A salary cap is not the answer for Major League Baseball. The mere threat of one might trigger a lengthy work stoppage. And the sport can address the revenue disparity between its biggest and smaller spenders in other ways.

Through changes to the current collective bargaining agreement, a more level economic playing field is attainable. A fully level playing field will never occur, even under a cap. But yes, baseball can do better.

The upcoming labor negotiations will be framed by two different questions. What would be the cost of a cap, considering the damage cancelling games might inflict on the sport? And, in lieu of a cap, what would be the better solutions?

The answers to the second question might not be clear. But baseball would be foolish to even entertain the first.

A prolonged lockout in 2027 resulting from the owners’ insistence on a cap would be self-defeating. The sport not only is coming off a fabulous World Series, but also experiencing a renaissance attributable in part to rules changes such as the pitch clock. When the league’s national TV deals expire after 2028, commissioner Rob Manfred wants to revamp baseball’s television rights setup and sell more games nationally. Now is not the time for an industry that generated a record $12.1 billion in revenue in 2024, and likely an even higher number in 2025, to take a step back.

The owners are sounding familiar alarms, saying the cost certainty of a cap is necessary for greater parity. Their argument, at least in part, is a red herring. The league’s competitive balance by some measures exceeds that of other sports. What the owners want most is to increase their franchise values. And the way they want to accomplish that is by enacting an economic system the players have spent decades fighting.

The runaway spending of the Los Angeles Dodgers creates an obvious bogeyman for the owners and an easy target for fans who believe the sport is tilted unfairly. When teams with $400 million payrolls compete against others at $100 million, the perception of inequity is unavoidable. But the extent of the problem is difficult to pinpoint when some owners hoard the money they receive from revenue sharing and MLB, refusing to spend more.

The potential friction between owners figures to be one obstacle in forging a new agreement. The long history of conflict between owners and players is another. But all parties should fear the impact of losing even part of a season, much less 162 games.

One negotiating strategy for Manfred and the owners might be to pursue a cap and at some point relent. They then would seek concessions from the players, saying they made a big move in their direction. A new set of arguments would ensue. But using the current CBA as a framework, the parties at least would start talking the same language.

On Thursday, my colleague Evan Drellich explained how a cap might work. What follows is an exploration of ideas that might address revenue disparity, the principal driver of payroll disparity, without introducing a cap. It is not meant to be all-encompassing. Nor is it a series of fully formed proposals. Think of it as more of a thought exercise.

Any CBA negotiation requires a complex series of tradeoffs, levers that work to the satisfaction of both sides. Some of the levers below would funnel more revenue to small-market teams while requiring them to spend it. Others are non-economic devices that would not address the issue of revenue disparity, but provide tweaks around the edges.

All are simply points to discuss in an effort to avoid the fight over a cap.

Create new penalties for big spenders

The luxury tax, first introduced in the 1996 CBA, was designed to slow down the game’s biggest spenders. How’s that working out? The Dodgers, in particular, no longer are deterred by the penalties, which are mostly financial.

Per Spotrac, the Dodgers’ estimated payout in 2026, between luxury-tax payroll and penalties, will be nearly $550 million. The New York Mets are at $480 million, the New York Yankees at $407 million, Philadelphia Phillies at $364 million. The Miami Marlins bring up the rear, at $78 million.

The only nonfinancial punishment a team can incur in the current CBA is a penalty that moves its first pick in the next draft back 10 places if it exceeds the second threshold. So, if the Dodgers, for example, don’t care about spending money, perhaps one solution is to handcuff the way they build a roster.

The apron system in the NBA serves that purpose, acting as a soft cap and restricting the ability of teams to make trades, sign waived players, access free agents and draft in high positions. MLB might argue the aprons only can exist under a cap. But perhaps the league and union could enact similar measures in a non-cap world.

For proof that stricter penalties can make a difference in baseball, look no further than the amateur draft. Since 2012, a team that exceeds its bonus pools by more than five and up to 10 percent loses its next first-round pick. Progressively steeper penalties kick in when a team goes 10 and then 15 percent over. No team has ever triggered even the first penalty phase.

