Does baseball need a salary cap?
Baseball is unique. It's nine men on the field, it's 162 games in a season, it's the only game where the defence has the ball. It's also the only one out of the big four sports to not have a salary cap. Many people are calling for that to change.
Salaries have been increasing at an insane rate for years. Last year Shohei Ohtani signed a $700MM back-loaded contract. This year, it was Juan Soto for $765MM. Baseball is potentially five years away from a billion dollar player.
With the Dodgers seemingly unfettered spending, and Mets owner Steve Cohen willing to throw as much money as needed as players, many fans are calling for major league baseball to finally institute a salary cap, falling in line with the NHL, NBA, and NFL.
While MLB does have a luxury tax threshold, where teams have to pay a higher tax if they reach a certain overall budget, for a guy like Steve Cohen, an extra $50MM is nothing when you're spending nearly a billion on free agents.
Salary caps aren't limited to North American Sports. Many rugby leagues in Australia in New Zealand have salary limits, and several Association Football teams in Europe have also discussed the issue.
Proponents of salary caps state that it brings about parity and allows smaller-market teams the chance to be competitive. Ironically however, baseball, the only league without a cap, has arguably had the most parity among all the leagues, with no repeat World Series winner since 2000.
Opponents claim that a salary cap would cause star players to take lesser contracts and weaker players to get contracts more than they're worth. After all, New York is a different market than Tampa Bay.
While there have been no talks about instituting a hard salary cap, especially since the players union will most likely oppose it, recent actions by certain teams may at least open the conversation.
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| POLL | ||
JANVIER 19 | 234 ANSWERS Does baseball need a salary cap? Should MLB have a hard salary cap? | ||
| Yes | 207 | 88.5 % |
| No | 27 | 11.5 % |
| List of polls | ||
