Salary Cap + MLB FA/RFA Minimum Salary Hike starting 2023

[BK Dodgers GM (Man)]

All,

As the real life MLB, owners and MLBPA finalized their new CBA w/ significant hikes in CBT threshold and minimum salary level (and also other more nuanced aspects of player pay), the LO is seeing there's likely a need for our league's salary cap to also make a comparable hike since very substantial portions of our player salaries are either directly or indirectly affected likewise. Also, our league's salary cap may have fallen a bit behind MLB spending in recent several years anyway, particularly compared to the median/avg payroll in the MLB.

Given that the CBT threshold increased by nearly 10% (from 210M to 230M) and minimum salary increased by ~23% from ~570K to 700K, seems to make sense for us to bump our salary cap up by ~10% (or 12-14M) as well -- meanwhile, additional future expected increases beyond this year seem to be comparable enough to our normal cap inflation rate of 2M/year (or a bit below 2%).

At this point, since the vast majority of our preseason, heavily-salary-influenced activities have largely concluded, seems like we can probably hold off til next year for that extra cap bump... and just open this for discussion/polling in the meantime so everyone can be on the same page and prepare accordingly going forward...


Please feel free to offer feedback whether here or privately, if you prefer... And we will set up a poll to finalize a decision over the next couple weeks or so...

Cheers!

[BK Dodgers GM (Man)]

All,

It's also been suggested that we should probably hike our MLB FA bidding/contract minimum(s) to more closely match the real life MLB minimum as it doesn't make much sense that pre-arb youngsters (drafted/signed as prospects) would otherwise cost significantly more (at 700K-plus) than some MLB FAs that we manage to sign w/out much bidding at times...

That's certainly something worth considering... though I imagine we should probably hike the cap a (just) bit higher (maybe another 2M?) in that case...

Do note that we would not retroactively adjust existing contracts if we do hike our MLB FA contract minimums starting next year...

[BK Dodgers GM (Man)]

All,

Since there aren't any additional feedback, please go ahead and vote on the just added poll that reflects the potential changes the League should consider/choose.

I've also left a choice to delay the decision until the next offseason just ahead of the Tags deadline to possibly get a better sense of how much the new CBA will actually impact our League.

Please do note that the LO only intends to make this kind of change at most once every new CBA -- and likely only if there's enough impact on us... which is partly why there are options to raise the minimum MLB FA AAS to 800K, instead of just 700K.

Also, the choices given already include the annual expected 2M inflation of our cap on top of the ~10% hike based on the new CBA (and some tweaks to account for different minimum MLB FA AAS and contract term caps).


NOTE: All proposed changes will not take place until 2023, and all contracts signed before 2023 will be grandfathered.

[BK Dodgers GM (Man)]

FYI, just a reminder that you *can* vote for upto 2 options (and can still change your vote for now)... plus we'll probably give this poll just another week (for 4 weeks total) before reaching conclusion, so please do vote soon, if you haven't already.

[BK Dodgers GM (Man)]

For clarification and official announcement, please note we will go w/ the consensus chosen option to raise the 2023 cap to 142M and minimum MKIA MLB FA/RFA salary to 800K w/ no more salary-based restrictions on contract term starting in 2023 -- the usual 5-year limit still applies of course, and the age-40-based restriction still remains (due in part to our retirement rule) as does the requirement of 2-plus-year signing in Sept.


NOTE that all contracts signed before 2023 will be grandfathered against that 800K minimum (as previously noted) plus that minimum does not apply to prospect signings nor contracts normally based on real-life MLB signings (per Cots).

[BK Dodgers GM (Man)]

Also, in order to simplify and make life easier for everyone, unless there are definite objections -- and the LO doesn't foresee any at all -- we plan to eliminate the use of denominations below 1K (and round all such smaller amounts upto the next 1K) for all bidding/contracts/signings going forward, except for waiver obligations that might still result in trailing 0.5K (from salaries that originally ended in odd numbered K figure).


Those occasional trailing figures below 1K had long been more of a nuisance than anything useful/meaningful and probably should never have been kept since the beginning of this league... although it was a tad more arguable back when the minimum salary (both real-life and MKIA) was much lower.

As usual, do feel free to comment or reach out to the LO (privately or otherwise) if you do feel differently about this.