Passan: What this year's final four says about labor -- and the game's future

MILWAUKEE -- Something very confusing is happening in Major League Baseball. For much of the 2026 season, the league has run a public campaign that paints the game as fundamentally broken, unfair for lower-payroll and smaller-market teams, remedied only by a salary cap and floor system it says would fix such imbalances. Meanwhile, of the four teams remaining in the postseason, one plays in the game's smallest market, another is carrying the game's lowest cash payroll and a third is running out the 26th-highest payroll of the league's 30 teams.