After Deadspin was ruined by a bunch of private equity brosephs, a few of the staff writers founded another blog called Defector, who this week wrote what we all already knew, that baseball has a salary cap. The Yankees’ trade of Adam Ottavino solidified that earlier this week, as the team navigated the various paths to staying below $210 million. The CBT threshold isn’t a formal cap, but baseball as an institution acts like it is.
And of course, there isn’t a salary floor. The Pirates, after dealing away Jameson Taillon to those very same Yankees, only have $3 million in committed spending after 2021.