The union, though, would oppose any restrictions if they were tantamount to a cap. Making penalties too onerous also would risk going too far. The last thing the league should want is to cripple large-market teams.

Deep down, the owners know it: The Dodgers’ success is one reason for the game’s recent surge in popularity. Manfred, speaking after an owners’ meeting, said himself on Wednesday that “great teams are always good for baseball.”

The Dodgers of the 2020s are what the New York Yankees were at various points of the previous century. Every professional sports league benefits from a villain at the top.

Help small-market teams keep their own players

The idea that small-market clubs cannot retain homegrown stars is something of a myth.

The Cleveland Guardians’ José Ramírez, Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr., Arizona’s Corbin Carroll, Seattle’s Julio Rodríguez are among the players from revenue-sharing recipients that signed long-term extensions of at least $100 million.

The salary cap systems in the NFL and NBA include mechanisms for teams to retain their own players. But even without a cap, baseball could award draft picks to small-market teams that sign players to extensions for a minimum guarantee — say, $100 million. The league could even fund a percentage of those extensions, drawing from central revenues.

Without some form of adjustment, many top players would continue to flee small markets. Some might simply prefer to play in Los Angeles or New York. But even if the Pittsburgh Pirates stretched their payroll by $30 million annually, it likely would not be enough for them to keep Paul Skenes.

The union, which generally frowns upon extensions that buy out players’ free-agent years at below-market value, might oppose incentivizing such deals. Perhaps earlier free agency, a longstanding desire of the union, would be one way to balance the equation.

Enhance small-market access to amateur players

Choose an option, any option.

Exclude top-10 payroll teams from the top 10 picks in the draft. Award small-market clubs additional picks if they attain a certain level of success. Institute an international draft with small-market teams picking higher and getting extra money to spend — a change that might provide the dual benefit of curbing longstanding corruption in the international market.

The current CBA already gives small-market teams an advantage internationally — the 10 clubs with the lowest revenues and 10 in the smallest markets receive greater pool money (some teams qualify under both criteria, so fewer than 20 clubs are in the mix each year).

An international draft could help distribute those players more evenly. Depending upon how it was structured, it also could enable small-market teams to select Japanese players who are under 25 and have not played six seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball — players like Shohei Ohtani and Roki Sasaki who, when they signed with major-league clubs, were classified as amateurs under a joint agreement between NPB and MLB.

The union, in the last round of CBA talks, dropped its philosophical opposition to an international draft in exchange for the possible elimination of the qualifying offer for free agents. But when the parties could not agree on the size of the bonus pools, the draft was tabled and the qualifying offer remained in place.

The current CBA, for the first time, included a draft lottery to disincentivize tanking. The union also proposed awarding a draft pick after the first round to small-market teams that reached the postseason, and one after the second round for small-market teams that finished at least .500. The league resisted both ideas.

Reduce the advantages of deferrals

Both the league and union seem to view the circumvention of the luxury tax through deferrals as less of a problem than fans do, many of whom are confused by how the payments work. Still, big-market teams like the Dodgers use deferrals not only to save money, but make money, too.

Deferrals lower a salary’s net present-day value, the number used for each player’s salary in his team’s luxury-tax payroll. So, when Ohtani deferred $68 million of the $70 million he is earning annually with the Dodgers, his luxury-tax number reduced to $46 million.

If not for deferrals with multiple players, the Dodgers’ record $169 million luxury-tax bill last season would have been higher. At the same time, they can invest the money they are required to set aside for the deferrals. So in a sense, they are double dipping.

What can be done to reduce the financial benefit for large-market clubs? Lots of things. Include deferred money in a team’s luxury-tax payroll. Require clubs to pay interest on deferrals. Set a maximum percentage of a contract a team could defer.

Eliminating deferrals entirely, something the league proposed in the last two rounds of bargaining, would be too restrictive. Club executives and player agents often use them to bridge gaps in negotiations, as even the small-market Guardians did in their recent $175 million extension for Ramírez.

Counting deferrals against the luxury tax might simply result in teams signing players for closer to their net present values, effectively lowering salaries. Agents in particular would squawk, preferring the highest sticker prices. But Ohtani’s $70 million was never really $70 million, anyway — at least not in net present value.

