The Dodgers Didn't Break Baseball
And stop complaining about it, you'll make things worse
Stop complaining about the Dodgers and how they’ve broken baseball with their obscene payroll, shady deferred payment contracts, and that stupid inflatable waving hands guy base hit dance they do. It’s just what the owners want. If all the outrage, complaining and defeatism grows louder with a Dodgers repeat title and leads to a salary cap, then baseball will be worse off for it.
The Dodgers currently have an elite collection of talent and it’s at full strength at the best time of year. They’ve started 9-1 this postseason to get to the World Series. But this year’s $416million payroll only got them 93 wins and the third best record in the National League. If spending twice as much money as everyone else was a guarantee for success, there would be other owners trying it. Other owners are trying it. The Mets have spent the most money on players in the league since 2021 and the one time they made the NLCS was a year they were supposedly “rebuilding”, in 2024, before signing Juan Soto for $750million the following offseason. The Padres have tried it, and are now hamstrung with aging contracts and an inability to spend past the luxury tax threshold. The Tigers tried it a decade ago with no rings to show for it.
And while I join the millions… and millions… of baseball fans around the world in rooting against the Dodgers, a couple things:
One: Stop Asking For A Salary Cap (and Floor)
That only helps the owners. First, you don’t get a floor without a cap. It would be bad business to force yourself to spend without putting a limit on it. A salary cap comes as part of a Collective Bargaining Agreement, which is a legal document. If there’s one thing lawyers love, it’s creating and exploiting loopholes. The NHL salary cap has been in place since 2006 and it’s been a never-ending cycle of contract and cap shenanigans ever since:
First, teams signed aging players to absurdly long-term deals they never intended to see the end of so they could lower the cap number. Read about Ilya Kovalchuk signing for $107million for 17 years.
Teams traded for players who were retired due to injury, but still on rosters to collect on their contract through insurance. A team looking to not spend cash could get to the floor by adding someone with a $10mil contract, bringing their payroll number to an acceptable number while paying pennies on the dollar. Read about the Arizona Coyotes and Chris Pronger.
Teams stashed injured players on long-term IR to clear cap space. They’d go build up their team with stars and then have that injured player come back for the playoffs when they were cap compliant. Read about Mark Stone and the Vegas Golden Knights.
All of those situations came about because of the salary cap. None of them benefited fans. The teams at the salary floor, like the Coyotes or Sabres, couldn’t spend more if they wanted to. So what you got was a crappy team in an empty arena with beleaguered ownership until Utah grabbed them. The top revenue teams still succeeded. They allocated their extra money to other things, like scouting, development, analysts and making their team a free agent destination. Winnipeg isn’t signing superstars any more frequently now than they would without a cap.
This will happen with an MLB salary cap.
If you’re cheap, you’re cheap. The ownership groups that are accused of hoarding dollars will still get their profit. But someone’s going to have to pay for that increased expense. You think that’s coming out of the owner’s checking account? You will see just how creative rich people get when it comes to getting richer.
If payroll goes up, they’ll cut other costs with employee layoffs and trimming the stadium maintenance budget, for example. They’ll find ways to bring more revenue in. We’ve already seen these decisions made by sports leaders. Naked money grabs like gambling apps, Strauss logos on helmets, international games, dynamic ticket prices.
Also, with a cap guaranteeing players a portion of baseball income, everything becomes about money… even more than it is now. There’s no tradition or element of baseball they won’t trample while reaching for the extra dollar. Now that players are guaranteed, say, 50% of that, they’ll sign off on everything that adds to their pocketbooks, too. In 5 years their jerseys will look like stock cars and the field will be covered in digital ad overlays swinging at baseballs that are stamped with “Major League Baseball brought to you by Pepsi.”
The only people who benefit are the middle-lower class free agents who will gobble up a few extra million from a team desperate to get in compliance. But a cheap team or bad ownership group will get that money back some other way. Free agents will still be scared off by lack of amenities, constant firesales and other things that poor teams always do. Richer teams will still find ways to stand out. Roki Sasaki could have signed with any team for a rookie salary that everyone could afford. What was one of the deciding factors? The Dodgers were willing to tear up their locker room and put fancy bidets in. If all things are equal, I’m taking the job that has a comfy place to poop.
So maybe 300 people on the planet benefit directly. But hey, at least we made the Pirates spend a couple million more
Two: This Won’t Go On Forever
The Dodgers roster construction isn’t sustainable. Sure, right now it looks bleak, like they’re buying championships. And they’ve deferred salaries into the next millennium to alleviate some of the immediate cash flow concerns and luxury tax bills. But even Guggenheim Partners has a limit on what they’re willing to spend. As they continue to cross the tax threshold and owe $1 for every $1 spent on players, they’ll have no choice but to curb spending or shed payroll somewhere. The roster right now is a mighty one and at full strength. But it’s going to cost a lot of money to maintain. Just look.
