I support unions.
Without organized labor, most of us would probably be working 18 hours a day, seven days a week, while some billionaire explained why bathroom breaks were hurting quarterly profits.
Workers deserve representation. They deserve to negotiate collectively, receive fair compensation and fight for the best possible working conditions.
Major League Baseball players are no different.
That is why I understand the MLB Players Association’s fierce opposition to a salary cap. An unrestricted market allows players to sell their services to the highest bidder. Put a ceiling on team spending, and that earning potential becomes artificially limited.
A salary cap is good for Major League Baseball. Not having one is good for its players. But, therein lies the problem.
What benefits individual players financially is helping create an economic system that is slowly damaging the sport that employs them. I hate saying it, but on this particular issue, I believe the union is wrong.
Major League Baseball is the only major North American sports league without a salary cap-and-floor system. Instead, it uses the Competitive Balance Tax, which attempts to discourage excessive spending without actually preventing it.
That system does not work.
For organizations such as the Los Angeles Dodgers and other large-market franchises, the luxury tax is not a deterrent. It is merely another bill to pay—a cost of doing business for franchises with financial resources that teams in Cincinnati and Cleveland cannot possibly match.
In 2025, the Dodgers spent approximately $515 million between payroll and luxury-tax penalties. That was $446 million more than the Miami Marlins spent and exceeded the combined investment of six teams, including the Guardians.
The Dodgers’ luxury-tax payment alone was larger than the payrolls of 16 clubs. Read that again.
That isn’t competitive balance. It isn’t even the same sport.
Instead, MLB increasingly resembles a collection of five-ish true major-league superpowers and everybody else playing AAAA baseball—too good for Triple-A, but financially barred from operating like the sport’s royalty.
Fans of the Reds and Guardians understand this reality better than most. Their teams can scout brilliantly, draft well and develop young talent—at least Cleveland can—but their margin for error is almost nonexistent.
One expensive contract can consume a small-market organization’s financial flexibility for years. Cincinnati experienced that during the majority of Joey Votto’s contract (not a slam on Votto, just the reality of the situation). The Dodgers can make an expensive mistake, write another enormous check and continue shopping.
Cleveland has become one of baseball’s best organizations at developing pitching and remaining competitive with limited resources. Cincinnati has assembled promising young cores on several occasions.
Eventually, however, the same questions always arrive.
How long can they keep everyone? Which players will become too expensive? Who must be traded before reaching free agency? When does the latest competitive window slam shut?
Instead of asking which star their team might acquire, Ohio baseball fans are trained to wonder which homegrown player they will eventually lose. See: Elly De La Cruz in the not-too-distant future.
That is a miserable way to follow a sport.
Yes, small-market teams occasionally break through. The Guardians reach the postseason regularly. The Kansas City Royals won the World Series in 2015. Arizona reached the World Series in 2023. But, exceptions do not disprove the larger problem.
According to MLB’s analysis of postseason results from 2015 through 2025, teams from the top half of the league’s markets accounted for 63 percent of playoff appearances, 85 percent of World Series participants and 90 percent of championships.
During that period, teams from larger markets were nine times more likely to win the World Series than those from smaller markets. Think about that, roughtly 10-15% of the league wins 90% of its championships.
So, no, small-market teams do not literally have zero chance when Opening Day arrives. Only most of them do.
Baseball remains wonderfully unpredictable, and smart organizations can outperform their payrolls. But too many teams begin every season needing nearly everything to go right, while the wealthiest clubs can survive injuries, poor decisions and terrible contracts without collapsing.
That is not parity. That is asking David to defeat Goliath 11 times in October—and telling him he cannot bring the slingshot because ownership traded it before arbitration.
MLB has proposed a hard cap of $245.3 million and a payroll floor of $171.2 million beginning in 2027. The plan would also divide leaguewide revenue evenly between players and owners and share local media revenue among all 30 clubs.
The cap is important, but the floor and revenue sharing are equally necessary. A cap without a floor would simply provide cheap owners with an excuse to spend even less. See: Pittsburgh Pirates.
Reds ownership should not be permitted to pocket shared revenue while fielding a bargain-basement roster. Cleveland should not receive competitive-balance assistance without reinvesting it in players.
This cannot become another mechanism for billionaires to suppress labor costs.
The owners must open their books. Baseball-related revenue must be clearly defined and independently audited. Players must receive a guaranteed share of the money they help generate, and every team must be required to invest meaningfully in its roster.
The MLBPA is correct to distrust ownership. Baseball owners have earned that distrust through decades of collusion, service-time manipulation and attempts to control player compensation.
Greed is real, and I’m not entirely convinced anyone becomes a billionaire without possessing an unhealthy amount of it. Most of us would happily retire with a paltry million. For a billionaire, another million is pocket lint.
But the union must also recognize that there may eventually be less money to divide if fans in most markets stop believing their teams can win.
That is especially relevant as the current collective bargaining agreement approaches its Dec. 1 expiration. The last major battle over a salary cap contributed to the 1994 strike and the cancellation of the World Series. Another prolonged work stoppage would be catastrophic.
Neither side can afford to treat this as owners versus players while ignoring the people purchasing tickets, watching games and financing the entire operation.
The sport needs a cap. It needs a floor. It needs dramatically stronger revenue sharing. Most importantly, it needs an economic system in which Cincinnati and Cleveland can retain their best players without performing financial gymnastics every winter.
I support the players. I support their union and their right to fight for every dollar they can earn.
But I also support baseball.
Right now, baseball’s broken financial system is forcing fans in Ohio and other smaller markets to pay major-league prices for increasingly minor-league hope.
That cannot continue forever.
