Pessimism, doom, inevitability. These sentiments describe how most fans and pundits view the likelihood of a work stoppage when Major League Baseball’s collective-bargaining agreement expires on Dec. 1. The reason for these sentiments is obvious. The owners are seeking a hard salary cap in the new CBA. Predictably, the MLBPA’s response was a resounding no, followed by not now, not ever.

Despite the nearly universal pessimism, I am optimistic that an agreement on a new CBA can be reached because the initial proposals from the owners and the union indicate the parties are willing to seriously engage on the critical structural issues that have led to the payroll disparity and resulting competitive balance problem that has plagued the sport for decades.

To understand why I am optimistic, we must first review where we are and how we got here.

Where we are: The competitive balance problem

An “opportunity gap” exists in baseball. Large-market teams with hefty payrolls have a far better chance of winning championships than small-market teams with small payrolls. The last 10 World Series champions have been teams from large markets, and nine of those champions had payrolls in the top 10 in the league. The last small-market team to win a World Series was the 2015 Kansas City Royals.

The reasons for baseball’s long-standing payroll disparity and competitive balance problem are not complicated. Quite simply, they can be summarized as follows: (1) large-market teams are spending too much on player salaries; (2) small-market teams are not spending enough on player salaries; and (3) the local revenue that large-market teams generate, particularly local broadcast rights revenue, far exceed the local revenue generated by small-market teams.

Spending by large-market teams: MLB’s CBA has a “soft”........

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