This tweet comes from Jayson Stark, who has done a great job of covering the soon-to-be-announced CBA for ESPN.com:
There are none of those available yet, so what kind of floor is being talked about is unclear. In 2011, one team opened with a sub-$40 million payroll (Kansas City), while four more came in at under $50 million (Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh, San Diego and Cleveland).
On the one hand, it certainly seems like a good idea for MLB to try to do something to prevent teams with super-low payrolls from making a profit based mostly on revenue-sharing funds. But one would think actually withholding those revenue-sharing funds in certain cases would make more sense than a tax.
But perhaps the best way for the league to do this would be to base things on total expenditures and not big-league payroll. Much to their credit, teams like the Royals and Pirates have been spending big in the draft in recent years, something that makes much more sense for them than bringing in an extra big-league veteran or two. However, with MLB’s new attempt to curb draft spending, there probably won’t be as much variance between the teams in that category than there has been in the recent past.