#salary-cap

#salary-cap

The owners of Major League Baseball's 30 teams, who made their wealth through the workings of free enterprise capitalism, want to limit what players can be paid. This apparent political and philosophical irony will most likely lead to a shutdown of baseball at the end of this season.

The problem has never been economic. We could sign a player for 80 million and amortize him with a six-year contract. The problem was the salary space, once it is solved, Barça can sign anyone, but with consistency. We have to maintain the balance we have achieved, salary and sporting.

Many in the industry expect a lockout and some even worry about the potential for lost games in 2027. Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman of The New York Post report that the league has put aside a war chest of about $2 billion, roughly $75MM per team, from a central fund to help weather a potentially lengthy stoppage. The MLBPA has made similar preparations but the report doesn't provide specifics for that side.

FRISCO, Texas -- Acquired at the trade deadline with the hope of shoring up the linebacker spot, veteran Logan Wilson was waived by the Cowboys on Friday. The move saves the Cowboys $6.5 million in salary cap space. In seven games, Williams was credited with 28 tackles and a forced fumble, but he started just once. Despite the struggles at the position and the defense in general, the Cowboys kept Kenneth Murray Jr. as the starter over Wilson.

We came up with four potential offers for Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown on Thursday, but another star has part of the trade conversation: Raiders edge rusher Maxx Crosby. New Las Vegas head coach Klint Kubiak and owner Mark Davis made it clear that they want Crosby to return, while Crosby has said any talk of wanting out of Las Vegas did not come from him.

Last season, the 29-year-old was one of the worst starting cornerbacks in the league with 27 tackles and one interception in nine games, before suffering a torn left ACL. [Marshon] Lattimore still has one year left on his contract, but there's no guaranteed money, so the Commanders could easily cut him. If he wants to continue playing in the NFL, he would be better off putting his time in Washington behind him.

With free agency just a few short weeks away, the Commanders have some big decisions to make. They have the most pending free agents anywhere in the league, and could have north of $100 million in salary-cap space once additional moves are made. Not everyone will be let go, but whether their plans for the future include Samuel remains to be seen.

Welcome back to our second segment of Meet the Buyers series. After our first stop highlighted the Carolina Hurricanes, we head northwest to check in on the Edmonton Oilers. The Oilers have been heavily linked to the Maple Leafs as a prime trade partner, and while we aren't expecting a deal to be announced as soon as the Olympic roster freeze concludes on February 23, don't be surprised to see these two teams do business together ahead of the Mar.6 trade deadline.

There are a lot of them, and they do not exist only on social media. They are inside of group chats that talk about how much money the Los Angeles Dodgers are spending after winning the past two World Series, and they are in cities big and small that look at the Dodgers with envy masked by eye-rolls and curses.

With the Super Bowl in the rearview and the new league year just a few short weeks away, it's time to turn the page and start thinking about the Falcons' 2026 season and what needs to happen this offseason to field a competitive team in September. James Pearce Jr's arrest may change the calculations on the team's needs this offseason, and the list of pending free agents opens up some big questions the team needs to answer while building the 2026 roster.

As I wrote back on January 6, Atlanta's contract adjustment for Kirk Cousins indicated that they were going to cut him, given that they would have a truly unpalatable cap hit next year if they did not. Now Adam Schefter is reporting that the Falcons are planning to do so before the start of the new league year, likely as a post-June 1 designation, a move that will give the team a bit more cap space now and save quite a bit next year.

They, like Carolina, have cap space for the future. They've got a lot of prospects, and they've got their draft picks. So for Washington, it's not really about this year. Like, they'd like to get in [the playoffs], obviously. But whatever available talent they could add in their top six, it's about this year and the future. So they're in on a bunch of different things. They'd like to make a splash.