On December 11, 2023, Shohei Ohtani signed a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. It was not only the largest contract in Major League Baseball history, but also the largest in sports history. At the time, it was viewed as the culmination of Ohtani’s career, the ultimate example of his worth as a two-way player. Only someone as extraordinary as he was could be worth this.
A year later, the record was broken by another elite, two-way player, Juan Soto, one of the best hitters in the world, but a below-average defensive player. He wasn’t a once-in-a-lifetime player like Ohtani or Lionel Messi, who held the second-highest contract ever, just a normal superstar. Despite this, he earns $65 million more than Ohtani on a 14-year, $765 million contract with the New York Mets.
This deal represents a trend that baseball has been following for years, where the spending of teams increases exponentially every year, and the gap between the highest and lowest-spending teams increases at the same rate. Ohtani’s yearly salary is higher than the total payrolls of the Athletics, White Sox, Marlins, and Rays. This massive gap in spending also directly correlates to performance. In the 2024 playoffs, three of the final four teams, the Dodgers, Yankees, and Mets, were the top three spenders in the offseason. Conversely, the Athletics, White Sox, Marlins, and Rays were four of the worst teams in the league. The White Sox set records for losing streaks, and the Athletics were actually forced to leave Oakland after years of poor performances. Spending in the MLB as it currently exists harms the sport and the fans who spend so much time and money supporting it.
So what’s the solution? A salary cap and floor is the most obvious way to fix this problem. A cap would prevent the kind of insane spending teams like the Dodgers, Yankees, and Mets do every year, giving other teams a shot at the top free agents and keeping the league more competitive. Meanwhile, a salary floor would force owners of traditionally bad teams to spend enough money to at least keep the team competitive and reward the fans for their support. But every time a salary cap has been floated by the league, the players’ union has shut it down. Eventually, though, they will need to concede. The league cannot continue as it is, getting more exclusive while shutting out teams who cannot or will not spend as much. If it continues this way, the World Series will eventually only be played between the two highest-spending teams every year. The only way to save baseball is to implement both a salary cap and a floor, to ensure that the MLB will remain fair, competitive, and exciting.
