The winner of the National League Championship Series could determine whether Major League Baseball is played in 2027.
This may seem far-fetched. It's not. Something similar to the best-of-seven baseball series that begins Monday when Milwaukee Brewers accept Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 will play out as a proxy for the coming labor war between MLB and the MLB Players Association.
Owners across the game want a salary cap — and if the Dodgers, with their record payroll of $500 million or more, win back-to-back World Series, that will only bolster the league's desire to regulate salaries. The Brewers, consistently ranked third in payroll, with a win would serve as the latest proof that winners can grow even in the game's smallest markets and that the failures of other low-revenue teams have less to do with spending and more to do with execution.
The truth, of course, exists somewhere in the middle. But this is not where the two sides are asserting their negotiating positions in what many expect will be a brutal fight to determine the future of the game's economy. And that's why whoever emerges victorious will likely be used as a cudgel when formal negotiations begin next spring on the next version of the collective bargaining agreement, which expires Dec. 1, 2026.
If it's the Dodgers, then MLB owners, who have already publicly and even more so privately said that Los Angeles is spending as much as the six teams with the worst payrolls this year combined, will likely cry foul even louder. MLB is already expected to lock out the players once the agreement expires. The Dodgers' back-to-back championships could embolden MLB and add to the chorus of fans who see the cap as a panacea for the plague of big-money teams that have monopolized championships for the past decade.
Such a scenario would not deter the union from its half-century-long stance against investment restrictions. The MLBPA has no intention of negotiating if the cap remains on the table, and given that MLB was on the verge of losing games in 2022 due to negotiations that did not include the cap, players have already talked among themselves about how to handle the missed time in 2027. Of course, a Brewers win doesn't guarantee that it can be avoided, but if there is any argument about the need for a cap, the union could argue that the Dodgers giant losing to a team of self-proclaimed “Average Joes” with a salary a quarter as big reinforces the fact that the ability to build a team can exist regardless of financial power.
Brewers joined Tampa Bay Rays And Cleveland Guardians as the vanguards of low-income success this decade. Over the past eight years, Milwaukee has won five NL Central titles and made the playoffs seven times. The Brewers' 97-65 record this year has the best record in baseball. And they did it with a unique roster of players.
Of the 26 players on Milwaukee's NLCS roster, 15 came via trades, including most of the top hitters, according to ESPN Research. Christian Yelichcatcher William Contrerasace Freddy Peralta And Trevor Megillthe closer most of the season). The Brewers drafted four (Bryce Take, Jacob Misiorowski, Sal Frelick And Aaron Ashbyall major contributors), signed three as minor league free agents, two acquired through international amateur free agency (their best player, Jackson Churioand closer Abner Uribe) and caught one in the minor league Rule 5 offseason draft.
That leaves one major league free agent. One. And it was left-handed Jose Quintanawho signed a one-year, $4 million contract in March.
Think about it: The MLBPA, which has fought free agency since its inception, will become a proclamation for a team that doesn't waste money on free agents. Yes, strange bedfellows, but they strengthen the union's position: if the current system cannot be restored because of money, how did a team that doesn't spend money win the championship?
On the other hand, the Dodgers don't have as many free agents as one might think. They also acquired most of the players through trade, although there are only nine of them, and some of them are from Mookie Betts To Tyler Glasnow To Tommy Edman To Alex blinds – play a significant role in the team. Los Angeles has signed five major league free agents (including Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman And Blake Snell), plus two professional international free agents (Yoshinobu Yamamoto And Hyesung Kim), two international amateur free agents (Rocky Sasaki And Andy Pages) and two minor league free agents (Max Muncy And Justin Dean). They selected five of their players – one more than the Brewers, whose development system is considered one of the best in baseball – and added to their roster Jack Dreyerundrafted free agent.
Dreyer emphasizes what the Dodgers and Brewers do exceptionally well: extract talent from players through systems that value a combination of scouting, analytics and coaching excellence. It doesn't matter whether you spend half a billion dollars or the roughly $115 million the Brewers currently have on their books. If you can become an organization that gets the most out of its players, victory will follow.
Perhaps if they weren't so definitively on opposite ends of the continuum, the league and union might agree that basing the dispute on a single playoff series is foolhardy. Both sides need to understand that in the grand scheme of things, a seven-game series says very little, especially when it comes to a complex economic system made up of $30 billion worth of corporations competing in the same space.
But this battle is as much about narrative as it is about reality, and if MLB is going to push for a salary cap, it needs as much evidence as possible, and the Dodgers becoming the first team in a quarter century to win back-to-back World Series would be another gem to add to the many the league is already citing. The last team to do this was New York Yankees — and the competitive balance tax, a prototype cap that currently penalizes high-spending teams, emerged specifically to check what other owners see as the Yankees' rampant spending.
The Dodgers are the new Yankees, richer and more willing to spend money than anyone else. They have won the NL West 12 times in the last 13 years and captured the title in 2020 and 2024. And despite their seeming inevitability, baseball isn't suffering in most areas that matter to the league. Television ratings have increased. Attendance has increased. The introduction of field clocks ahead of the 2024 season has modernized the game and is now almost universally loved. The addition of an automated ball-striking system next year will only increase the game's appeal.
This NLCS represents baseball at its best: a well-oiled machine of superstars peaking at the right time and aiming to become baseball's first back-to-back champions since 2000, against a team that plays amazing baseball, is very likeable and always seems to succeed. The Brewers have yet to win a championship—not just in this recent outing, but in their entire 57-year history—and disrupting the Dodgers en route to doing so would make the story of triumph even more sublime.
And yes, despite the higher win total, the Brewers enter this series as underdogs, and that's a fair description. Even if they beat the Dodgers in six games played in July. Even if their bullpen is filled with fireballs of abomination. Even if they hit as many home runs as Los Angeles this postseason, despite the Dodgers hitting 78 more in the regular season.
There will be plenty of great baseball games to be played next week in Milwaukee and Los Angeles, plus the fans' cups will be overflowing with the kind of matchups that will make October the most special month of the year. Ohtani, Betts and Freeman try to catch up with Misiorowski and read his slider. Churio, Contreras and Turang try to solve the problem of Snell, Yamamoto, Glasnow and Ohtani. A terrifying Brewers bullpen with five relievers throwing over 97 mph against a team that hits high-octane fastballs better than anyone this year. The Dodgers are trying to figure out if they can rely on anyone other than Sasaki, and the Brewers, who have been the fifth-best team to hit the ball this season, are trying to get to the Los Angeles bullpen with a flurry of balls in the game.
While baseball itself is undeniable, this NLCS is more than a game. Its tentacles will reach into the future, unwittingly, but undeniably, into something much more significant. It's just one episode, yes. But it's much more than that.
