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Yes, Rosenthal is correct in that the absolute worst outcome of the coming CBA negotiations would be a walkout and cancelled games. If a salary cap becomes un-doable, then the owners need to pivot to other measures to keep the lesser revenue teams operating before calling for a cancelled season. That would be an example of the old “killing the goose that lays the golden eggs” comment.
A few exerpts from Rosenthal:
“The Tucker deal, which, even after deferrals, includes a record average annual value of $57.1 million, will further embolden commissioner Rob Manfred and all of the owners who want to push for a salary cap. But the coming labor hysteria also will obscure realities Manfred and Co. would prefer to ignore. The Dodgers not only outspend every team by a wide margin, but also outsmart and outperform them.”
“Too many clubs, large- and small-market alike, take a defeatist approach, preferring to lament, “baseball is broken,” rather than figure out how to prove it isn’t. ”
“No other team can win under such circumstances, you say? Consider the facts, starting with this: The Dodgers did not carry the game’s highest payroll last season. The New York Mets did, and failed to even make the playoffs.”
“Success builds upon success, and yes, money is a big part of it. But the Mets under owner Steve Cohen want to be the Dodgers, and can’t figure out how to do it. And what prevents other large-market clubs, in particular, from standing up to the bully?”
“The Athletic’s Keith Law last year rated the Dodgers’ farm system the third-best in the game. Not bad, considering they haven’t had a top-10 pick since 2006 or a top-five choice since 1993.The Dodgers spend heavily on scouting and R&D. But the domestic draft and international markets are capped, and still the Dodgers keep the young talent flowing, mostly through opportunistic selections at lower draft positions and forward-looking trades.”
“The Dodgers hold big advantages, sure. But they’re hellbent on winning, and their success does not stem solely from spending. Let’s see other teams compete as fervently, to the best their resources will allow. Then let’s have a conversation about the future of the sport.”
Let’s not forget that the Padres had the Dodgers on the ropes in 2024 playoffs but let them off the hook. The Blue Jays had the Dodgers beaten three times in Game 7 of the World Series last year but let them off the hook. Gave up a 9th inning HR, had a deep dive to LF that was inches from being the game winning hit, and had a play at the plate that was inches away from being the game winning run. If ANY of those things had happened we wouldn’t even be having this discussion right now.
Rosenthal is right in what MLB needs to do is to continue strenghtening the CBT. Make the taxes more punitive, make the loss of draft picks more punitive, make the revene sharing greater, create a salary floor, etc… Instead, the welfare owners are going to lead a revolt for a hard salary cap that could lead to a long lockout that threatens to ruin things for all parties.
Yeah, but they won both times. Overcoming adversity is what great teams do. In all likelihood, they’ll do it once more in ’26 and hang a 3-peat up on the board. They’re unquestionably the best baseball team I’ve seen since the Yankees of the mid to late 90’s. No other team comes anywhere close to possessing the talent and organizational system featured by the Dodgers.
“Instead, the welfare owners will lead a revolt for a hard cap….”
Players and owners are both getting bloody rich, just by the rising tide. Why would either want a stoppage, or a hard cap?
Why would the have-not owners revolt against the big budgets that are lining their pockets? For the same reason they haven’t already?
Yeah, but they won both times. Overcoming adversity is what great teams do. In all likelihood, they’ll do it once more in ’26 and hang a 3-peat up on the board. They’re unquestionably the best baseball team I’ve seen since the Yankees of the mid to late 90’s. No other team comes anywhere close to possessing the talent and organizational system featured by the Dodgers.
If that is what it takes to keep the Cubs out of the World Series then I am fine with the three peat.
Players and owners are both getting bloody rich, just by the rising tide. Why would either want a stoppage, or a hard cap?
Why would the have-not owners revolt against the big budgets that are lining their pockets? For the same reason they haven’t already?
The players do not want a hard cap or any cap.
The small and mid market scrooges would rather cry foul about how the system is rigged instead of manning up and figuring out how to win games. This may comes as a surprise but some owners are more worried about the bottom line than winning championships.
I don’t hear the bottom20 mcScroog owners crying, or Bill. They’ve had plenty of time to plan their revolt, if they think they can do better. TBD.
Their fans are the ones taking the hit, by pretending to contend, or worse. It’s gotten old hasn’t it.
I don’t hear the bottom20 mcScroog owners crying, or Bill. They’ve had plenty of time to plan their revolt, if they think they can do better. TBD.
