Life has its ironies, I suppose.
The looming Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations (CBA) coming this off-season is entirely driven by the owner’s firm stance that the sport adopt a hard Salary cap. Among other reasons for wanting the cap that are mostly self-serving (cost certainty, saving money at the expense of players, protecting the owners from themselves, and increasing franchise values), the one big thing they continually intone is this:
A salary Cap will lead to better parity in the sport and competitive balance.
Unfortunately for the owners, the 2026 playoffs field doesn’t entirely support this narrative, nor has it really been supported for some time. Here’s the four remaining teams and their 2026 Opening day salary ranks:
- Los Angeles Dodgers: $420M, 1st
- Milwaukee Brewers: $139M, 22nd
- Tampa Bay Rays: $112M, 27th
- Cleveland Indians: $88M, 29th
You may say, “well, most of the big payroll clubs made the playoffs” and I’d have to agree: of the 10 biggest spenders this season (9 of whom would be over the proposed salary cap), 7 of them made the playoffs. Of course, most of them were wild cards who barely scraped into the playoffs and were one-and-done: i’m sure Boston (6th highest payroll) and Philly (5th highest payroll) were super happy with their 2-0 wild-card losses for all that money spent, but at least they’re not the Mets ($379M, 2nd highest payroll, last place in the NL East) or Toronto ($322M 4th highest payroll, last in the AL East).
I suppose it all comes down to your definition of “parity.” Is parity defined by having lots of your league advancing into the playoffs, or by the variety of teams WINNING the league? Here’s some quick facts for the four major sports leagues, using some short-term and some longer term numbers:
In the last 5 seasons:
- MLB: 26/30 teams have made playoffs (our own Washington Nationals of course is one of those 4 left out)
- NFL: 25/32 teams have made the playoffs
- NBA: 30/30 have made playoffs
- NHL: 32/32 teams have made playoffs.
Number of teams per league who qualify for the playoffs:
- MLB:12 of 30
- NFL: 14 of 32
- NBA: 16 of 30
- NHL: 16 of 32
So, despite having the fewest teams qualifying for the playoffs each season, MLB has a higher percentage of their teams making the playoffs as of late, and that’s with the recent wild card expansion rules. The NBA and NHL qualify so many teams tot heir playoffs that you’d have to be grossly incompetent to have missed them year over year. Meanwhile, the NFL’s schedule is purposely designed to drag every team to a .500 record, yet even given that fact there’s still a larger percentage of NFL teams who have not managed to get to the playoffs in the last 5 years, and that’s with a hard cap AND no guaranteed salaries.
Let’s look at a different method of parity measurement; the number of distinct league champions in the last 25 years:
- MLB: 16 different World Series winners
- NFL: 13 different Super Bowl winners
- NBA: 13 different NBA Finals winners
- NHL: 14 different Stanley Cup winners
So, MLB already has the most parity amongst its title winners amongst the 4 major sports this century, even given the 3 titles the Dodgers have in the last few seasons.
So, Frankly, I hope the league gets Milwaukee vs Tampa Bay in the World Series, because it’d be the World Series they deserve.
Challenge: can you, right now without looking at Baseball-Reference.com, name me a single player on Tampa’s starting lineup? Can you name me any of their starting rotation? This team won 98 games and I couldn’t have told you a soul on the team before looking them up. Do you know who their highest paid player is? Had to look that up too: Its Yandy Diaz, in the last year of a 3yr/$24M deal that bought out his arb seasons.
At least Milwaukee has some known names … at least known if you’re a prospect watcher, since they’re loaded with 1st rounders and former top-5 prospects in the game after a great stretch of farm development. Chourio, Turang, Mitchell, Frelick, Misiorowski; these are all home grown major IFAs or 1st/2nd rounders. Same with Cleveland; they’re starting upper round picks DeLaughter (from JMU!), Bazzana, Halpin, Kwon, Williams, Messick.
Both these teams did precisely what Houston did; bottom out, get a ton of talent in the draft, and get really good without a ton of payroll. But it takes years to do this, and a lot of losses, and you need a competent, progressive front office. None of that really sells with the owners driving the salary cap discussion.
So, unfortunately we should enjoy good baseball while we have it b/c a lockout is looming, and i’m predicting now game loss in 2027 for the first time since the 1994 season. Because the owners just can’t help themselves, attempting to kill the golden goose.