The Phillies are currently projected by Spotrac to have a $311.2 million Opening Day luxury tax payroll in 2026. If MLB owners get their way, that number will be much lower at the outset of 2027.
Ahead of the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement on Dec. 1, a source told Jon Heyman of The New York Post that 29 of 30 owners appear to be in favor of some sort of salary cap after their latest meetings. Heyman also offered the first projections of where the cap and floor could be:
"Very early estimates suggest the proposed cap (ceiling) might be set around the $260M-$280M range and the floor around $140M-$160M."
The Phillies are currently projected to have a $203 million luxury tax payroll in 2027, per Spotrac. If you just hear that, you may think that staying under a cap between $260 and $280 million might be doable.
However, that $203 total doesn't include players set to become free agents after 2026, like Jesús Luzardo, Alec Bohm, Adolis García, José Alvarado and Edmundo Sosa.
The Phillies may ultimately let some of those players walk. For example, Bohm — who is making $10.2 million in 2026, his final year of arbitration eligibility — could be replaced internally by Aidan Miller.
But it would be much harder to let some of the other pieces walk and not be a much worse team in 2027. Luzardo — a Spring Training extension candidate — will likely be making $30 million or more on a long-term deal in 2027. If you add $30 million to $203 million, you're already at $233 million in payroll commitments. If the cap would be closer to $260 million than $280 million, that would leave president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, who is under contract through the 2027 season, with very little flexibility to build out the rest of the roster. And if the Phillies let Luzardo leave in free agency, they'll save money, but be worse off for it.
The Los Angeles Dodgers ($365 million), New York Mets ($269 million), New York Yankees ($235 million) and San Diego Padres ($221 million) all have even more money committed for 2027 than the Phillies. In a sport with guaranteed contracts, it's hard to imagine how everyone would get to a cap under $280 million as soon as next season.
Even if this is just a starting negotiation point from the owners and a cap would be phased in over multiple seasons, you can already start to see how some owners could be picked off when it comes time to vote on ratifying a new CBA proposal with a salary cap, with 23 of 30 votes needed to pass it.
Some owners may say in February of 2026 that they are in favor of a cap, in theory. Will owners of so-called "big-market" teams actually vote against their own interests in February of 2027, leaving them with no financial wiggle room to improve their club before the start of the season, or even the need to shed salary?
The other part of this that's interesting is we're assuming all of the so-called "small-market" clubs are going to be fine with a salary floor. The proposal of a floor of $140-$160 million might sound reasonable to the public. But 10 teams — the Athletics ($131.9 million), Milwaukee Brewers ($129.1 million), Pittsburgh Pirates ($120.7 million), St. Louis Cardinals ($119.8 million), Minnesota Twins ($119.2 million), Colorado Rockies ($105.3 million), Tampa Bay Rays ($105.2 million), Washington Nationals ($102.4 million), Chicago White Sox ($101.5 million), Cleveland Guardians ($94.7 million) and Miami Marlins ($78.1 million) — are projected to be under that total to start the 2026 season. All 10 of those teams might like for there to be a salary cap, but will they want it so badly they'll agree to a salary floor, which would mean in some cases the owners have to spend significantly more than they currently are?
It would be one thing if you were starting a new league to talk about implementing a salary cap and floor. But there would be very real consequences — some intended and others unintended — that need to be considered when having this discussion.
