Will a possible MLB lockout in 2027 matter to you?

[OhioLawyerF5]

Originally Posted by ewokpelts

A salary cap CONTROLS COSTS for management/ownership.

Imagine you are a plumber. Apprentices get paid less than journeymen or foremen. In the current system, the shop can hire whoever they want as long as they are union. But imagine if the ownership had a salary cap? Now, he could choose to hire more Apprentices than journeymen to “be competitive”, but nothing is stopping him from raising his fee to clients.

IS THAT FAIR?

Holy apples to carburetors comparison, Batman!

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by ewokpelts

A salary cap CONTROLS COSTS for management/ownership.

Imagine you are a plumber. Apprentices get paid less than journeymen or foremen. In the current system, the shop can hire whoever they want as long as they are union. But imagine if the ownership had a salary cap? Now, he could choose to hire more Apprentices than journeymen to “be competitive”, but nothing is stopping him from raising his fee to clients.

IS THAT FAIR?

It's not an apples to apples comparison. The plumber's union treats all apprentices or journeymen as interchangeable, and they get paid fixed rates accordingly. The MLBPA and CBA-mandated salary arbitration treats all players as having different levels of skill with different values.

Without prevailing wage laws or labor unions, labor wages would drop -- there are too many illegal aliens willing to work under the table, etc.

Every plumber is a free-agent who can work anywhere they want, but only a small percentage of MLB players are free-agents in any given year. A true free-market in MLB would cause chaos in MLB and possibly cause salaries to drop -- there would be no artificial scarcity of labor driving prices up.

[JRX]

Lets see

NBA: Total Cap allocations 5.9B, avg 196M, range 139-242M
NFL: Total Cap allocations 8.9B, avg 279M, range 262-320M
NHL: Total Cap allocations 2.9B, avg 92M, range 80-107M
MLB: Total Tax + Payroll 6.3B, avg 212M, range 85-585M

Last time I checked only one sport has a severe payroll disparity among the teams and in every case pro athletes make a ton of money.

[Fenway55]

Originally Posted by ewokpelts

You can no pee in a bucket.

I am male!

All of nature is my urinal!!

Originally Posted by OhioLawyerF5

Holy apples to carburetors comparison, Batman!

Yeah I didn’t quite get the plumber analogy either….

[oldgoldy97]

Originally Posted by JRX

Lets see

NBA: Total Cap allocations 5.9B, avg 196M, range 139-242M
NFL: Total Cap allocations 8.9B, avg 279M, range 262-320M
NHL: Total Cap allocations 2.9B, avg 92M, range 80-107M
MLB: Total Tax + Payroll 6.3B, avg 212M, range 85-585M

Last time I checked only one sport has a severe payroll disparity among the teams and in every case pro athletes make a ton of money.

The facts guys should love these.

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by oldgoldy97

The facts guys should love these.

We already know there's a huge disparity in player and team salaries in MLB versus the other leagues, which have salary caps.

Scott Boras and his clients have a lot of influence over the MLBPA, and they don't want a salary cap because it means certain players and their agents can't get crazy-high free-agent contracts. They are fine with the biggest market teams like the Dodgers and Yankees signing all the best free-agents. They are fine with the stark competitive imbalance in the game and the pay-to-play model.

Most of the MLBPA is made up of players getting paid the minimum. They would benefit the most from more equal distribution of salaries. But they aren't as influential in the union as the veterans.

[ewokpelts]

Originally Posted by Fenway55

I am male!

All of nature is my urinal!!
Yeah I didn’t quite get the plumber analogy either….

Ladies can squat on the bucket.

[ewokpelts]

Originally Posted by fabiani12333

We already know there's a huge disparity in player and team salaries in MLB versus the other leagues, which have salary caps.

Scott Boras and his clients have a lot of influence over the MLBPA, and they don't want a salary cap because it means certain players and their agents can't get crazy-high free-agent contracts. They are fine with the biggest market teams like the Dodgers and Yankees signing all the best free-agents. They are fine with the stark competitive imbalance in the game and the pay-to-play model.

Most of the MLBPA is made up of players getting paid the minimum. They would benefit the most from more equal distribution of salaries. But they aren't as influential in the union as the veterans.

Never mind boras charges less to represent players than most other agents.

[JRX]

Originally Posted by ewokpelts

Never mind boras charges less to represent players than most other agents.

The only benefit to the players from not having a cap is the star players will get more money. You have about 20 guys in the nba making 50M+, but if the NBA had no cap it would likely be fewer making that and a handful getting who knows, maybe 100M.

The 100th highest AAV in mlb is 8.3M, its 18M in nba. So without a cap, the 100th NBA likely makes less. Its basically a zero sum game as players will only get some x% of revenue. The key is to grow the overall pie and imo its easier to do if the league is more competitive. If one team can just buy everyone and win every year it will hurt long term.

[ewokpelts]

Originally Posted by JRX

The only benefit to the players from not having a cap is the star players will get more money. You have about 20 guys in the nba making 50M+, but if the NBA had no cap it would likely be fewer making that and a handful getting who knows, maybe 100M.

The 100th highest AAV in mlb is 8.3M, its 18M in nba. So without a cap, the 100th NBA likely makes less. Its basically a zero sum game as players will only get some x% of revenue. The key is to grow the overall pie and imo its easier to do if the league is more competitive. If one team can just buy everyone and win every year it will hurt long term.

The nba system allows draft picks to cash out to Max deals far earlier than mlb.
And teams like the pirates exploit that.

[JustinVerlander07]

Originally Posted by JRX

The only benefit to the players from not having a cap is the star players will get more money. You have about 20 guys in the nba making 50M+, but if the NBA had no cap it would likely be fewer making that and a handful getting who knows, maybe 100M.

