​The facts don’t support Players Association position that a salary cap system would be bad for MLB originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.If Bruce Meyer somehow is unsuccessful at transforming his interim position as executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association into a fulltime job, there’s no doubt what his next move ought to be: run for office.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementBecause if there’s any profession in which one can become successful by artful truth-twisting and occasionally venturing beyond, politics is the game.Of course, nothing Meyer said about the value of a salary cap system in MLB was original when he met with the media Tuesday. It was the same garbage his predecessor, Tony Clark, chucked during the 2025 All-Star Game festivities. Clark subsequently resigned following an internal MLBPA investigation. Not sure his is an example to follow, but what is colloquially known as “the union” apparently only has one playbook when it comes to public discourse about a cap system.With the league’s collective bargaining agreement set to expire in December — and the possibility of a lockout looming that could consume the 2027 season — MLB owners appear more determined than ever to follow the course set by the other major men’s leagues in the U.S. and Canada: installation of a cap system that includes a “floor” all teams must meet in terms of payroll and a limit that would prevent the wealthiest teams from buying the best players each time they’re available on the free agent market.SN 140: Baseball’s greatest 140 players, reimaginedAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThis approach has accelerated the growth of the NFL, NBA and NHL in terms of revenue and popularity, and the franchise values of teams in those leagues. And because the cap systems are tied to each league’s collective revenues, with something on the order of a 50/50 split between owners and players, overall salaries have risen dramatically. MLB players reportedly receive 46 percent (or less) of revenues.The NFL cap was $155 million just 10 years ago and will be $301 million this autumn, a 94 percent increase in just a decade. Total combined salary growth sits at 80 percent. That’s a much healthier growth rate than MLB salaries, which have gone from a combined $3.9 billion to $6.1 billion – a 56 percent increase – in the same period.The MLBPA often hides behind the guarantees of their salaries as opposed to other sports. NFL contracts most often aren’t guaranteed in full, although signing bonuses are. NBA deals can be subject to “escrowing”, although most money withheld from players in recent years has been returned once it was assured that revenue was sufficient. However, in MLB, more than a third of players earned the league’s (relatively) paltry minimum salary in 2025, and essentially all of them were on one-year contracts. Even a guy like Reds short