.jpg)
15 hours ago
1
Tony Clark, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, spoke to sports journalists gathered in Atlanta for the All-Star Game and proclaimed the proposal for a salary cap system in the sport to be the exact opposite of what its proponents insist it can be.
“A cap is not about a partnership. A cap is not about growing the game,” Clark said. “A cap is about franchise values and profits. That’s what a cap is about.”
That’s such an impressive piece of spin, he might have a shot at a second big-league playing career as a starting pitcher.
Follow The Sporting News on WhatsApp
Clark’s statement runs counter to evidence piling up from the other established big-money American men’s sports: NHL, NBA and, particularly, the National Football League – and to the relative stagnation of the earning power of major league players and public interest in the sport.
Audiences and salaries in basketball, hockey and football continue to grow across the board while MLB players collect a lower percentage of their league’s revenues than those in the other three, which all have salary cap systems – and while baseball players near the league minimum earn drastically less than their contemporaries in the other sports.
ALL-STAR COVERAGE: Skenes backs it up | Acuna in spotlight
Why is MLBPA against a salary cap?
The large percentage of baseball players being paid at or near the league minimum salary creates ample reason to wonder exactly whom the MLBPA is representing in its stance against a salary cap.
Clark’s comments in Atlanta were so filled with hooey he should have been running for some sort of political office.
– “A salary cap, historically, has limited contract guarantees associated with it.” Point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, whose Oklahoma City Thunder won the title despite being located in the nation’s No. 42 market, just signed for $285 million – guaranteed over four years.
– “It’s often what we share with players as the definitive non-competitive system.” In fact, it makes the competition about the sport, not about which team has the most revenue.
– “It doesn’t reward excellence; it undermines it from an organizational standpoint.” He’s never heard of the Kansas City Chiefs, clearly.
– “The history is more lockouts, more work stoppages as a result of that system being in place.” NFL teams have not missed games because of a work stoppage since 1987. The NHL just extended its collective bargaining agreement through 2030. The old one wasn’t scheduled to expire until next year.
Clark is not among those who have suggested the sport needs only a salary floor, so we’ll give him that, but the contention a salary floor alone would suffice is counterintuitive. Baseball talent is a finite resource. The supply of above-average players does not expand merely because there’s more money available for the pursuit. Forcing low-revenue teams to pay more for talent while not limiting those at the high-revenue end simply would lead to the poorer teams paying more for the same collection of players they have now.
And, technically, there is a floor as it stands: It’s the Major League Baseball minimum salary, set at $760,000 for 2025.
That’s a hell of a lot money for a sports writer, but ridiculously low for a professional athlete in a sport that reportedly generated $12.1 billion in revenue in 2024. Consider that the NHL pulled in roughly half as much money during the same time period, with roster sizes almost the equivalent of baseball’s 26 players per team. The NHL minimum: $775,000.
One would think Clark and his organization would be embarrassed by that differential alone, but there is so much more to it. By my count, using figures from the MLB payroll tracker at Spotrac.com, 36.6 percent of big-league ballplayers on current active rosters will earn less than the NHL minimum over the course of a full season. Among them are All-Stars Junior Caminero ($764,100) and Jonathan Aranda ($766,500) of the Rays and James Wood ($764,600) of the Nationals.
All of them will earn a less in salary this year than million-dollar defenseman Henry Thrun did as a 23-year-old with the San Jose Sharks, the team that led the NHL in goals allowed in 2024-25.
If that’s not enough to humiliate MLBPA leadership, how about this: Reds shortstop Elly de la Cruz, an All-Star in two of his three seasons, will earn the same salary this season as teammate Matt McClain, who missed all of last season with an injury and is batting .210.
Pirates righthander Paul Skenes, who was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft, has started for the National League All-Stars in each of his first two seasons in the majors. His salary this season is $875,000.
We could inflate that to $3.94 million if we divide his record $9.2 million signing bonus over the three seasons before he’s eligible for salary arbitration. But compare that to Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams, entering his second season after becoming the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, who will make $8.97 million in 2025. Or Atlanta Hawks forward Zaccharie Risacher, the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, who will be paid $13.2 million for his second season. He ranked 87th in the league in scoring, at 12.6 points per game.
By the time each has played two full professional seasons, Williams will have received $27.3 million in compensation from the Bears (his signing bonus, plus two years of salary). Risacher will have been paid $25.8 million for two years of salary. And Skenes will get less than half of either: $10.8 million, which is his signing bonus plus two years of salary.
Slightly more than half of active current MLB players will earn less than $1 million in 2025. The only NBA players who earned less than seven figures last year were those that played less than a full season. Not only is the baseball competitive system tilted toward the upper class, so is the players’ salary structure.
MLB salary floor would increase spending
Every cap system in major league sports comes with a salary floor attached. In the NFL, teams must spend to at least 89 percent of the cap, which this year is $279 million – up nearly $24 million from a year ago. In the NHL, the floor for 2024-25 was $23 million below the $88 million cap. The floor in the NBA is irrelevant; every team in the league exceeded the league’s soft cap in 2024-25, all but one of them by eight-figure sums.
So if MLB were to agree to a cap system, it almost certainly would have the effect of increasing the spending of 15 teams – half the league – with total payroll allocations of less than $155 million for 2025. (That figure includes the $32.8 million for Stephen Strasburg on the Nationals’ books three years after he retired, but not the $1.19 million the Mets send out annually on Bobby Bonilla Day).
Baseball’s economic imbalance has created the greatest competitive imbalance in American male major league sports. If you’re in a big market with corresponding revenue advantages, you have to totally mangle your baseball operations to not win.
The Dodgers have won two of the past five World Series, have been to the Series four times in the past eight years and have had two losing seasons since the turn of the century. The Yankees haven’t had any. The teams in baseball’s five smallest markets have averaged 16 losing seasons since 2000, and they’ve made a total of three World Series appearances and won a single title. The eight teams that call the five largest markets home (and we’re being really generous to include the Angels) averaged 10 losing seasons, and they combined for 22 Series appearances and 10 titles. Every team in that group but the Mets won at least one championship.
Those who object to a salary cap system attempt to present the variety of World Series winners as evidence of balance in the league, but it’s little more than creative accounting. Only three champions since 2000 were from outside the top 15 markets, and 15 of them were from inside the top 10.
The NFL’s cap system has produced a much greater variety of champions, from No. 59 New Orleans to the No. 1 New York Giants. There have been 13 champions from outside the top 15 markets and 10 from outside the top 20. The top 10 markets also have been represented, with five champions – but it’s not the same rich teams almost every year, like in baseball.
In the NFL, fans of every team recognize their team begins with an even chance to be successful, and that’s a huge reason the league’s popularity continues to ascend.
The NFL saw an attendance record in 2024 of 69,520 per game, a total of more than 18.9 million. MLB attendance peaked in 2007 at 79.4 million and has not come close to reaching that figure in nearly two decade since. Fans in too many cities have learned over time their teams have little to no chance to be successful.
If Clark gets his way, that won’t change.
English (US)