The Dodgers gained 100 video games in 2023. Then they signed the highest two free brokers in that 12 months’s class: Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a pair of unicorns the likes of which aren’t obtainable each offseason. In 2024, the Dodgers had one of the best document in baseball. Then they gained the World Collection, and alongside the best way made the final two rounds of the playoffs look fairly simple. Ohtani gained the NL MVP award.
After which they signed a bunch of recent gamers and introduced again a couple of extra! Blake Snell! Roki Sasaki! Tanner Scott! Hyeseong Kim! Michael Conforto! Kirby Yates, in all probability! Teoscar Hernández! Blake Treinen! Kotaro Matsushima! (OK, Matsushima is a rugby participant — I included him to see in case you’re paying consideration.)
MLB wants a wage cap, say two thirds of the 36,000 respondents to a much-circulated ballot on MLB Commerce Rumors. Extra jarring are the outcomes to query no. 2: Nearly precisely half of some 27,000 respondents could be keen to lose the complete 2027 season if it meant MLB instituted a wage cap.
I feel the tenor of a few of the anti-Dodger rhetoric this offseason is a bit a lot, however I empathize with the sentiment undergirding it. Simply to offer one instance: The poor Blue Jays have tried all offseason to make a free agent wealthy past his wildest desires however saved arising empty. I like Anthony Santander as a lot as the subsequent man, however Toronto’s column on the We Tried Tracker seems like a field of crayons and reads like an Olivia Rodrigo music. In that vein: Everybody needed Sasaki, to say nothing of Yamamoto and Ohtani final 12 months, and it sucks to observe the article of your affection select another person.
However private disappointment isn’t a adequate cause to vary the principles.
I’ve been reluctant to handle this subject in column kind for 2 causes: First, it’ll by no means occur. A wage cap is the MLBPA’s line within the sand. Don’t even say “wage cap” out loud inside earshot of Tony Clark until you need him to summon the ghost of Mikhail Bakunin to hang-out you right into a state of insanity. (I think that is what occurred to Dick Monfort, and would go a good distance towards explaining what occurred to the Rockies.)
The MLBPA would possibly take into account agreeing to a wage cap solely after anybody throughout the union who’s ever met or examine Marvin Miller is both retired or useless. Till then, it’d be a extra productive use of your time to take a position on whether or not an alien invasion might peg again the Dodgers.
The second cause I saved laying aside this subject is that it’s silly.
I suppose being silly doesn’t precisely disqualify an concept from being fashionable, and on-line polls aren’t definitely worth the paper they’re not printed on, however greater than 13,000 individuals stated they’d be OK with shedding a whole season so as to get a wage cap. I do know it’d take a very long time for me to drive to every one among their homes and slap them within the face with a fish and ask them if they’ve bother remembering to breathe out and in, however I feel it’d be definitely worth the effort.
As a result of I bear in mind the harm accomplished in 1994-95, the final time possession actually tried to interrupt the union and institute a wage cap. It scared everybody throughout the recreation to demise for greater than 25 years. Extra to the purpose, it didn’t work; the union held the road.
And that generationally scarring occasion pales compared to what occurred to the NHL the one time a significant North American sports activities league gave half of MLBTR’s viewers what it needed. Hockey misplaced shut to 2 seasons throughout three lockouts in 1994, 2004-05, and 2012-13, inflicting self-inflicted harm to the league’s funds and profile from which it nonetheless has not come near recovering.
However at the very least the NHL, with its onerous wage cap, is a bastion of aggressive stability. That’s why it’s had two repeat Stanley Cup winners up to now decade, whereas the final profitable World Collection protection got here in 2000, though hockey is the one sport with a extra chaotic playoff construction than baseball. When you’re satisfied that the Dodgers are performing some accounting magic trick by deferring cash in Mookie Betts’ and Ohtani’s contracts, you’re going to like griping in regards to the monetary methods the Vegas Golden Knights and Tampa Bay Lightning have performed so as to assemble their Cup-winning rosters. Has the wage cap turned Winnipeg right into a scorching free agent vacation spot? And what are the Arizona Coyotes as much as nowadays? I haven’t heard from them shortly.
The bigwigs in each sport need a wage cap. Components 1, which is run by Liberty Media, the corporate that owns the Atlanta Braves, obtained a spending cap for the primary time in 2021. The identical driver has gained the championship each season for the reason that value cap got here into drive, and one crew, Purple Bull Racing, gained 35 out of 38 races from July 2022 to April 2024. That run consists of the least aggressive season within the sport’s historical past, 2023, when Max Verstappen alone gained 19 of twenty-two races and completed decrease than second as soon as.
The Dodgers would possibly make the playoffs yearly, however the playoffs are a special story. They’ve gained two titles complete within the time since Verstappen’s dad was driving in F1. Plus, if you wish to see them lose, they do this at the very least as soon as every week, like all baseball groups. Think about if the Dodgers went on a successful streak that lasted 5 months.
