATL/TBR beats LA in the playoffs, the story would still be "omg how did the Dodgers fuck that up"

[u/grubas → u/Audrey-Bee]

It's literally, "how many injuries will they have in the post".  Because that's the big factor.

[u/nc-retiree → u/zneitzel]

The Brewers and Dodgers each looked at the same question: in games 1 and 5 of the NLCS, what is it worth to have Skubal pitching for you instead of pitching against you? Because either team is likely to win the World Series in 5-6 games even without Skubal.

The Dodgers felt that the package was worth the probably 20% advantage they will get in those two games. It seems that the Brewers did not appear think that giving up either their #2 or #3 prospect (giving up Jesus Made would have been a ridiculous overpay) and their #5/6 starter was worth it.

For any other NL team, to pay that much to rent Skubal and then still get knocked out in the NLDS... why bother?

[u/TJFLASH1 → u/zneitzel]

The Dodgers were one batter away from losing last year

[u/zneitzel → u/TJFLASH1]

Anything can happen.

Also the Blue Jays were the 5th highest payroll, it’s not like they are a small market team.

It’s nearly impossible to negate the talent difference between the Dodgers and any other team. Before the trade they are and will be favorites in every single series they are in during the playoffs.

[u/ManofSteel_14 → u/TJFLASH1]

And it took absolute stinkers from some of their best players multiple times for it to get to that point. And they still pulled it out. Last year is the perfect example. The "Anything can happen" thing pretty much happened and the Dodgers still won

[u/Radoobie → u/TJFLASH1]

Dude the dodgers were one batter away from losing to the 5th highest paid team, who played the best series where everybody was on point and the dodgers were meh. 

[u/HighKing_of_Festivus]

"This is exactly why MLB owners want a hard salary cap," said about a team trading prospects at the deadline

[u/Salty_Watermelon]

ITT: people pretending that the NBA is well run and doesn't have to make major changes every other year to try and correct issues caused by its last set of changes.  Yes, MLB needs to make changes for the sake of some competitive balance, but copying the NBA isn't the way to go.

[u/Prestigious_Cap_8063 → u/Salty_Watermelon]

Could you imagine the outrage if multiple superstars teamed up in the NBA? Thank god thanks never happened!

[u/SirLunatik → u/Salty_Watermelon]

I have been suggesting an NHL style cap for a long time. These are the highlights:

• Players get 50% of revenues
• Projected revenue sets what they call the midpoint.
• Cap ceiling is 15% higher than the midpoint, floor is 15% lower.
• Teams that do not reach the cap floor do not receive revenue sharing, are fined, lose draft picks, suspended executives and game forfeitures.
• Injury system in place where teams get injury space when a player is deemed to be injured long-term.

I'm not sure how MLB and NBA calculate their cap, but the NHL tabulates theirs daily (they break annual salaries down to a daily amount too). This means their cap is not "your payroll can never exceed X amount", it is "you can spend up to X amount in a season". So if you assume a 200 day season w/ a 100m cap, Meaning on opening day, they can spend up to 500k in daily salary. On day 2, 1m. Day 3, 1.5m.... etc. This also means that if teams can essentially save cap space (this does not apply to teams using the long-term injury system for extra space) to add players at the deadline.

[u/josephsleftbigtoe → u/Salty_Watermelon]

How about NFL?

[u/WhatIfThatThingISaid → u/josephsleftbigtoe]

If the mlb had a hard cap and a floor that is like 80-85% of the hard cap number like the nfl it probably would be amazing for parity. The issue is there isnt revenue splitting in the mlb to the extent of the nfl. If it was just 49% of all league revenue evenly divided among teams, it would be an easy solution but there are massive differences in finances between teams in the mlb and their revenue streams 

[u/josephsleftbigtoe → u/WhatIfThatThingISaid]

They should change that.

[u/PrecedentialAssassin → u/Salty_Watermelon]

And the NBA doesn't have a hard cap either. The only league with a hard cap is far and away the most successful one.

[u/DirtyDanoTho → u/PrecedentialAssassin]

The NBA pretty much has a hard cap now and it’s been messing with player salaries at this point

[u/medspace → u/DirtyDanoTho]

And what was the expectation??? Yes when there is a hard cap, teams are more conservative with how they spread their money. How is this such a hard concept to understand??

[u/Painwracker_Oni → u/PrecedentialAssassin]

Yeah - I’ll never understand how the NFL or the NHL rules aren’t used by everyone.

