That sound you heard – besides the “cha-ching” of Kyle Tucker’s bank account – was owners across the league further digging their heels in for a lockout in 2027.
It is not Tucker’s fault, of course, or even the Dodgers’ fault for landing the top free agent hitter on the market with a wild four-year, $240 million contract on Thursday night.
But the latest splashy deal handed out by the back-to-back World Series champions will only intensify the calls for a salary cap, which is at the root of the expected labor battle that looms next winter with the current Collective Bargaining Agreement set to expire in December.
The presumption around the league – even before Tucker agreed to the Dodgers deal – was that there would be a lockout next year, it was just a matter of how long it would last. Owners are expected to push for a salary cap while the union will argue vehemently against it, making for what might be a prolonged dispute that could potentially end up costing the league games.
With the addition of Tucker – whose contract comes with $30 million in deferred money, still giving him a record present-day average annual value of $57.1 million – the Dodgers now have a projected luxury tax payroll of $402.5 million for 2026, per Cot’s Contracts. That figure is more than the bottom-four teams combined in terms of luxury tax payroll, surpassing the sum of the Marlins ($79.3 million), Rays ($93.9M), Guardians ($103.5M) and White Sox ($105.1M).
The Dodgers’ payroll is also nearly $100 million above the highest luxury tax threshold for 2026 ($304 million), with the financial penalties associated with it doing little to deter their spending – which is why many owners will fight for a salary cap, as MLB is currently the only major sport without out one. Even Hal Steinbrenner, whose Yankees currently have a projected luxury tax payroll of $287.8 million, has said he would be in favor of a cap as long as it came with a salary floor.
Ironically, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts – who joked that his team was ruining baseball on the way to a second straight title last October – is actually also among those who would be in favor of a salary cap and floor, despite the institution of one theoretically taking away one of his club’s biggest strengths over the rest of the league.
“Honestly, I think that we have an organization that whatever rules or regulations, constructs are put in front of us, we’re going to dominate,” Roberts said at the winter meetings. “And so just give us the rules, let us know the landscape and then I’ll bet on our organization. So that’s kind of the way I feel.”
