The end of the 2026 Major League Baseball season was excellent. The playoffs were exciting, fans were paying attention and ultimately two teams that play the game the right way duked it out for the World Series in the Tampa Bay Rays and the Milwaukee Brewers. Neither the Rays, nor the Brewers, entered the World Series with a title under their belt. Milwaukee was able to come out on top and earn its first championship in franchise history.

Ultimately, it was a great season overall. The Brewers' championship captured the baseball world in general and fans all across the league were able to tune in and watch magic happen. But now the season is over and the business is going to get in the way of the game itself. In December, the collective bargaining agreement will expire and then a lockout is very likely going to begin, barring something shocking happening. On Tuesday, the league made its latest proposal and once again proposed a salary cap — although it wouldn't begin until 2028 — and a salary floor, among other things, per ESPN's Jeff Passan.

"Major League Baseball proposed postponing the implementation of a salary cap until the 2028 season while still putting into place the other elements of its labor offer for 2027, citing the difficulty of teams navigating free agency amid the current uncertainty," Passan wrote on X. "In its proposal, MLB also set new numbers for its proposed cap and floor in 2028. The cap would be $258.2 million while the floor would be $180.2 million. In its previous proposal, the league had offered a $245.3 million ceiling and $171.2 million floor."

USA Today's Bob Nightengale reported that the league proposed increasing the minimum salary in the league to $1 million and lowering the time it takes to get to free agency to five years.

The MLBPA responded and shut down the idea once again.

Immediate Reaction

The league is winning the public relations battle right now. At the end of the day, this won't matter much in the long run. What matters most will be what the two sides determine at the negotiating table. But throughout this process so far, the league has been the side that has seemingly made more public proposals — and has updated its proposals throughout the process.

As Passan noted, the league has already increased its proposed salary cap and floor. Plus, they pushed off the implementation of the idea until 2028. Arguably, the salary cap number is still too low. If the league were to continue to raise its proposals and reach $300 million, it would be very hard to argue against that number. The proposed salary floor is up to over $180 million, which would be significant. It's important to note that these numbers aren't perfect and likely include more than just salaries. But they are improvements from the initial proposals.

The league's proposals haven't been perfect and never will be. Both sides are right — and wrong — and the perfect answer is going to be somewhere in the middle. The league has at least budged a bit publicly so far, whereas every time a proposal comes out, the MLBPA just shuts it down without public counterproposals of its own. It's known that the MLBPA doesn't want a salary cap. But tangibly, what does it want? That hasn't been as clear as the league's goals so far.

The clock is ticking and a lockout is coming. The only way not to ruin the momentum of the game right now is for those two sides to come together and actually try to find a middle ground. Drawing a line in the sand simply won't fix it. At the end of the day, do fans care about the nuances of the financial structure in the league or the actual game on the field? There's a mixture of both, especially in the case of the Los Angeles Dodgers, but the fans care about the game itself. So far, the league has handled the PR of this labor battle better. That doesn't mean they're inherently right, but they've publicly handled the situation better so far.