The 100th highest AAV in mlb is 8.3M, its 18M in nba. So without a cap, the 100th NBA likely makes less. Its basically a zero sum game as players will only get some x% of revenue. The key is to grow the overall pie and imo its easier to do if the league is more competitive. If one team can just buy everyone and win every year it will hurt long term.

This isn't apples to apples at all. 26 man rosters in Baseball vs 15 in Basketball for starters.

[JustinVerlander07]

The average NBA payroll is almost $200 million this season for 15 player rosters.

The average MLB payroll was $176 million in 2025 for 26 man rosters.

[atk825]

Originally Posted by JRX

Lets see

NBA: Total Cap allocations 5.9B, avg 196M, range 139-242M
NFL: Total Cap allocations 8.9B, avg 279M, range 262-320M
NHL: Total Cap allocations 2.9B, avg 92M, range 80-107M
MLB: Total Tax + Payroll 6.3B, avg 212M, range 85-585M

Last time I checked only one sport has a severe payroll disparity among the teams and in every case pro athletes make a ton of money.

The Dodgers notably don't have a $585M payroll. Also, like the whole trading 6 second round draft picks for a player in the NBA but not before folding in 5 other teams really sucks.

[atk825]

Originally Posted by JRX

The only benefit to the players from not having a cap is the star players will get more money. You have about 20 guys in the nba making 50M+, but if the NBA had no cap it would likely be fewer making that and a handful getting who knows, maybe 100M.

The 100th highest AAV in mlb is 8.3M, its 18M in nba. So without a cap, the 100th NBA likely makes less. Its basically a zero sum game as players will only get some x% of revenue. The key is to grow the overall pie and imo its easier to do if the league is more competitive. If one team can just buy everyone and win every year it will hurt long term.

It's not the stars who suffer in the NBA, but the mid level players take most of the brunt. I mean think about it, there's like 30 players making more than the present day value of what Shohei makes. And there's nobody in the NBA playing at Shohei's level in MLB.

[JRX]

Originally Posted by atk825

The Dodgers notably don't have a $585M payroll. Also, like the whole trading 6 second round draft picks for a player in the NBA but not before folding in 5 other teams really sucks.

The estimated total payroll plus tax is 585M for 2025 per spotrac. It breaks down like this:

Guaranteed Contracts 319M
Injured Players: 48M
Retained Contracts: 28M
Player Benefits: 17.5M
Minor League: 2.6M
Pre Arb Bonus Pool Contrib: 1.67M

Actual Tax Payroll: 416.8M
Projected Tax Bill: 169M

Projected Payroll + Tax: 585.6M

That's what the Dodgers are spending on their roster.

[JRX]

Oh and that's with deferrals, if you removed them its closer to 700M with luxury tax penalties.

[atk825]

Originally Posted by JRX

Oh and that's with deferrals, if you removed them its closer to 700M with luxury tax penalties.

Why would you remove deferrals? Time value of money is an actual thing. $1M today is much more valuable than $1M 10 years from now. Also, the TWolves had nearly a nearly $100M tax bill that you forgot about.

[JustinVerlander07]

Originally Posted by JRX

Oh and that's with deferrals, if you removed them its closer to 700M with luxury tax penalties.

Might as well ignore luxury tax if you want to ignore deferrals.

[JRX]

Originally Posted by atk825

Why would you remove deferrals? Time value of money is an actual thing. $1M today is much more valuable than $1M 10 years from now. Also, the TWolves had nearly a nearly $100M tax bill that you forgot about.

Its just highlighting the true cost of talent they're buying. 585M is the discounted price. They're almost 7X as much as the lowest payroll team.

[BoSoxFan1999]

Originally Posted by JRX

Its just highlighting the true cost of talent they're buying. 585M is the discounted price. They're almost 7X as much as the lowest payroll team.

Make it so deferred salaries count towards the payroll just like a non-deferred contract. You can delay when you have to pay the player till years down the road, but it's still gonna count the same towards the luxury cap.

[ewokpelts]

Originally Posted by JRX

Its just highlighting the true cost of talent they're buying. 585M is the discounted price. They're almost 7X as much as the lowest payroll team.

Good thing teams can steal a year of free agency of players. Ask Kris Bryant.

[ewokpelts]

Originally Posted by atk825

It's not the stars who suffer in the NBA, but the mid level players take most of the brunt. I mean think about it, there's like 30 players making more than the present day value of what Shohei makes. And there's nobody in the NBA playing at Shohei's level in MLB.

And don’t forget that the stars in the NBA Don’t even play a full season with load Management.

[Fenway55]

Originally Posted by ewokpelts

Never mind boras charges less to represent players than most other agents.

Source?

[erock28]

Originally Posted by JRX

The estimated total payroll plus tax is 585M for 2025 per spotrac. It breaks down like this:

Guaranteed Contracts 319M
Injured Players: 48M
Retained Contracts: 28M
Player Benefits: 17.5M
Minor League: 2.6M
Pre Arb Bonus Pool Contrib: 1.67M

Actual Tax Payroll: 416.8M
Projected Tax Bill: 169M

Projected Payroll + Tax: 585.6M

That's what the Dodgers are spending on their roster.

Don't forget to add in Kyle Tucker and likely 2-3 more of the top 10 free agents.

[JRX]

Originally Posted by erock28

Don't forget to add in Kyle Tucker and likely 2-3 more of the top 10 free agents.

Well they can add about 130M just to get back to 2025 levels and 2025 was above 2024 so they could go higher. Might as well go all in for the 3peat prior to the lockout.