Adjust revenue sharing

The league historically has divided national television revenue equally among its clubs. If Manfred gets his way, the sport’s national TV money will increase. The league could take more local games national, or bundle a bunch of teams’ local rights and sell them to a streaming company. Netflix, for example, could become the home for two-thirds of the league’s local games.

How that money gets shared is the question.

Given the vast advantages some large-market clubs hold in generating local revenue, why not distribute money from the next national TV deals disproportionally? Why not give greater amounts to clubs with the least revenue-generating capacity that reach certain incentives in on-field performance?

In other words, don’t reward the Los Angeles Angels, who continue to roll out an inferior product in a market with a large capacity for growth. Reward the Guardians and Milwaukee Brewers, who are competitive almost every season despite limited local-revenue streams.

Here, though, is where things would get dicey if the current system remained intact.

Past labor negotiations often were marked by owners asking players to solve owner-vs.-owner problems. The rift this time could go deeper, depending upon whether large-market teams like the Yankees, Chicago Cubs, Boston Red Sox align with the biggest spenders, the Dodgers and Mets, or leave those teams on an island.

Between their proceeds from revenue sharing, national television packages and luxury-tax penalties, some small-market clubs are estimated to receive an amount approaching $200 million a year. Yet, not all appear to be spending that money sufficiently.

For Manfred to produce the most compelling national package of local TV rights, he will need large-market teams to participate. Perhaps the Dodgers would be allowed to keep, say, half their local games, with the rest shifting to the national package. But for that sacrifice, they would need something in return.

The large-market clubs might consider any additional revenue sharing to be unreasonable without a cap to control their expenses — and a floor to force small-market teams to spend more.

Institute a soft floor

Know what is worthy of further discussion? The lack of a mechanism at the bottom of the payroll structure that mirrors the thresholds and penalties at the top.

The way it would work is simple: A team that failed to meet a certain payroll level would lose revenue-sharing money. Or draft picks. Maybe both.

The league likely would contend that no floor is possible without a cap, but how could it philosophically oppose something it already implemented, only at the high end?

If the league wants to argue the luxury-tax rules are not fulfilling their intended purpose, the union can make the same claim about the provisions requiring small-market teams to spend.

The CBA states, that “each club shall use its revenue sharing receipts … in an effort to improve its performance on the field.” That’s too broad a definition, enabling small-market teams to say they’re spending on infrastructure, clubhouse improvements, foreign academies — anything but major-league payroll.

The Marlins, in particular, are all but ignoring another provision that requires teams to carry a luxury-tax payroll one and a half times the amount it receives from local revenue sharing. The Guardians and Tampa Bay Rays also appear below the minimum level. A club in violation doesn’t automatically receive punishment, but puts itself at greater risk of penalty if the union brings a grievance.

Another issue: While some fans long for a hard floor as much as a cap, the difference between baseball’s minimums and maximums would need to be much wider than they are in the other leagues.

The NBA sets the minimum team salary at 90 percent of the cap. The NFL requires teams to spend 90 percent of the cap over a designated three-year period. The NHL minimum for this season is about 74 percent of the maximum.

Those formulas would not work in baseball. With a 90 percent minimum, a $250 million cap would require a $225 million floor. At 75 percent, the floor on a $250 million cap would be $187.5 million. Considering where the highest and lowest payrolls in baseball stand, all of those numbers are unrealistic.

Even under a cap, payroll disparity would continue.

Some of the ideas listed above might be less practical than others. A reworking of the current CBA, in the words of one club executive, would merely be applying “lipstick on a pig.” But baseball improved its on-field product by layering in a number of small but effective rules changes. The same kind of outcome should be possible in the next CBA.

The league just experienced three straight years of attendance growth for the first time since 2005 to ‘07. Game 7 of the World Series averaged 51 million viewers combined across the U.S., Canada and Japan. The facts simply do not support an argument that the sport is broken.

Can the foundation be improved? Sure. But baseball need not change the entire floor plan. Not when it might require burning the house down.