Major changes are coming to MLB free agency

There’s an MLB lockout coming next offseason. It’s inevitable. People around the sport have known it for quite some time — the only real question has been how long it will last.

This year’s free-agency period didn’t do the sport any favors in that regard, especially when the Dodgers inked Kyle Tucker to an absurd four-year, $240 million contract a few weeks ago. It was a ludicrous deal for a player with almost no chance of living up to it, pushing Los Angeles’ luxury-tax payroll to $413 million, and that doesn’t even begin to account for the roughly billion dollars they’ve guaranteed in deferred payments.

But the Dodgers don’t care. Their guaranteed TV contract allows them to rake in more money than any team in the league. They’re backed by one of the biggest cities in the world and are chasing a three-peat. For them, it was an easy decision. And while nobody should fault the Dodgers for taking advantage of the system as it exists, the Kyle Tucker signing feels like the straw that finally broke the camel’s back.

Even national media writers who have spent years glazing the Dodgers for their spending — while painting other owners as villains for not matching it — are starting to realize the playing field isn’t even remotely level. There’s no world where a team like the Marlins, operating with a $50 million TV deal, can compete with an organization pulling in six times that amount before a single ticket is sold.

It’s well past time for a salary cap and a salary floor in baseball, just like every other major sport has, and owners are expected to push hard for one next offseason.

“Major League Baseball owners are “raging” in the wake of Kyle Tucker’s free agency agreement with the Los Angeles Dodgers and it is now “a 100 percent certainty” that the owners will push for a salary cap, one person briefed on ownership conversations who was not authorized to speak publicly told The Athletic,” Evan Drellich reported. 

The problem, of course, is that the players aren’t going to like that — and that’s where the Mexican standoff between billionaire owners and millionaire players could drag on well into next year.

Typically, I have little interest in siding with owners, especially the cheap ones who don’t care about winning at all, and there are plenty of those. That said, for the sake of the sport, the owners shouldn’t agree to a deal that doesn’t include both a salary cap and a salary floor. Deferred contracts should be tossed out entirely as well.

Luxury tax bill included, the Dodgers are set to spend roughly $575 million in 2025. That’s more than $300 million higher than the Braves, who are projected to have the eighth-highest payroll in baseball, and nearly $475 million more than the last-place Marlins. And once again, that figure doesn’t even account for the obscene amount of deferred money still sitting on the Dodgers’ books.

Nothing about the way baseball currently operates from a payroll standpoint is healthy. There’s a reason no other league runs this way. If competitive balance matters at all, the owners should be pushing for a system that creates a more even playing field.

At the end of the day, the game is about the fans, and right now, there are about 25 fan bases that don’t feel like they’re even watching the same sport.