Major League Baseball has proposed delaying its salary cap and floor until 2028, at $258.2 million and $180.2 million respectively, in a revised offer delivered on Tuesday, according to a labour report on the negotiations.
The league moved the start date from its earlier proposal but kept every term attached to it, framing the delay as a concession to a free-agent market that opened just two days earlier. The figures are up from the $245.3 million cap and $171.2 million floor floated in May.
The numbers behind the offer
By MLB’s own projection, 12 clubs would need to add $636 million combined to reach the floor, while eight would have to shed $528 million to clear the cap — a net payroll gain of $108 million. The eight teams over the proposed cap include Toronto, while the 12 below the floor include the world champion Brewers and the Tampa Bay Rays, the two clubs whose low-payroll World Series run complicated the league’s competitive-balance argument.
The current collective bargaining agreement expires at 11:59 p.m. ET on December 1, and a lockout is expected the moment it does. Tuesday’s proposal landed on day two of the only open market this offseason will get, which explains the sweeteners attached to a start date four years out: five-year free agency for players aged 30 and older, no draft-pick forfeiture for signing a qualifying-offer free agent, and a $900,000 minimum salary that can climb to $1 million through the pre-arbitration pool, all effective in 2027.
The calendar that matters
Eight players received the $23.15 million qualifying offer on November 2 and have until 3 p.m. CT on November 17 to accept. Free agents became eligible to sign anywhere at 4 p.m. CT on November 2, and teams must tender contracts to players under control by November 20.
The union has so far treated any cap as a non-starter, regardless of start date. Whether a four-year delay changes that calculation — or simply postpones the same fight — will define the winter, and possibly the 2027 season.
A delay is not a deal
MLB’s revised offer is best read as a tactical move, not a breakthrough: it protects the November market while keeping the cap itself intact. The union’s objection has never been about timing alone, and the December 1 deadline has not moved an hour. The next fortnight — qualifying-offer decisions, tender deadline, and the first real signings — will show whether this market functions normally or freezes under the shadow of a lockout.