Who do you think is giving Manfred an earful about going for a salary cap in the next CBA?
The players? Nope. The MLBPA wants no part of a cap.
The large market owners of the Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, Phillies, Blue Jays, etc..? Nope. They aren’t afraid to spend money.
That only leaves the small and mid market owners. I think they realize that this spending gap makes them look bad so they want the commissioner to bail them out. That is probably why the Pirates have made a little spending splash this winter.
Personally I think the spending gap needs to be reined in but I think there is blame to go around. The large market teams have a complete disregard of the current penalties for overspending and the small market teams aren’t even trying to field a competitive team when they know they can get by on revenue sharing and 70 win seasons. This is where a salary floor would have to accompany a hard cap.
A large payroll certainly isn’t a free ticket to World Series as you do need to be smart about how you manage the team (see the Mets), but it certainly gives you a leg up as you can bring in elite talent more easily and retain talent. Only a couple of teams can afford to offer a player anywhere in the ball park of $60 million a year without having to make major costs on the rest of the roster. Some disparity is fine and honestly good for the sport, but the current luxury tax system isn’t creating enough disincentives to crossing the number if you have the financial ability. I would be fine without a hard cap if they can come up with better penalties that matter. A 10 draft pick spot isn’t that big of a deal if you go from 30 to 40 as same caliber of prospect is available in that range.
The Dodgers received $330 million from a TV contract per year while the Twins for example are at $42 million a year. I definitely expect the Dodgers to have a higher number and it is fine they do. But part of what makes it unique is the Dodgers when they were in bankruptcy in 2013 had a special deal cut out where the revenue sharing amount they pay would only be based off $84 million a year and not the actual $330 million number they receive. Other teams including the Twins have to pay into revenue sharing 48% of their local TV deal. For the Twins, that is ~$20 million meaning they get is paid into the revenue sharing. That revenue sharing is then put into a pool and divided evenly between all 30 teams and from my rough numbers that would have given each team a $32 million check. So the Twins would have netted $54 million from local TV + revenue sharing from local TV.
The Dodgers on other hand with their special exemption would have paid ~$40 million to the revenue sharing when without the exemption they would have paid $158 million a year for a net difference of $118 million extra for them to spend. If you take the extra amount they would have paid into the pool, each team would have gotten an extra $3.75 million.
So step 1 to adding more parity would be to immediately remove the Dodgers exemption on their revenue sharing number. MLB will never have full parity and honestly it would be boring if it did, but it is good for the sport if there is at least some competition. The Brewers, Twins, Guardians etc cannot financially go much higher unless their owners were willing to take large financial losses each year and bankrupt the teams. Teams like the Brewers have great management like the Dodgers, great prospect development like the Dodgers, but they are multiple levels back on financial stability and if you give them even the ability to run 1.5x their current payroll numbers they would likely be real contenders rather than a team getting to the playoffs with an early exit each year.
I agree, Albert. Tossing lots of money around won’t do the trick. You have to have good players along with a manager who’s capable of managing those players at the Big League level.
No, teams that throw a lot of money around do not always win but they are always at least in the conversation.
Teams with the ability to spend big and then spend / paper over mistakes & injuries are always simply one smart GM hire away from putting it all together.
There absolutely must be a salary cap, a salary floor, and an even more draconian luxury tax implemented in order to preserve any semblance of a level playing field and some sort of parity in MLB.
Even with those guardrails in place the teams that make the best decisions will be the teams that win the most; but ‘pay to win’ must be pretty much removed from the system. It’s too easy and too boring for the 80% of us that don’t root for teams that have virtually unlimited money to burn.
It’s a cop out to say “get better”. It starts and ends with resources. You have them, or not.
There is no-one to revolt except the fans. The big budget drunken sailor spending is carrying the league and its players. The have-nots won’t rock that boat.
Right now, baseball is a joke. Most of the teams are wasting their time and money trying. There must be a cap and the players will strike…Good. Let them stay out for a year or two until they accept a cap. After a couple of years most will be hurting and they’ll accept the cap and a high minimum, which is just as important. If baseball has trouble recovering…so what. Right now it is not even a sport if sport can be defined as evincing a competitive stance from all teams.
They quit caring about all that long ago Nate. Its a money making hustle for all of them. They will squabble over who gets how much of the pie, but they are not going to do anything that will shrink the pie. Just keep raising prices as long as the customers keep paying.
In looking at Forbes’ value of MLB teams, the MLB industry gained an average of 8% YoY in value, with teams averaging an operating income of $5.8 million.
