Major League Baseball is marching into “foul” territory with the Los Angeles Dodgers’ recent back-to-back World Series victories as the richest team in baseball.
It sets a precedent that money can buy you wins and this sentiment stands true if your team has all of the top stars in the game, with no limits on the amount of money you can spend.
This situation can easily be summarized in a quote from the movie “Moneyball,” where Brad Pitt’s character of Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland Athletics, perfectly explained Oakland’s situation regarding the money they had available to play baseball at the time in 2002.
“The problem we are trying to solve, there are rich teams, and there are poor teams. Then there’s 50 feet of crap and then there’s us.”
Money has always been a problem in baseball and it doesn’t just start with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In 1994, the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) called a strike that canceled the postseason, the World Series and about 50 games at the end of the season, according to an article published by the Baseball Reference Bullpen.
The MLBPA is a labor union and 501(c)(3) charitable foundation that represents minor and major league players in labor negotiations, according to its website.
The 1994 strike and lockout of play cost several players their shots at batting records that could have been broken if they played those final games, including Tony Gwynn’s attempt at a .400 batting average (.394 on the season) and Matt Williams try at Roger Maris’ 61 home run record (Williams ended with 43 homers at the stoppage of play), according to the Baseball Reference Bullpen.
The issue at the heart of the MLBPA strike at the time was the snowballing of team salaries, according to the same source.
MLB has never had a salary cap, according to an article published by CNBC.
In the other prominent professional sports, including the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League, team owners face restrictions on the amount of money they are able to spend through the implementation of salary caps, according to a study published by EBSCO.
A salary cap is a limit on how much money can be spent by a company, according to Cambridge Dictionary.
The Dodgers are the richest team in baseball with a projected salary of $387 million for the 2026 season, according to FanGraphs.
Second place belongs to the New York Mets with a projected salary of $363 million and holds a gap of more than $20 million compared to the Dodgers, according to the same source.
Third place belongs to the New York Yankees, which is about $59 million dollars less expensive than the Mets with a projected salary of $304 million, according to FanGraphs.
This means that the difference between the richest team in baseball and the third richest team is a separation by a margin of almost $85 million dollars.
How can we expect the Miami Marlins with a projected payroll of $69 million, according to FanGraphs, to compete with a team that holds almost $300 million more dollars than it?
The current threat to baseball as we know it comes in the form of the conclusion of the current Major League Basketball Player Association labor agreement that is set to expire on Dec. 1, 2026, according to a Dec. 7, 2025 article published by Forbes.
The frustration that non-Dodgers fans hold are almost certainly being felt by the owners, players and staff of the teams getting steamrolled by a superstar squad that is taking the Commissioner’s Trophy home year after year.
With a salary cap comes a salary floor, which is a minimum amount of money spent per team each season, according to a definition of the term by Law Insider.
To create a sense of equity in the modern day game of baseball while also existing within the limits of a capitalistic world fueled by transactions worth millions of dollars, the MLBPA should absolutely gun for a salary cap and floor.
Equity can only be achieved in this sport by leveling the playing field, so that every team operates on the same page instead of how it stands today, where having the most money can buy you access to a team full of standout players.
The implementation of such measures to the game has to be done correctly as well, as also in 1994, Claude Brochu, the owner of the Montreal Expos at the time, felt the team could no longer be competitive and told his manager not to arbitrate players’ contracts, according to a Baseball Reference webpage.
These moves eventually led to the team leaving Montreal altogether to become the Washington Nationals in 2004, according to the same source.
Money should not buy wins. Only good baseball should.
