Ken Rosenthal Is Publicly Against An MLB Salary Cap

Major League Baseball is in discussions for a new collective bargaining agreement heading into the 2027 season and beyond.

MLB's owners have proposed a salary cap system. The salary cap system would better distribute the total revenue from various teams across the entire league. There would be a salary floor - roughly $170 million - while there would also be a hard salary cap, of about $240 million.

Right now, eight MLB teams spend more than the proposed salary cap. That means big-spending teams like the Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, etc. would have to cut payroll moving forward.

Players, meanwhile, have been very much against a salary cap. They believe it caps their earnings. Fans, on the other hand, seem to think that some kind of new system - with at least a salary floor and harsher penalties for teams that spend big money - would be better for competition.

Few in MLB media have covered the game for as long as Ken Rosenthal.

The longtime MLB insider sounded off on the talks surrounding the salary cap and the proposed new system this week.

Rosenthal comes out against MLB salary cap

On his show Foul Territory, Rosenthal said that in spite of what MLB and some fans believe, there is no need for a salary cap. The game is doing just fine.

"This drives me crazy," Rosenthal stated. "For years, the way I've always understood the sport, and I started baseball writing in 1987, is that the regular season is the true measure of a team's quality. The playoffs are the playoffs and you only have one World Series champion. But what you do in the regular season matters. And the sport, even while it's expanding the playoffs, has largely been built around that."

Rosenthal pointed to the success of low-spending teams like Tampa Bay and Cleveland.

"What I look at is competitive balance is the success of Milwaukee and Cleveland and Tampa Bay almost year after year. Their ability to compete in the regular season. And maybe one of these years they're going to be able to do it and go all the way through in the postseason. Now, does that mean the system is perfect and can not be fixed or should not be fixed? No. I am not saying that. And again, I can't imagine anyone would say, hey, this is great right now, this is just perfect. It's not perfect. But does it need a salary cap that could cost us games in '27 to be rectified? I still believe the answer is no and I will be always believing the answer is no. There are other ways," Rosenthal said.

Of course, multiple things can be true. Small market teams can have success while not spending a ton, but that doesn't mean MLB shouldn't do anything to try and even out the payrolls across the league.

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This story was originally published May 31, 2026 at 9:48 AM.