A group of Major League Baseball team owners are apparently so upset with the Los Angeles Dodgers that they are going to push for a salary cap in the sport in the near future.
The club owners, according to The Athletic’s Evan Drellich, are “raging” after the Dodgers struck a deal to bring in Kyle Tucker in free agency this offseason. So much so, in fact, that it is a “100% certainty” that they will push for a salary cap.
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“These guys are going to go for a cap no matter what it takes,” a source told The Athletic. MLB declined to comment within the report.
[More on the Dodgers: Los Angeles team feed]
The Dodgers signed Tucker to a four-year, $240 million deal last week. The $60 million average annual value is the second-largest in MLB history, behind only Shohei Ohtani’s 10-year, $700 million deal. But Ohtani has a massive chunk of his contract deferred, so Tucker’s deal is effectively the most expensive in MLB history.
He was Yahoo Sports’ No. 1 free agent this offseason.
The Dodgers, World Series champions in back-to-back seasons, are projected to have a payroll larger than $413 million in 2026. That is actually slightly down from last season, but it’s still the largest payroll in the league by far. Only three other teams — the New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies and Toronto Blue Jays — are projected to be over $300 million.
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On the other side of things, three teams — the Cleveland Guardians, Tampa Bay Rays and Miami Marlins — are projected to have payrolls between $100 million and $120 million. Exactly half of MLB’s clubs will spend less than $200 million next season.
While it was the Dodgers and Tucker who set this group of team owners off, the Mets’ recent three-year, $126 million deal with Bo Bichette added to their frustrations. Those two teams, the Athletic reported, might be the only teams that aren’t in favor of a salary cap.
Talk of a salary cap has been going on for a while in the sport, as has finding a way to fix the payroll disparity across the board. Determining a salary floor and ceiling, according to the report, are expected to be a topic at the owners meeting next month.
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It would take at least eight owners to hold up a labor deal, but it’s likely that players would not be on board with a salary cap, as they have been willing to miss games to avoid such a system in the past.
The league’s current labor agreement will expire just before midnight on Dec. 1, 2026. There are several major issues the two sides need to work out to agree on a new collective bargaining agreement. While there is an entire season to figure that out, the salary cap issue clearly isn’t going away.
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