The 2025 MLB season is fully underway but there's always an eye toward the future. To this end, MLB officials are reportedly already preparing for the next round of negotiations with the MLB Players Association for the next Collective Bargaining Agreement. The current CBA is set to expire in December 2026, so talks on a new CBA will likely begin following this season.
On Thursday, CNBC reported league officials have been looking into a significant change ahead of those negoations. Per Alex Sherman and Lillian Rizzo, those at MLB have considered introducing a salary cap and a salary floor into the next CBA.
"MLB owners as well as Commissioner Rob Manfred’s office have begun privately contemplating what a new league economic structure could look like as the league heads toward a new Collective Bargaining Agreement with players, according to people familiar with the matter," Sherman and Rizzo wrote. "MLB officials have discussed adding both a salary cap and a salary floor, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. The Major League Baseball Players Association, however, has long been against a salary cap, and the group says its position hasn’t changed."
It would be a huge change. The Los Angeles Dodgers have become one of the most dominant teams in baseball in part because there is no limit on how much money they can spend to sign the best players. This has frustrated other owners, presumably on the basis that they don't have as much cash to throw around; it's gotten to the point where they are "agitating" for a cap to limit the financial imbalance.
The MLBPA, understandably, is not interested in any machinations that put a cap on how much money is getting thrown around to its players— which is where the salary floor comes in, a minimum amount of money every MLB team must spend annually. Introducing both would shrink the gap between the highest-spending and lowest-spending teams around the league, which has grown to be quite dramatic in recent years. For 2025, the Dodgers lead the league in spending with a $331 million payroll. The lowest-spending team in the league? The Miami Marlins, with $68 million in payroll.
Potentially big changes are down the road for the game of baseball.
More MLB on Sports Illustrated
This article was originally published on www.si.com as MLB Officials Reportedly Considering Salary Cap, Floor Ahead of CBA Negotiations.