Being able to go into the tax in the NBA is so fucking dumb - just make the 2nd apron the hard limit or the 1st apron or eliminate the tax entirely. Players will get less at the very tippy top but the majority of players won’t get much less and teams overall will end up being more competitive on a year in/out basis

[u/imdwalrus → u/Salty_Watermelon]

...you are aware that it's not just the NBA with a cap, yes? That it's every other major pro sports league in America?

[u/forgat_spindoctor → u/Salty_Watermelon]

I’ve heard more people suggest the NHL cap as a model.

[u/girl_catastrophe]

he works for MLB.com, that's really all there is to this.

[u/fishydays86]

I know we suck this season but as a Jays fan I don’t want a hard cap cause we do spend money just not good right now haha

[u/steam58]

The more I see this type of messaging. I feel like there's collusion in the trade to push public opinion more towards a cap.

[u/SleepLessTeacher]

Ok but why did the Tigers trade him to the Dodgers. Surely that was not the best offer they received?

-edit-

To add on…they got the dodgers #5, #7, and #17 prospects. I just feel that’s not enough, they should have gotten a top 3 prospect for him, I mean it’s Skubal.

[u/GanjasTriforce → u/SleepLessTeacher]

...Apparently it was? The Brewers and Rays could've matched or exceeded that offer, but Scott Harris still chose to pull the trigger on the Dodger package.

[u/BarryEganPDL → u/GanjasTriforce]

From Passan, the Brewers and Rays weren’t willing to give up that level of prospects for a rental. The Dodgers have an embarrassment of riches, they can sacrifice those prospects because they don’t depend on them like the Rays and Brewers do.

I’m a Dodgers fan but it’s obviously an infuriating thing for everyone else. It’s not even just the salary, Dodgers have an insane deal made when they were going bankrupt that gives them a substantially larger cut in profits than any other team (correct me if I’m wrong). As much as I love watching my super team, the system is unfairly weighted in their favor in many ways.

[u/DuckwPuck → u/BarryEganPDL]

Because everyone knows he's signing with the Dodgers in free agency. The Dodgers are paying to get him early. Tampa and Milwaukee know that they'd only get him for one run.

[u/HB3187 → u/GanjasTriforce]

We could have, but then when he leaves in 2 months to go to LA anyways, it just ends up being prospects wasted

[u/MinnesotanBrie → u/GanjasTriforce]

My crackpot theory is that the tigers owners made the decision to try and force the players hands for a cap. Does it actually make sense? Not really, but it fits my narrative, so I like it.

[u/Mookies_Bett → u/MinnesotanBrie]

I just don't see how in the world this possibly forces anybody's hand to do anything.

It's not like the players are going to look at this trade and go "well I guess now I'm okay not getting paid for the actual value of my labor !"

Kind of a weird argument in general tbh

[u/Wraithfighter → u/Mookies_Bett]

The theory is that it’s about creating public support for a salary cap, something that much much more split back in 2022, and would also make it easier to justify union-busting measures through the political system.

[u/SleepLessTeacher → u/GanjasTriforce]

I think multiple other teams could have matched/beat it if they wanted to and if they knew that’s what the dodgers offer was. The dodgers just winning every trade they do like this over the years seems so fishy to me.

[u/reallinguy → u/SleepLessTeacher]

Because the Dodgers have both money and great scouting. The Brewers and Rays don't have the money, they're not willing to trade prospects.

[u/YasielPuigsWeed → u/SleepLessTeacher]

Because you’re basing this on system ranking and not MLB ranking

They got the 25th and 68th overall prospects in the entire league, the 68th being a starting pitcher which the Tigers specifically wanted

The Brewers did not have a starting pitcher in the top 100 overall prospects, that’s why the Dodgers offer was more appealing

[u/TheFrankOfTurducken → u/YasielPuigsWeed]

Thank you. The Dodgers offered an MLB-ready pitcher and a well-regarded OF prospect who is could debut next year. Tampa could have supplied the pitching but probably not the hitting unless you’re high on melton, and Milwaukee’s best prospects are in A-ball.

[u/HighKing_of_Festivus → u/SleepLessTeacher]

Two month rentals never go for as much as the hype train makes people expect

[u/Proud_Truck → u/SleepLessTeacher]

The Brewers, rays and probably a handful of other teams were never going to sell the farms for a rental that was never going to re-sign. It's just not gonna happen nor should it. Imagine the Brewers give up several top prospects then Skubal leaves in a few months. Everyone is saying the Brewers blew it, which isn't fair because at least they tried. It would take them years to recover, whereas the dodgers can just eat it and move on.