Averages can be a bit deceiving as often there is a disparity in the data where the top group skews the numbers. It is a bit that way in MLB with the top 9 clubs comprising 50% of the total value, and the bottom 21 teams the remaining half. As an extreme example the most valuable team, the Yankees ($8.2 billion), are worth around 8 times as much as the least valuable Marlins ($1.05 billion). The median value, where the same number of teams are above and below the number, is $2.1 billion. Our club is just above that at $2.55 billion.
20 teams had positive operating income, and 10 teams lost money. The biggest loser is no surprise, the Mets ending up $268 million in the red. They are #6 in valuation, but have not been wise in their operations.
The average income as a percent of value was .3%. Our club was right at the average. The teams that make the most in terms of operating income as a percent of their value tend to be the lower value clubs, which makes sense. The Marlins, Pirates and Orioles were the top three.
Not sure if this adds much to our discussion of the state of the MLB industry, but it is a fact that some teams lost money. Besides the Mets some other losers were the Blue Jays at $60M, White Sox at $41M, and Rangers at $38M.
On the other end the Red Sox look to be in good financial shape. They are third in valuation at $4.8 billion and had the highest operating income in 2025 at $120 million. It will be interesting to see if that translates to a couple of deep playoff runs in the next few seasons.
The LAD clung to that 1988 Championship for over 30 years. They battled during the Pujols years just to beat us.
They changed ownership, with a new unlimited resources model, and have won three of the last six championships.
The evil empire model has the best results.
The Dodgers also brought in Andrew Friedman from the Rays. When you combine money and brains you have a good chance of winning.
The Mets have an owner with an estimated net worth of $21 Billion. Are you telling me he can’t match what the Dodgers are doing? Of course he can and he is trying to. His 40 man payroll is equal to that of the Dodgers and he brought in a small market PBO (David Stearns) to try to figure things out. So far that hasn’t worked because you have to be able to do a lot of things well besides write checks. I laugh when people claim the Dodgers are ruining baseball and they ignore the Mets. No one claimed the sky was falling when the Mets signed Lindor to a $32M per year deal, Soto to a $61M per year deal, and now Bichette to a $42M per year deal. The reason is because the Mets don’t win and the Dodgers do. People don’t resent your money when you don’t know how to use it.
The players are not going to strike next December but their will be an ownership lockout and it will be led by the small and mid market owners. You can count on that.
I agree with ATM and other comments that the CBT penalties need to be strengthened and a salary floor needs to implemented along with those penalties.
Being the best evil empire works for the fans of around 10 teams now, the rest are feeder clubs and pretenders.
When the W/L gets back in play, it’s easier to back burner the reality of trying to be the best of the rest.
Three minutes of clarity as to why the Dodgers have a unique financial advantage.
Dodger's TV deal and the financial advantage they have in the MLB. pic.twitter.com/FeZupRzm0Q
— Gordon Damer (@gordondamer) January 22, 2026
“Yes,” they did. To compare, the YES contract, which runs through 2042, reportedly pays the Yankees $143 million annually. As a side point, 49% of YES was sold to FOX.
So, NYY annually gets roughly 43% of the Dodgers’ $330 MM deal. Last season, the Cardinals were reportedly under $60 million of local TV revenue, before opting out. The actual may have been even less because of the missed payments.
Putting aside the actual numbers, the sheer magnitude of the differences and the long-term nature of the Dodgers’ deal help explain why they can do what they do with player contracts, both now and with deferred payments. It doesn’t seem that they are taking all that much risk.
Manfred has been talking about pooling local TV streaming when the next network contracts come up in 2028. Not surprisingly, the big boys want to be able to opt out.
The Dodgers definitely have an advantage having their own TV network, especially the way it was handled back when Frank McCourt was their owner and bungled his way almost into bankruptcy before being bailed out by the Guggenheim Group. That should never have been grandfathered in that way. It is my understanding that the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, and Cubs also own their own TV networks. While not as lucrative as the Dodger TV deal I am sure those teams are much much better off than a team like the Cardinals. I keep hearing Manfred say he is going to solve all of this in 2028. I will believe it when I see it.
In my opinion the most egregious thing the Dodgers do is the massively deferred contracts. Other teams are starting to copy them on that but it just seems to be a flagrant loophole to get around the CBT. Manfred and MLB should focus on doing away away with deferrments instead of shutting down baseball on a salary cap that they already have in place.
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