TORONTO — A repeat championship for the high-spending Los Angeles Dodgers would not change the upcoming labor negotiations between Major League Baseball players and owners, union head Tony Clark said Friday evening.
“No, it’s a lot of chatter,” Clark said at Rogers Centre before Game 1 of the Fall Classic between the Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays. “There’s opportunities for all 30 teams to be excellent. Some are investing in that excellence, some aren’t.
“The issues that we see in the system we know can be addressed without (a salary cap).”
MLB’s owners look likely to lock out the players when the collective bargaining agreement expires in December 2026 in an effort to bring a cap to the sport. The MLBPA has fought against a limit on player salaries for decades, but the dominant Dodgers are a vehicle for much of the public debate.
Throughout this year, Clark has consistently received questions from the press about the Dodger payroll, which Cot’s Contracts projects to be a record $415.2 million when the luxury tax is included.
“In the late ’90s, there were repeat champions,” Clark said, referencing the 1998-2000 New York Yankees. “I was actually a player at that time. The sky was falling as the Yankees repeated. Here we are, nearly 30 years later, and the industry has grown exponentially. The idea that there is excellence among the clubs, you tip your hat (to) those clubs.”
The Miami Marlins this season spent less than one-sixth the payroll of the Dodgers, at $63.3 million, per Cot’s. A cap would prevent teams from having such a wide range of payrolls, but would also come with many conditions players see as negative, including limits on contract lengths and annual salary.
Clark reiterated his belief that the Dodgers are not ruining baseball.
“The question for me would be, who is working to create the narrative that is challenging the excellence that we’re seeing?” Clark said.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, who did not speak to writers prior to Game 1 but is expected to before Game 2, has spent most of this year trying to walk a fine line on labor. He will often say the league’s revenue disparities create a perception problem that leads fans to believe their low-spending teams can’t compete. Manfred has also pushed for ideas widely associated with a cap — but he stops short of declaring owners will ultimately propose one.
“There are fans in a lot of our markets who feel like we have a competitive-balance problem,” Manfred said at this year’s All-Star Game, explaining a message he delivers to players directly. He added that he never uses “the word ‘salary’ within one of ‘cap.’”
The union’s retort has been consistent: many teams can and should spend more.
MLB does not typically publicize club revenues, making specific claims about the clubs’ financial positions difficult to independently verify. How much each team earns through revenue sharing is also not typically disclosed. The MLBPA has some answers, however. The union regularly receives financial disclosures from every club, but under the condition that the union keeps them confidential.
Clark declined to comment when asked if some smaller-market clubs bring in more money than large-market clubs.
“We are provided information,” Clark said, “so when I suggest to you that all 30 teams have the wherewithal to invest in their clubs and improve their club on the field, we believe that they do.”
Asked if the Marlins were investing that way, Clark said only, “Not all teams are doing that.”
The MLBPA has been preparing for the potential of a lockout by withholding licensing checks, which is typical. The union at the end of 2024 reported about $353 million in assets, including about $143.5 million in cash, per a financial filing the union submits annually to the Department of Labor. Clark said it’s the best financial position the players have ever been in, crediting the MLBPA’s business decisions.
“Every (annual) board meeting, the players decide whether and to what extent to retain licensing dollars as we get closer and closer to bargaining,” Clark said. “This player group made the determination to retain all of their group licensing, and there has been no distribution of late.”