Shohei Ohtani - obviously he’s the focal point. He hits 50 homers, steals 50 bases and throws 100mph. He’s a created player in MVP Baseball with maxed out sliders and looks like he’s playing on rookie mode some nights. He’s also 31 years old with two elbow surgeries in his past in an era where sluggers don’t always age gracefully.
Mookie Betts just had the worst offensive season of his career. He just turned 33 and is playing shortstop every day, tied with Xander Bogaerts as the oldest everyday shortstop in the league.
Freddie Freeman is still awesome, but owed $54million the next two seasons when he’ll be 36 and 37.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto is looking worth every penny of his record 12yr/$325million contract. He also had almost 1,000 innings on his arm before arriving in LA and is owed over $30million a year until he’s 36 years old in an era when every pitcher’s elbow is a ticking bomb.
You can see how that roster would intimidate and frustrate fans of other teams. But the team is also loaded with expensive mistakes:
Tanner Scott signed as their big relief pitcher addition for $72million and gave up 11 home runs in 57 innings.
Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow made a combined 29 starts this season for $58million.
Michael Conforto ($17mil) and Teoscar Hernandez ($19mil) helped weigh down the lineup, contributing to the 18th best outfield in baseball by WAR. Defensively, their left fielders were 18th best in the league and right fielders 24th.
Next season they already have $314million on the books and will have 7 position players over 30 years old on the roster. Remember, those guys also have to play the field every day because the DH slot is filled (though that’s a good problem to have in this case, not like they’re stuck with Billy Butler).
They spent all that money and signed all those free agents to win 93 games this season. They needed to use 40 different pitchers to get through the year, including two position players. Teams used a median of 33 pitchers in 2025. Only 5 used more than the Dodgers: Angels (41), Braves (46), Diamondbacks (42), Orioles (41), Mets (46). Those teams’ combined win percentage was .477 and none made the playoffs.
Spending money on a roster is obviously important. Seven of the top 10 payrolls made the playoffs and 9 of the 12 playoff teams were in the top half. The central divisions accounted for all the lower payrolls (CIN, CLE and MIL). So it would seem like spending a bit more than league average gets you a shot at the playoffs. Of the top 10 teams, only Atlanta was eliminated before the final week. But it looks more like $180-$200million will buy you a ticket to the playoffs, and from there it’s anyone’s trophy to take. The Dodgers spent 75% more than that for 93 wins, the 3rd seed in the NL, requiring a wild card 3-game series and not a bye round, and will be the away team in the World Series.
The Dodgers do show that having money to spend can smooth over a lot of bumps. All your expensive pitchers blew up? Go grab some more. Your free-agent outfielders can’t hit over .200? Pay some more guys who can. They can absorb some bad contracts that would hamstring other teams. And guess what? That’s a good thing. If a big free agent deal is going to be a bust (or age poorly), better to have that contract on a team that can handle it rather than let it anchor down another team’s payroll for years. Look at all the bloated deals recently that are suffocating teams with lower revenue numbers:
Xander Bogaerts: Padres still owe $200mil for the next 8 years
Stephen Strasburg: Nationals signed him to a 7yr/$245million contract in 2020. He pitched 31-1/3 innings and had to retire.
Kris Bryant: The Rockies still owe him $81million on a $182million contract. He’s played 170 games in 4 years on that contract.
There are dozens of other examples. So when fans want teams to spend more, I get that. But who do you want them to sign? Odds are any free agent over $100million will become a drag on their team’s payroll, production and flexibility in the future. Better to have the big market teams gobble up the last couple years of a star’s career and pay the premium, clearing the way for small- and mid-market teams to develop and promote new stars.
Jupiter is so big, it is 2.5x more massive than every other planet in the solar system combined. Because of that, it absorbs countless asteroids and comets that would otherwise devastate our humble little planet. The one time Earth thought it could take on a big asteroid, the dinosaurs vanished. The Dodgers payroll is so big, the salaries of their 5 starting pitchers (~$172million) would rank 14th in the league this season. They also absorbed a lot of contracts that are either already awful, or will be awful soon, contracts that would destroy a smaller team’s competitive window.
I think it’s simple. Fans are complainers by nature. And on social media, they amplify the ones who complain the most until it feels like the whole world wants the Dodgers to stop spending money. But give them a cap, and they will complain about something else. Hold the line. And go Blue Jays!
