With the 2025 MLB season coming to a close, the Los Angeles Dodgers have won the World Series and have gone back-to-back. This poses the question of whether the MLB is fair. The Dodgers have one of the highest payrolls in Major League Baseball, spending an estimated $353 million in 2025 and around $630 million over the past two years to win back-to-back championships. If you watched the MLB playoffs, it seemed that the Dodgers had no competition, sweeping the Brewers, Reds, and defeating the Phillies in four games. Fans believe the Dodgers are ruining baseball, and they are just buying championships. So how can MLB fix this problem? How can small-market teams compete with a high-market team like the Dodgers, and can the MLB push owners to invest more in their teams? The solution to these problems can be solved by a salary cap and floor. A salary cap sets a maximum that a team can spend in a year, while a salary floor sets a minimum, promising a competitive balance while also encouraging investment in talent development.
One of the best players in baseball, Shohei Ohtani, is on a 10-year, 700 million dollar contract, and of course, he plays for the Dodgers. The Dodgers also pay seven players over $10 million each year, compared to the teams with the lowest payrolls only pay one player over $10 million. If the MLB were to impose a salary cap, it would limit teams in how much teams would be able to spend on all-star players and turn their focus to developing players through the farm system. This would prevent super teams in baseball, so overpowered teams with numerous all-stars, like the Dodgers, won’t be formed. This will benefit the small market teams like the Guardians and Oakland Athletics by allowing them to compete with the big market teams. The only reason this isn’t immediately possible is that the players do not like the idea of a decrease in their salaries.
If the MLB plans on adding a salary cap, there will be a need for a salary floor. A salary floor would allow smaller-market teams to compete more fairly, giving fans more exciting games throughout the season. Also, during the playoffs, you can see in the American League the matchups were close and exciting, reflecting on how their payrolls were about the same, but in the National League, the Dodgers made their run look effortless. With them competing with small-market teams like the Brewers.
Currently, in the MLB, there is a luxury tax, which basically means that teams get penalized if they go over a certain amount of money. The Dodgers are expected to pay an estimated amount of $154 million in luxury tax in the 2025 season. Even though this is a big hit for the Dodgers, they most likely still make money in the season for things like winning the World Series, ticket sales, merchandise sales, and so much more. The luxury tax really does not do much if teams can just make it back so easily, which is why the salary cap would benefit the other teams. Teams like the Dodgers, located in a major city with a large fan base, earn more revenue than a team in a less populated city.
MLB commissioner Robert Manfred is pushing for a salary cap, while the only thing stopping him is the players. Players feel that it will limit their value, and it will make a two-way player like Shohei Ohtani’s value be limited, even though he is one of the best players in baseball. In MLB history, we have seen players strike against the MLB because of a proposed salary cap. In 1994, MLB’s World Series was cancelled due to a players’ strike, which was partly caused by disagreements over a proposed salary cap, along with other labor issues. This issue does not seem to be coming to an end unless the players change their minds or until Manfred decides to put his foot down and make a change.