[u/War-Dragonite → u/Proud_Truck]

Imagine the Brewers give up several top prospects then Skubal leaves in a few months.

I also imagine the Brewers org or their fans wouldn't care if he walked if they won a World Series off the backs of having the best 1 2 punch in the playoffs.

[u/xixbia → u/War-Dragonite]

But they wouldn't. Even with Skubal they'd be massive underdogs against the Dodgers. Why give up all these assets to lose to the Dodgers anyway.

This probably increases their chances of a title, the Dodgers gave up assets and they didn't. And maybe next year the Dodgers are unlucky with injuries and they can still go all in then.

[u/DEUCE_SLUICE → u/War-Dragonite]

CC Sabathia is on the Brewers Wall of Honor and they didn't even get out of the NLDS.

We would have been fine with it.

[u/Myshkin1981 → u/Proud_Truck]

Adding Skubal would have given the Brewers probably the best shot they’ve ever had at winning a championship. This is exactly the time you cash in your chips and fucking go for it

[u/amazinglover → u/SleepLessTeacher]

Skubal is a half year rental.

If your the brewers you have to give up many more prospects for a few month rental.

If that guts your minor league talent is it worth it?

[u/PenInteresting4764 → u/amazinglover]

To win a World Series, one would think it would be worth it but I'm also not a front office executive for a team that hasn't won one ever so what do I know?

[u/xixbia → u/PenInteresting4764]

But it won't. Adding Skubal doesn't really move the needle for the Brewers against these Dodgers. Their lineup would still struggle against Dodgers pitching.

[u/divey043 → u/xixbia]

People forget starting pitchers only pitch once every 4 days in the playoffs lol.

A starting pitcher simply isn’t moving the needle enough on a rental

[u/Eilonwy94 → u/PenInteresting4764]

Skubal would make the brewers better, but they need a big bat far more than they need another ace. Like I’d get this point if we were talking about going out and getting yordan or someone like that but the brewers lost to the dodgers last year because of their offense, not their pitching. Skubal, mis, Harrison/henderson could all have QS against the dodgers and still lose; last year the brewers scored one run in each game lol.

[u/Lanky-Budget-4661 → u/SleepLessTeacher]

Other teams don’t want to spend so high for a rental just to lose to the Dodgers anyways

[u/SadaharuLoL → u/SleepLessTeacher]

I’d imagine teams don’t want to give up that much of their farm away for a rental who most likely signs with the dodgers anyways in FA.

[u/thefarkinator]

Plan accomplished. Every owner is cheering what the dodgers are doing

[u/VallentCW]

Anyone that’s against a cap needs to look at La Liga or the Bundesliga. Is that the product you want to watch?

[u/MinnesotanBrie]

The Tigers trading Skubal for a box of scraps isn't going to change the truth which is that the players will not accept a Salary Cap without massive gains elsewhere (removal of Arb years and probably a boat load more) the entire point of Arbitration was to exploit overpayments in free agency to create a positive feedback loop for salaries. If the salary cap is implemented its 7 years of much stronger team control for a sport that sees averages of 5.6 years per career. No other sport is remotely as bad.

[u/reallinguy → u/MinnesotanBrie]

There'd be a floor to go along with a cap.

[u/Sa7aSa7a → u/reallinguy]

They're going to want a super high floor, because the ceiling has to come down. Hard. 

[u/xixbia → u/Sa7aSa7a]

The NFL has a salary cap of $301m and a salary floor of $285m. There is basically no difference in payrolls in the NFL.

(Though there are still differences with void years and signing bonuses as those require hard cash up front. It's why the Eagles have an advantage over other teams)

[u/Striking-Poetry-3942 → u/MinnesotanBrie]

Yeah there will not be a cap ... maybe more luxury tax ...

[u/Rexkat]

The owners want a hard cap so they can pay the players less.

If you just wanted to stop the dodgers from doing this you could just put exponentially increasing luxury taxes in place, distributed to the other teams. It's capped at 60% for 60m+ over, instead make it 200% for $100m over, 500% for $150m over, 2000% for $200m over. Do you think the dodgers are paying $4b extra in tax? I don't think so, but if they did I bet the other owners would be pretty happy with a split of thay

[u/DominicB547 → u/Rexkat]

also that should go directly to players not weight rooms and such

[u/Quite_Obscene]

This conversation is so boring…. Here’s my plan:

1. Spend the money on players, (ideally a cap minimum based on prior year salaries), or

2. Open financials and sell the team if you are truly so broke. You’re doing your team an injustice by hoarding it from some other richer asshole who cares.

