You Want A Salary Cap?

🔥 The Brushback

The Hot Stove is blazing.

The Dodgers are loading up for another run.
The Blue Jays are all-in.
The Phillies are spending.

And right on cue, the familiar chirping starts up from the cheap seats:

“We need a salary cap.”

No — what you need is a floor.

Because the loudest voices begging for a cap are coming from ownership groups that aren’t even pretending to compete. Teams cashing revenue sharing checks while rolling out payrolls that wouldn’t survive a bad weekend in Los Angeles.

If you want to cry poor, fine.
But don’t do it while pocketing league handouts and calling it “competitive balance.”

Everyone knows what’s coming in 2027.
Another labor fight.
Another lockout threat.
Another round of owners pretending this is about fairness instead of control.

They’ll wave the salary cap flag again. They always do.

But here’s the part they never want to talk about: a cap without a meaningful floor is just permission to lose cheaply.

Look at Miami.
A $67 million payroll in a major market.
That’s not strategy. That’s surrender.

If you want top salaries capped, then show your fans you’re actually trying to win. Spend like you care. Act like the city matters. Act like the product matters.

And if you can’t?
If ownership has decided winning isn’t the goal?

Then maybe the uncomfortable question isn’t about caps at all.

Maybe it’s about whether those cities want teams — or whether those teams need owners who do.

Because baseball doesn’t have a spending problem.

It has a trying problem.

John Boxley
High N Tight