A group of Major League Baseball owners are apparently so upset with the Los Angeles Dodgers that they are going to be pushing for a salary cap in the sport in the near future.
The 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 now a “100% certainty” that they will push for a salary cap.
“These guys are going to go for a cap no matter what it takes,” a source told The Athletic. MLB declined to comment on the report.
The Dodgers signed Tucker to a four-year, $240 million deal last week after a single season with the Chicago Cubs. The $60 million average annual value is now the second-largest in MLB history, behind only Shohei Ohtani. Though, as Ohtani has a massive chunk of his contract deferred, Tucker’s deal is effectively the most expensive in MLB history.
The Dodgers, who have now won the World Series in back-to-back seasons, are projected to have a payroll larger than $413 million. That is actually down slightly from last season, only barely, but is still the largest payroll by far 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.
On the other side of things, three teams — the Cleveland Guardians, Tampa Bay Rays and Miami Marlins — are projected to have payrolls between $120 million and just $100 million. Exactly half of the league will spend less than $200 million next season.
While it was the Dodgers and Tucker that set this group of owners off, the Mets’ recent three-year, $126 million deal with Bo Bichette added to their frustrations. Those two teams, the source said, may be the only teams who stand in the way of a salary cap.
Talk of a salary cap has been ongoing 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.
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 still several major issues as both sides work to agree on a new collective bargaining agreement. While there is plenty of time, and an entire season, to figure that out, the salary cap issue clearly isn’t going away. The Dodgers have made sure of that.
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