Another baseball season is on the horizon. But, the long-term health of the game is at the forefront of the commissioner's mind.
Rob Manfred appeared as a guest on 'The Show' podcast, and was asked about the disparity in club spending. His answer should delight fans in smaller markets.
"We do have the issue of competitive balance and revenue disparity," Manfred said. "I don't think anybody on the club side has made up their mind that a salary cap is necessarily the answer. We have, over a long period of time, avoided making a salary cap proposal, but there is one truism, that it's hard to ignore.
"There are arguably ... five major professional sports in North America. Four of them have one system. One of them has a different system. I'm sort of a believer in the idea that the majority eventually gets it right ... and when you're the outlier, you have to ask yourself the question of: does somebody else have this system right?"
The salary cap has long been a nonstarter for the MLB Players' Association, as attested by the long-term damage caused by the 1994-95 players' strike in which the World Series was cancelled. Any time the topic has come up, the MLBPA has been quick to vehemently shut it down.
"We're never going to agree to a cap," MLBPA director Tony Clark said earlier this year. "Let me start there. We don't have a cap. We're not going to agree to a cap. ... A salary cap is the ultimate restriction on player value and player salary. We believe in a market system."
The market system to which Clark is referring has long benefited larger markets, but that's become especially relevant in recent years. Despite the competitive balance tax (CBT), otherwise known as the luxury tax, seeing its highest increase in the latest collective bargaining agreement, the disparity in club spending is at an all-time high.
One the eve of the 2023 season, six teams -- the Mets, Yankees, Blue Jays, Phillies, Padres and Dodgers -- currently sit with CBT payrolls over the $233-million luxury tax threshold, according to Spotrac. The Braves sit just $1 million under the threshold, so any added spending throughout the season could put them over as well.
The Mets lead the charge with a massive $375.3-million payroll. The difference between them and bottom club, the Athletics, is an alarming $312.7 million. That number is more than the combined payroll of the bottom-four clubs: The A's, Orioles, Pirates and Reds. While Manfred addressed the positives of larger markets, and owners such as Steven Cohen, spending hundreds of millions of dollars every offseason, citing the excitement for fans in larger markets, he acknowledged the impact it has on markets that simply don't have the funds to keep up.
"The downside is, spending at that level, particularly at a level that kind of steps away from everybody else, emphasizes a problem ... that is that the disparity in the revenues that are generated in our markets produces a challenge in terms of competitive balance," Manfred said.
"It is a mistake to assume that the clubs or Major League Baseball are not more concerned about what happens in Cincinnati or Pittsburgh than we are about Steve Cohen. Steve Cohen did what he did, we're more concerned about making sure that we have a system where Cincinnati, Oakland, Pittsburgh can compete reasonably."
The latest CBA was ratified in March 2022, and won't expire until after the 2026 season. That may sound like the league has time to coax the players into a discussion about a cap system. However, anything of the sort needs to have already started. This isn't a typical issue that's collectively bargained. It's something that would drastically alter the landscape of the game.
What's more, just as the players have long been against a cap system, which includes a cap and floor, the owners have long been for the implementation of a cap. And, because of the owner-imposed lockout prior to the ratification of the current CBA, the league has had to go into damage control in terms of repairing its relationship with the players.
"We have a common interest with players," Manfred said. "That common interest is really fundamental. You put the best game possible -- and for me, that's always meant the most competitive game possible -- on the field."
Certainly, there's always a way for the owners and players to get on better terms. Manfred taking the initiative to do that is a step in the right direction. Whether or not that endeavor leads to a potential salary cap in baseball is a completely different story.
