For much of the 2025 MLB season, the phrase “baseball is dead” was constantly floated around. That’s because the Los Angeles Dodgers, the team with the highest payroll in each of the last two seasons, won the World Series for a second year in a row. They did it with the most expensive player in baseball history (at the time), Shohei Ohtani, on the roster.
Heading into 2026, nothing is stopping the Dodgers from “buying” a third World Series in three seasons. WIth that in mind, the ball club hasn’t wasted any time improving the roster and spending big money to do it. The Dodgers this week signed Kyle Tucker to a four-year, $240 million contract. Practically, the Dodgers can do whatever they want in free agency. The Dodgers signing Tucker may have been a tipping point for MLB owners, though.
MLB owners are sick and tired of Dodgers spending more money than any other club
According to The Athletic’s Evan Drellich, the Tucker-Dodgers deal “enraged” owners around the league. Hellbent on changing the rules, the topic of a salary cap has once again bubbled up, and it sounds like this time around the owners could very well get what they want.
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. “These guys are going to go for a cap no matter what it takes,” the source said.
Fans of teams not named the Dodgers, New York Yankees and other high-spending teams have been calling for a salary cap implementation for a while. The notion has fallen on deaf ears for far too long, especially since other leagues have much more strict rules to try to curb “pay to win” situations.
The most notable part of Drellich’s reporting is owners pushing for a salary cap “no matter what”. That brings about the potential of a lockdown ahead of the 2027 MLB season. This upcoming season shouldn’t be affected.
Read the full article here
