​(Photo by John Fisher/Getty Images) | Getty Images The last thing anyone will remember before MLB embarks on a potentially generation-defining labor war will be the 2026 World Series. The winner will enjoy a longer-than-normal celebratory honeymoon, since the beginning of the 2027 season will almost certainly be locked out, and they will perhaps even benefit from the easiest title defense in the history of the sport, should the full season be lost in the yelling.But first, we need a winner, and the Cleveland Guardians, Tampa Bay Rays, Milwaukee Brewers and Los Angeles Dodgers still stand as perhaps the last four teams to play MLB baseball until 2028. Bluntly, World Series results are what got us in this mess in the first place, with the Dodgers seemingly trading for, or signing every fun player in the league, and winning the last two titles. The specter of a third in a row is a large part of why MLB owners think they can impose a salary cap on their players, a feat achieved in the modern era only by the NHL in 2005. To oversimplify the debate in two sentences: MLB owners believe a salary cap, which would limit and floor spending on players and exists in the NHL, NBA and NFL, would ensure better competitive balance, improve their product, and skyrocket franchise valuations and revenue. The MLB Players Association believes that a salary cap murders their unchecked leverage to negotiate the kinds of ludicrous contracts like the 15-year, $765 million deal that Juan Soto signed, as well as axing the earning potential of the next generation of players. In short, we’re talking about who controls the flow of money. The owners’ argument that a salary cap will massively increase TV revenue and franchise valuations is true, and eventually that money will reach the players. But a cap also permanently limits players’ ability to access that money, while the MLBPA has essentially held for its entire existence that it will accept a salary cap only when the forces of hell march on earth and Jupiter turns into a pinecone. So how will the World Series affect all of this?It’s rare that a labor dispute is prosecuted almost entirely in the court of public opinion, but MLB’s upcoming lockout will be that kind of party. MLB has already launched a pro-salary cap PR campaign, and both sides will have to reckon with the fact that everyone will remember the World Series the whole time this negotiation is going on. Intuitively, one would say that anyone but the Dodgers winning — or, with the Dodgers currently down 2-0 to the Brewers, without Los Angeles even in the World Series — should destroy the owners’ argument that MLB has a competitive balance problem. Cleveland, Milwaukee and Tampa Bay all spend nothing on players. They are small markets which have looked New York, Boston and Los Angeles in the eye and said “lol, nice try.” But that interpretation is a miscalculation.MLB owners are not dawdling buffoons who wagered their entire salary cap case