O CAPtain, my CAPtain ...

[Frayed Knot]

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.

So begins a piece in The Athletic by Evan Drellich

The idea of the owners trying to push a salary cap has been hinted at for a while now but this leak seems to all but chisel it in stone.

The article also cites the Bo Bichette signing as an impetus to push a ceiling and suggests that the Dodgers and Mets 'might be the only teams that will try and stand in the way of a cap'. That may or may not be an accurate assessment [Me: I can't see the Yanquis suddenly supporting one for instance] but at least eight owners would have to join forces in order to nix the idea.

But of course division within ownership ranks is hardly the biggest obstacle to a cap. They're going to try to sell the idea of a cap matched with a salary floor in order to get the players union to even consider it [me: and I doubt even that will be enough]. Better revenue sharing will also be a strategy but there's a limit to how easily the owners (at least half of them anyway) will agree on that.

There's not really a ton to talk about now since even the beginning of negotiations is at least two months away.

So just consider this to be the opening chapter of our next (at least) year-long thread.

[Edgy MD]

Well, I guess this means to brace for a stoppage.

[Centerfield]

The owners were always going to ask for a cap. Even if they back off of that, they were never going to give up their biggest chip before the game even starts. Whether they stick to that will determine how long the stoppage is. If they insist on one, get ready to lose a year of baseball.

I disagree about the Yankees. I think Hal is different than his father. He’d love nothing more than an artificial limit on his spending. He probably would have wanted one years ago.

It’s tough to figure out the Dodgers. All the deferred money will eventually catch up to them. I figure at some point, this group will have so much payroll debt that they’ll sell, then the new ownership group will need to wipe the slate clean.

The easiest fix for the Dodgers is to undo their sweetheart TV deal. Something about the McCourt bankruptcy left them having to share a fraction of their actual TV money. Which puts them on better footing than the other 29 clubs. I don’t know if that deal can be undone legally. But that would be a much easier goal than a hard salary cap.

[Edgy MD]

Marvin Miller, Tom Seaver, and Reggie Smith are not amused.

[Lefty Specialist]

Oh, those shirts.

Tom looks like he wants to say, 'Marvin, you REALLY need to clean up your desk!'