Mac Engel: Rangers are behaving like a team that hopes MLB will save them

FORT WORTH, Texas — The Category 7 tornado that is the Los Angeles Dodgers cut a swath through the hopes of at least a dozen MLB clubs long before the regular season begins.

The Texas Rangers are not the Pittsburgh Pirates, Colorado Rockies, Miami Marlins or the other handful of teams that play the same game as the Dodgers, but aren’t in their league. The Rangers are also no longer in the upper echelon, where they previously paid to belong.

Since the 2025 season ended, the Rangers are acting like one of the clubs that expects the league to save them. The team is gambling that MLB will implement a hard salary cap in its next collective bargaining agreement with the MLB Players Association, a deal that expires Dec. 1.

There is often alarming rhetoric and threats between the players and ownership when it comes to CBA negotiations, but this time it sounds more like 1994, when a players’ strike wiped out the World Series.

The Rangers’ ‘big market’ challenge

The last time the contract between the players union and the league expired, in the winter of 2021, resulting in a lockout that did not affect the regular season, the Rangers didn’t worry about anything. Rangers owner Ray Davis told then-GM Jon Daniels to spend some of their money; just before the CBA expired, the team signed expensive free agents Corey Seager, Kole Calhoun, Marcus Semien and Jon Gray.

The next year, they signed free agent pitcher Jacob deGrom. In the span of two offseasons, the Rangers committed to more than $740 million for five players. Consistently, Davis approved moves that added to the payroll, including a 2-year, $37 million deal for DH Joc Pederson, signed in December 2024.

That spending aggression has stopped. The change in the regional TV sports model affected the Rangers, as the once-lucrative deal with Fox Sports Southwest, eventually Bally, was effectively scrapped two years ago. That loss of revenue is not everything, but it’s not nothing.

Rangers GM Chris Young is adamant that given the size — and growth — of Dallas-Fort Worth, the Rangers should never have to go through a rebuild and unload their top players.

DFW is the fourth-largest media market in the U.S., behind New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. There is usually a direct correlation between media markets and the top payrolls in MLB. The Rangers are an outlier; their projected payroll of $214 million in 2026 is 14th in the league; they were sixth in 2025.

Davis and the ownership group are feeling the fatigue of covering a top five, or 10, payroll, something they’ve done consistently in nearly 15 years of running the franchise. With the prospect, and increasing pressure reportedly from other franchises on MLB to create a new payroll structure, the Rangers are one of many teams not active in free agency for the 2026 season.

MLB’s ‘Dodger’ Problem

The sustained success of the Dodgers has increased the temperature on MLB commissioner Rob Manfred to correct the imbalance in the league.

The two-time defending champion Dodgers’ 2026 payroll is projected to be $414 million, which includes the MLB payroll tax. That would be more than the combined payrolls of three teams — the Cleveland Guardians, Tampa Bay Rays and Marlins. The Dodgers’ payroll is expected to be $90 million to $100 million more than any other team.

When the team signed top free agent Kyle Tucker to a four-year, $240 million contract in January, the reaction in baseball was, “That’s enough.” All this does is increase the overall price on salaries.

This has happened before in the last 30 years, but the gap between big spenders and those who don’t has never been so wide.

Since big money started to pour into MLB in the early ‘90s, the perception/concern is that too many teams essentially act as farm systems for the Dodgers, New York Mets, New York Yankees, Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox.

Since 2015, one team outside the top 10 in payroll has won the World Series: the Braves in 2021. Their payroll was 11th. Six times since 2015 the World Series champion’s payroll ranked in the top five.

The players union will fight anything that obstructs spending. The owners will insist the only way to get a balanced field among 30 teams is a cap, which will make the game more affordable to families. They’re lying about the last part.

According to a report by ESPN, there is momentum among owners to dig in for a salary cap.

The Rangers in MLB’s future system

MLB is the only major sports league without a hard salary cap. The league established a payroll tax in 1997, which was later branded a Competitive Balance Tax, but this is not a drag on salaries.

The MLBPA has routinely exploited the fractured state of the MLB owners to win this point in negotiations. Historically, there are just enough owners to stop the league from going all in to enforce the financial restrictions and penalties that exist in the NBA, NFL and NHL.

The last 30 years of pro sports has shown the owners will overspend, driving up the salaries on coaches and players.

Even if the Rangers are in a top-five media market, they’ve never had top-five media market revenues, which did not stop Hicks or Davis from spending like it. Under Hicks, spending did not lead to winning, which ultimately convinced him build through the farm system.

Under Davis, spending resulted in a World Series, and now a place where they are betting that the next CBA will allow them to contend for another title without having to spend like the Dodgers.

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