How to Fix Baseball - Part 7 - UPDATE - 3-4-2026

The buzz in baseball now is about the new CBA and how to fix baseball with the hope of doing this without a work stoppage or lockout. It strikes me that both MLB and the MLBPA should have a sense of urgency to start this process right now, giving themselves the greatest chance to work out the terms of the new CBA without the pressure that will surely increase as the December, 2026 expiration of the current CBA approaches.  

This off-season I have written a series of 6 articles about how to fix baseball.  

This article summarizes those articles and, prompted by opinions and suggestions I have read on how to fix baseball, provides more details than my previous 6 articles did.  So let's dive in.

NOTE: I WILL be updating this document as more information and ideas become available.

OVERALL GOALS

The overall goals in the proposals below are:

• Make revenue, especially TV revenue, more equal
• At the same time as spreading out the revenue, institute measures to make sure teams are actually spending the increased revenue on player acquisition, development and retention
• Take steps to ensure that competitive balance is achieved naturally, without the need for artificial measures to limit talent acquisition and retention
• Make sure more revenue goes back to the players.

KEY CONCEPT

People have proposed the salary cap to keep teams like the Dodgers from 'buying' championships.  So let's say we have a salary cap.  They won't be able to spend money on free agents but the revenue disparities will still exist.  While draft and international signing budgets cap how much they can do to acquire talent and, along with a salary cap, would seem to level the talent acquisition playing field, the Dodgers would still have all that excess revenue that they could simply throw into player development.  For example, they could completely outbid every team for the best coaches, front office people, analytics people, scouts, etc.  They could spend more on state-of-the-art training facilities and equipment.  They could also overwhelm other teams by numbers of scouts.  Imagine if the Dodgers had 25 scouts to cover Latin America and the Guardians could only afford 10. This would put the Guardians at such a disadvantage they likely, without a lot of luck, couldn't compete to find the best NDFAs in Latin America or around the world. 

So, the key is to redistribute revenue to all teams and let those teams decide how best to use it, given that they have to use an appropriate amount on player salaries (salary floor)

Revenue balancing and ensuring that teams like Cleveland are spending the increased revenue appropriately to improve their team HAVE to be key to this new CBA

TV CONTRACTS

MLB has a problem.  Teams like the Dodgers have lucrative local TV deals. Teams like the Guardians have bad TV deals that don't bring in much revenue.  There are two ways I can think of to manage that:

• Bring al the TV revenue under MLB and divide it evenly among all teams
• Leave the current system in place but heavily tax teams whose TV revenue fall over the median and divide that tax between the teams whose TV revenue falls under the median

I am not sure how the 2nd way can be any better (or even different) than the first with the first being much more 'organic', of course.  

However, one thing is for sure.  This NEEDS to happen to balance revenues between teams.  Without a measure like one of the two proposed above, rich teams will remain rich and poor teams will remain poor and, in my opinion, competitive balance will never truly be achievable. 

SALARY CAP

I wanted to start here because this is the shortest discussion.  It is a non-starter with the MLBPA, IMO. While it wouldn't be hard to get 2/3 of the owners to vote for some version of a cap (say, $275 million), the new CBA has to be approved by 100% of the owners.  While only 50_ % of players have to approve the new CBA,  I think it is safe to say the players won't allow this to go through unless they get huge concessions in other areas that they won't get.  While certain provisions (e.g., being able to exceed the cap if you are extending your own players) might make a cap more palatable to the MLBPA, I just see a cap as a non-starter.  

So, if you can't stop overspending let's find ways to catastrophically penalize teams that do overspend.

• Set a soft cap, i.e., set the luxury tax threshold at $275 million for the 2027 season (for 2026 it is set at $244 million). Teams exceeding the threshold will:
• be charged 100% of the excess in the first violation and $200% of the excess for exceeding the threshold 2 or more years in a 3 year period.
• lose their top draft pick for the next year if they exceed the threshold and their top 5 draft picks for the next year if they exceed the threshold 2 or more years in a 3 year period.
• not be able to sign a QO free agent for the next season after their last occurrence of exceeding the threshold.
• not be able to sign an international professional free agent for any more than a $5 million AAV or for more than 2 yeas in the year after they exceed the threshold.
• not be allowed to sign any FA for more than $10 million AAV and for more than 2 seasons in the next season if they exceed the threshold for 2 years in a 3 year period
• Draft pick penalties that come from exceeding this threshold will not be minimized due to other penalties for the same team related to draft picks (e.g., signing a QO player).  Rather, the penalties would be imposed in subsequent years so that the full weight of the penalty would be felt.  For example, a team losing their 2nd and 5th picks in the draft could not be changed to them losing their 3rd and 6th picks in that draft because they have another penalty.  One of the penalties would be assessed in the subsequent year so that the full weight of the penalties would be realized.

• AAV 
• AAV will be all inclusive without any deferrals or other mechanisms that have previously been allowed to lower (or not raise) AAV.  
• AAV for foreign professional free agents will include the posting fee to their foreign club

SALARY FLOOR

• A salary floor will be set at $120 million for the 2027 season and rise by $10 million a year for the life of the next CBA. [NOTE: The goal here is to make teams spend revenue on payroll and not just cheap-out. The floor is low so as NOT to cause teams to have to overpay meh FAs or AAAA players just to reach the floor. The intent is for encourage them to sign their own players to extensions and sign quality free agents, if desired, to meet the floor]
• Other measures for amateur player acquisition will be put in place (see below) to ensure that teams spend on acquisition of the best prospects they can to help with competitive balance.  

