Opinion: I disagree with Manny Machado’s views on the salary cap

Manny Machado (Ryan Casey Aguinaldo, Wikimedia Commons)

There was an interesting story in Major League Baseball this past week. According to Ian Cassellberry of Yahoo! Sports on Sunday, San Diego Padres third baseman Manny Machado has expressed his views on the rumour that MLB is considering on implementing a salary cap.

In an interesting opinion, Machado actually praised the Padres’s National League West Division rival Los Angeles Dodgers for spending money on players. In an interview with Jesse Rogers of ESPN, he stated, “I f*****g love it. Every team should be doing it (spending as much money as possible on players). That s***t is f******g great for the game.”

Personally, I am not so sure. As a fan of a National Hockey League team in a small market, I am strongly supportive of the salary cap being implemented in professional sports.

The tax payroll for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2026 is $401 million. The tax payroll of the Miami Marlins is $77 million. The bottom line is that is an absurd discrepancy of $324  million.

I do understand where Machado is coming from however. An argument can be made that it should not be the players’s fault that owners are reluctant to spend money.

In my opinion if there is a salary cap, and there needs to be one after the recent Los Angeles Dodgers’s signing of Kyle Tucker, there needs to be a minimum amount of money each team has to spend on players each season. That is the only way this particular problem in baseball can be solved.