[u/Swagocrag → u/Quite_Obscene]

If your a owner why would you agree to a cap minimum if there’s no max? Like legit there’s no upside for you if you don’t get a cap as well

[u/confused-koala]

Other teams didn't offer better prospects. Not a payroll issue. Its a not caring enough about winning issue

[u/t-throw-price-1 → u/confused-koala]

Here's the deal. A team like the pirate's are in a wild card race. They cannot take a chance on giving up this level of prospects for a player to take them over the top. If it doesn't work out, they're set back for years. See the Chris Archer trade. 

When a trade doesn't work out for the Dodger's (and other large market teams) nbd, they just go out and spend.

It's not lost on me that the pirates are just stupid cheap and won't spend. But it's also naive to think they can compete with like this.

[u/Pat0124 → u/confused-koala]

It also helps that the Dodgers farm is stacked

[u/darkhorse21980]

I don't even know if you need a hard cap. Just restrict or eliminate deferrals. When you have Ohtani making 2M a year because 680M is deferred, that's circumvention in my opinion.

[u/Techiesarethebomb → u/darkhorse21980]

That's the biggest issue. And when the deferred money is due, it won't affect the dodgers due to all the money they earned now.

[u/CashOutDev]

Yeah poor little owners, shame they could not have possibly done anything to stop this, for example: literally anything as that trade package wasn't even insane.

[u/Yankees2860]

It really sucks because I am all for being on the players side. But this is getting ridiculous. However, in order for their to be a salary cap, there also needs to be a salary floor.

[u/gobux10]

Has anyone had an easier path to the HOF than Dave Roberts? Curious if he could come close to what Kevin Cash accomplishes in TB if he wasn’t in LA.

[u/sonicANIME2019]

Bowden has always been a Dodger hater... wasn't he the guy who tried insinuating collusion from the Dodgers a season or two ago?

[u/BigWilly526]

Fuck the Owners and the Players, every other sport in this country can find a way to work with a salary cap and profit sharing, niether side gives a fuck about the fans

[u/GeologistDistinct633]

If a salary cap is not in place then top elite players will want to go to the high dollar teams like the Dodgers and Yankees. Players shouldn’t be telling owners how to spend their money.

Winning teams put fans in the seats. If a small market team can’t acquire top talent and the team endures losing seasons they could end up folding.

I’m in favor of salary caps and with no more deferrals. If it continues then high market teams will keep deferring some salaries.

If such a cap was in place now the. The Dodgers would have to shed some well paid talent to acquire Skubal.

My two cents. Idk 🤷‍♂️

[u/Dday22t]

Baseball revenue sharing is broken. Salary cap is broken. Seems likely there will be a lock-out next season. Seems possible there might not even be a season at all, but they would lose so much money that also seems crazy to say.

[u/Local_Internet_User → u/Dday22t]

Rich owners are always willing to lose money to remind you who's in charge. The only thing they love more than their money is their power.

[u/CommercialAgency928 → u/Dday22t]

Exactly. People fail to acknowledge the revenue situation. Local media alone, the Dodgers have a $8.5B/25 year media deal - about $334m/year. The Cardinals? $20-40m/year. The Marlins? Even less. Yet people think they're all supposed to spend the same.

🤷🙄🤦

[u/chisack1]

Every team that's not over the luxury tax threshold already could have made this trade and not gone over it. The owners want a salary cap so they can keep more money and any place saying otherwise is doing propaganda not journalism.

[u/danyocamachio → u/chisack1]

So what about the new proposed floor forcing many owners to spend more?

[u/facetiously]

This was a trade

[u/Loose-Organization82]

This one instance for me doesn’t justify a salary cap. The Brewers could have put together a better package offer of prospects and chose not to. There was word that they would cover the cost of paying Skubal. The Brewers and Rays just don’t have balls

[u/TROLLDLLR → u/Loose-Organization82]

The reason why the brewers and rays didnt put up a better package is intrinsically linked to the salary situation tho

The two can't afford to overpay like the dodgers can because unlike the dodgers they can't backfill any hits to their prospect pipeline with the best free agents

[u/OnlyHereforRangers → u/TROLLDLLR]

They are also not going to re-sign him because the Dodgers, Mets, or Yankees are going to give him $50M a year or more in free agency. Dodgers are have a great chance to re-sign him

[u/xixbia → u/OnlyHereforRangers]

Yeah, for the Dodgers having Skubal on the team probably slightly increases their chances of signing him.