NOTE: Some of this is in opposition to MLBPA's position which is to give more players more money, regardless of a player's limited ability or usefulness to make a franchise more competitive.  A cornerstone of my proposal if for teams to use some of their floor to extend their own players and bring in free agents who they feel would benefit their competitiveness.  At the same time, teams need to be allowed to fill their 26- and 40-man rosters with prospects who they feel can help them win now but, moreso, in the future instead of clogging rosters with meh FAs or AAAA players just to get over the salary floor. Under the PLAYERS GETTING MORE REVENUE section below I suggest that the minimum salary for players be raised to $2 million for first year players and $2.5 million for 2nd year players.  Those players would realize, on average, almost $2.5 million in increase earnings over their first two years in the majors compared to the present system.

INTERNATIONAL AMATEUR DRAFT

• An international draft would replace the January 15th signing period.  The goal of this draft would be to distribute the better, eligible talent to the clubs with bad records in the previous major league season (similar to the Rule 4 draft) AND eliminate teams reaching 'agreements' with players years before those players are eligible and eliminate the shadiness of interactions with local trainers, etc.
• The draft will consist of 5 rounds with the order being the inverse of standings for the previous year. NDFA can be signed after the 5 rounds for $10,000 or less.
• MLB will create a bonus pool for each club just like they do for the Rule 4 draft.
• MLB will have a combine similar to what they do for the Rule 4 draft for the top 250 players and will be involved in ranking those players before the draft for the benefit of fans and, to a lesser extent, teams.
• Owners of revenue receivers must spend >90% of their bonus pool the first year of the new CBA going up to 95% in subsequent years, not counting the money spent on NDFAs.  The trading of international free agent bonus pool money will no longer be allowed.

CHANGES TO THE RULE 4 DRAFT

• Maintain most of the current rules for draft pick compensation but weave in a few new rules and the luxury threshold penalties described above
• Change the construction of a draft order as follows.  
• 2 teams with the worst records flip a coin to see who drafts first and second in the first round
• The rest of the first round and all subsequent regular rounds will be ordered as follows:
• Non-playoff, teams that receive picks in the competitive balance round draft first in order of decreasing payroll
• Non-playoff teams who are not revenue payors or receivers draft next, again in order of decreasing payroll
• Non-playoff teams who are revenue payors draft next in order of dcreasing payroll
• Playoff teams that receive picks in the competitive balance round in order of decreasing payroll
• Playoff teams who are not revenue payors or receivers draft next, again in order of decreasing payroll
• Playoff teams who are revenue payors pick in the order of decreasing payroll.
• Competitive balance picks and draft compensation pick rules will continue as is.
• As indicated above under SALARY CAP, change rules on draft pick compensation where a team is already penalized in a particular year and a second (or more) penalty in the same year would result in a lesser penalty.  Instead, have the penalties spill over to the next year(s) so the force of the penalty would be the same for each offense, just in the next year(s).
• To spur owners of small market, limited resource franchises to spend money on development, give every revenue receiver and the worst 2 teams, record wise, in baseball the previous year an extra $5 million in their bonus pool.  These teams must spend between 99-104.99% of their bonus pool or suffer a $10 million penalty
• Eliminate the trading of draft choices before the 11th round but allow up to 3 draft choices (in rounds 11-20) per team per year to be traded.  

CHANGES TO THE RULE 5 DRAFT

• The major league rule 5 draft will be discontinued
• The minor league rule 5 draft will continue as before from the same pool of players as previous minor league rule 5 drafts
• See the CHANGES IN PLAYER CONTROL section below for specifics to address what the ML R5 was supposed to address, but failed and that international players can be signed when they are chronologically, the age and physical development of high school sophomores.

NOTE: The goal here is to allow teams time to develop their players without having to roster some of the best ones long before they are major league ready. My data says the ML R5 is a failure but the minor league R5 draft has some benefits in limiting the number of minor league players a team can hoard.  This also will allow teams to sign minor league free agents after the end of a season without having to worry about losing them in the subsequent R5 draft. Finally, it will free up 40-man roster spots for players who can actually help a team in the next competitive year instead of having a roster spot wasted for 2-3 years on a player who is not close to being major league-ready. All these changes are likely to increase competitive balance because teams will have a longer time to develop players and the players will still be able to become free agents before they reach their physical and professional primes.

CHANGES TO PLAYER CONTROL

• Players acquired who were not previously in organized professional leagues (domestic or foreign) can be controlled by teams per the following, based on their age when signed, before they can become minor league free agents:
• Players 16 or 17 years old for 7 full seasons
• Players 18 or 19 years old for 6 full seasons
• Players 20 or 21 years old for 5 full seasons
• Players 22 or 23 years old for 4 full seasons
• Players 24 or older for 3 full seasons

PLAYERS GETTING MORE REVENUE

• Increase the minimum wage to $2 million for first year players and $2.5 million in their second year.
• Continue the arbitration system as is.
• Mandate that teams spend 90% of shared revenues on payroll + amateur player acquisition costs
• Allow forensic accounting to make sure that the split of shared revenues is actually going to player salaries and acquisition costs.  Don't let teams participate in revenue sharing unless they can show that they meet these reinvestment metrics.