Major League Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement (CBA) expires in December of this year, and the league’s newest proposal has a few players confused, including Phillies star Bryce Harper. The MLB is proposing a salary cap similar to the NHL’s, with a 50/50 revenue split between the owners and players. Philadelphia’s all-star spoke about the gap in negotiations with ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez.

“We’re coming from two different areas, but we both have to understand our game is in a great position right now to succeed, and we can’t lose that momentum.” – Bryce Harper on CBA negotiations

The two different areas that Harper is alluding to are the owners wanting a salary cap and the players not wanting one. For years, baseball has been the most capitalistic league in America, venturing slightly into socialism with the luxury tax, and now they are calling for all-out communism. On the surface, that may seem like a bad idea, and it would be understandable that players would push back against it, but a deeper dive into the numbers shows that the new proposal benefits the players.

MLB Salary Cap Proposal

To understand the true benefit to the players, one needs only to look at last year’s books. In 2025, MLB’s revenue was $13.1 billion. The total payrolls of all 30 teams were $5.32 billion. That means last season, MLB players received 40% of the league’s revenue, and under the proposed 50/50 split, they would have gotten a $1.31 billion raise to $6.55 billion.

The new proposal would also only affect seven teams, with 23 currently under the suggested $218.3 million cap. Essentially, the idea that Harper and his colleagues hate is a 25% raise for all of them. Of course, someone could argue that it all depends on the cap floor. The NHL has a 75% cap floor, and if the MLB copies that model and every team spends the bare minimum, players would need to take a 10% pay cut.

The problem with that logic is that MLB salaries are fully guaranteed, and payrolls are already at 81% of the total proposed cap. In other words, the worst-case scenario for the players in the new CBA, the absolute nightmare scenario, is that everyone makes what they are currently making. No pay cut, no raise. That’s the scenario that players would be willing to strike to avoid.

Bryce Harper And Crew Need To Get On Board

The only real downside (no sarcasm) to the new CBA from the players’ standpoint is that it would limit where they could sign. Teams like the Dodgers, Yankees, and Mets couldn’t scoop up all the top free agents for record-breaking contracts, leaving scraps for the rest of the league. Those teams would be up against the cap every season, and it would open up opportunities for teams like Atlanta, Boston, and Houston.

Another bonus is that this new floor would stick it to owners like John Fisher of the Athletics or Bruce Sherman of the Miami Marlins. 14 teams would have to increase their payroll to meet the 75% floor ($164 million). Teams like the Marlins and Cleveland Guardians would have to double their payroll. These would mean huge raises for their young talent, or they could sign some of those free agents the Yankees wouldn’t have the space to.

Baseball is proposing parity, which is better for fans, and the cost belongs to the owners, not the players. Their belief that a salary cap system is bad has no foundation of truth in the MLB’s proposal. They are rebelling against the word itself and not what it means, since they apparently don’t actually know what it means. It’s like all the folks on social media screaming about politics, while knowing nothing about what’s actually going on. There is no hope for them, and there may be no hope for baseball players, but a $1.3 billion bribe should be enough for even the most entrenched players to sell out.