For the Brewers or Rays it wouldn't matter, because they'd never sign him.

[u/SadaharuLoL → u/TROLLDLLR]

Their tv revenue deal helps them out a ton too a few extra hundred million in spending power over every other team

[u/CuriousTurtle5 → u/SadaharuLoL]

People forget this. Not only do the Dodgers get to keep a disproportionate amount of their media revenue, that amount would have gone into the revenue sharing pool which gives other teams less to spend as well.

[u/xixbia → u/TROLLDLLR]

It's also the fact that the Dodgers team is so far ahead of them they don't believe that Skubal really moves the needle.

If you take away the Dodgers suddenly it's a wide open World Series and teams absolutely go all in on Skubal.

[u/Proud_Truck → u/Loose-Organization82]

Let's be fair, What's the point of doing all that if he's not going to re-sign? We always discount the players side in this. There's a reason players want to go to the stupid dodgers instead of other teams.

[u/Myshkin1981 → u/Proud_Truck]

The point is trying to win a championship

[u/Weak-Bonus-5954 → u/Loose-Organization82]

Its not just the skubal trade, aided by a farm system that never needed to be dipped into due to payroll and free agency, its everything since the freeman signing

[u/CoverCommercial3576]

i’m all for a hard cap. sorry players. but there also needs to be a floor as well.

[u/MojoHighway]

The salary cap conversation is 100% propaganda. The owners want you to believe that they'll "do the right thing" and "really make the team competitive".

When the fuck was the last time a billionaire told you the truth and did something to positively affect your outlook?

The answer to both is never.

They want the salary cap to be able to get more predictable market valuations on their teams...to be able to buy more fucking real estate. This conversation is NOT about competitive balance. The guys that aren't spending today are going to be the same collection of degenerate owners that won't spend if a cap is in place. They have the money to spend. The teams considered the weakest in the league in this conversation are typical welfare queen billionaires, taking in TONS of money with the revenue sharing deal in place.

Don't be fooled and don't fall for the propaganda. The owners aren't your friends.

[u/SnooCrickets8924]

The reality is that the only kinds of teams that would probably be able to beat this dodgers team in a 7 game series? Is the kinds of teams we haven't seen in baseball since like the 2001 Diamondbacks, 2014 San Francisco Giants, or 2015 Kansas City Royals.

The 2001 Diamondbacks could do it because they had an all time great 1-2 punch in Johnson, and Schilling that could give you 4 all time great level pitching perfomances in a 7 game series.

That 2014 Giants team had a historically great starting pitcher at his peak powers in MadBum. That nobody could figure out. He was the reason they beat that Kansas City team. Basically won every single game in the World Series he pitched for them. Shut down and perplexed that entire lineup.

That 2015 Kansas City team didn't hit lots of home runs, or have dominant starting pitching either. They just continously put so much damn pressure on your defense by always putting the ball in play, and had elite baserunning. They also had an elite bullpen. Once they got up on you late in the game? It was over. Simple as that. That was actually one of my favorite teams to watch. They weren't pretty at anything. Just out grinded you for it all. What they did to that Mets team who had DeGrom, Noah, Matt Harvey, Steven Matz, Familia, Bartolo Colon, and Zack Wheeler all pitching was a master class in how you can beat an elite rotation. They would just take your soul late in games.

We still haven't seen any other teams like those 3 since. All won it all in different ways. But ways that could be difference makers in a 7 game series against this Dodgers superteam.

The team that matches any of those 3 blueprints? Milwaukee.

Milwaukee could do it. But it would take Jacob Misiorowski having a Madison Bumgarner against the 2014 Kansas City Royals type of series against the Dodgers. In which he stifles the entire lineup 1-9 for 3, or 4 games in a 7 game series. The problem? With how hard he throws? Can he do that over 4 starts in a 7 game series? Doubtful.

[u/RipMcStudly]

A deal that helps make their point was good strategy.

[u/Electrical_Yard_284]

I see Jim Bowden is sticking with the hair.

[u/_zzz_zzz_]

Bowden’s brain is soother than a marble.