Major League Baseball is the only one of the four major North American professional sports without a salary cap for team payrolls.
Over the last couple of seasons in particular, many teams have begun to use the luxury-tax levels negotiated in the most recent collective-bargaining agreement as a sort of soft salary cap. Only two teams (the Red Sox and Nationals) went over the luxury tax in 2018, and several others, including the Cubs, made major efforts to stay under that limit. Here’s where the luxury tax goes, in case you are wondering:
Checks for the competitive balance tax, as it is normally known, go to the commissioner’s office and are due by Jan.