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Over the offseason, the Los Angeles Dodgers caused a stir with a historic spending spree. As LA hoarded talent, MLB grew concerned about audience disengagement. Some fans of smaller market teams became disillusioned, believing that the 2025 season was a foregone conclusion because the Dodgers won the winter.
Every professional sports league strives for parity to keep fans engaged. While the NFL draft offers hope for fans of even the most dysfunctional teams, baseball’s luxury tax hasn’t quite had the same effect. And so, with the current collective bargaining agreement expiring after the 2026 season, rumblings of a potential MLB salary cap began.
The MLB Players Association ardently opposes a salary cap. But even if it somehow was instituted, would a cap address the league’s parity concerns? And just how serious are those concerns? MLB insider Ken Rosenthal pushed back on the idea that baseball suffers from a competitive balance problem.
“The sport has not been broken at any point. And it was not broken when the Dodgers were loading up… We’ve seen consistently over the years, small market teams compete at a high level,” Rosenthal explained.
How bad is MLB’s competitive balance problem?
To illustrate the issue, Rosenthal pointed to the Milwaukee Brewers, who own MLB’s best record. “This will be, if they get there, [the Brewers’] seventh playoff appearance in the past eight years,” Rosenthal noted.
“I’m not saying the economic system in the sport is perfect. But what I’m saying is, to suggest that the salary cap is the only answer? That is just simply absurd,” he added
Philadelphia Phillies' star Bryce Harper certainly agrees. The former MVP got into a heated confrontation with MLB commissioner Rob Manfred last month at the very mention of a salary cap.
As Rosenthal suggests, teams with lower payrolls have consistently reached the postseason. However, when it comes to the World Series, only one team outside the top 10 in payroll for that season won a championship in the last 10 years. In 2021, the Braves (11th-highest payroll) beat the Astros (third highest) in the Fall Classic, per Spotrac.
Five of the last 10 World Series winners boasted a top-five payroll for that season; the 2024 Dodgers (third), 2020 Dodgers (first), 2019 Nationals (fifth), 2018 Red Sox (first) and the 2016 Cubs (third).
However, four teams outside of the top 12 in payroll have reached the World Series in the last decade; the Diamondbacks in 2023 (21st), the Rays in 2020 (26th), Cleveland in 2016 (22nd) and the Mets in 2015 (13th).
The 2025 season offers additional hope for smaller market teams. Three of the six current division leaders fall outside the top 11 in payroll. The Astros are 12th in spending, the Tigers are 15th and the Brewers are 20th in team payroll.