The wage cap is an ineffective resolution to an issue that doesn’t even exist. As Rob Mains wrote for Baseball Prospectus yesterday, baseball’s aggressive stability is definitely properly inside historic norms in the mean time. When you truly need each crew to have an equal shot at successful a title yearly, no matter foresight or teambuilding potential or monetary dedication, possibly “sports activities” isn’t your factor in spite of everything. Would possibly I curiosity you in checkers as an alternative?
Can the Dodgers provide high free brokers extra money than anybody else? I suppose. On the very least, the Mets, with their so-rich-it-should-be-illegal proprietor, can sustain financially. However that’s not why the Dodgers are touchdown most of those free brokers.
Proper now, there are two locations groups can discover efficiency for a cut price: First, on the very backside of the market, the place pay is constrained by newbie bonus caps, the draft, and the arbitration system. Second, on the very high. The Yankees are paying Aaron Decide and Gerrit Cole a mixed $76 million in 2025, which is a large amount of cash. However would you relatively have these two at that determine or, say, Joc Pederson and Matthew Boyd for a mixed $33 million AAV on their multi-year contracts?
The distinction in efficiency — and, extra importantly, reliability — between these two duos is big. However so is that further $43 million. You possibly can do rather a lot with that amount of cash. Like signal Aaron Decide.
The factor is, the Dodgers aren’t massively outbidding their rivals, at the very least not on a regular basis. The Scott signing would possibly’ve been about cash, positive, however the Dodgers weren’t the one crew keen to pay Ohtani $46 million a 12 months after deferrals, nor have been they method out in entrance on Yamamoto, Sasaki, or Kim. I think about that when the small print on Yates’ contract drop, we’ll see a reasonably pedestrian headline determine.
Within the NHL and NBA, the utmost particular person wage is about out within the CBA. Meaning high free brokers — the basketball or hockey equivalents of Ohtani, Yamamoto, Snell, and Freddie Freeman — are making selections about their future based mostly on concerns apart from cash.
The Dodgers are probably the most persistently aggressive crew within the league. They’ve a fame for turning Quad-A guys like Max Muncy and Chris Taylor into All-Stars. Their management, from possession to the entrance workplace to the supervisor, is as well-regarded as you’ll discover within the sport. They play in probably the most glamorous metropolis in North America, the place it’s heat and sunny all 12 months spherical. If you wish to transfer the Dodgers, properly, that’s occurred earlier than. (Which is greater than you possibly can say for a wage cap.)
If cash didn’t matter, what on Earth makes you suppose the Dodgers could be much less profitable in attracting expertise? Don’t blame the CBA, blame Randy Newman.
Not each crew can provide the identical mixture of cash and life-style the Dodgers can. (Me? I’d relatively dwell in Baltimore or Milwaukee than L.A., however I hate scorching climate and I’m not a wealthy, good-looking 28-year-old.) What they’ll do is construct up different elements of their group, to allow them to provide one thing the Dodgers can’t.
Initially: Enjoying time. The Dodgers might need an inexhaustible want for pitchers, however their place participant pool is extraordinarily crowded. Within the Darwinistic free market paradise of European soccer, Manchester Metropolis is the best-resourced crew within the richest league on this planet, with Emirati house owners who might purchase and promote Guggenheim Baseball Administration 10 occasions over. They’ve the best-regarded coach since Béla Guttmann and win the league most years. (Not this 12 months, however most years.)
So additionally they entice the highest younger English prospects to their academy. After which, repeatedly, these stars within the making — Jadon Sancho, Cole Palmer, Morgan Rogers — uncover that in the event that they don’t go away Man Metropolis they’re by no means going to see the sphere, and discover their method elsewhere. Some gamers would possibly favor to throw center aid for a playoff crew, however others would possibly need to shut or begin for a darkish horse membership.
Or how in regards to the cause the Dodgers have all these openings for pitchers: Their pitchers hold getting damage. Overlook participant payroll, the Dodgers are absolutely spending thousands and thousands of {dollars} on cadaver ligaments. The Mariners have managed to equal the Dodgers’ pitching outcomes whereas protecting their starters more healthy; how onerous would it not have been for them to influence Washington native Blake Snell to come back house in the event that they’d made a aggressive provide?
Cleveland has a terrific monitor document for growing pitchers; the Guardians might put their achievements in recruiting materials if the monetary elements have been even shut. The identical with the Orioles and hitter improvement. “Positive, we is perhaps an underdog, however we are able to make you a greater participant than they’ll,” generally is a compelling pitch if the financials are shut.
Constructing a world-class participant improvement system is difficult, however when an injury-prone beginning pitcher goes for $15 million a 12 months, cameras and trainers and math Ph.Ds and fancy machines look extremely low-cost. It’s actually throughout the monetary grasp of all 30 groups to construct such a coaching heart. It’s only a matter of want-to.
Satirically, the so-called small-market groups solely made their lives tougher by limiting the quantity that could possibly be spent on newbie expertise. The Angels didn’t make the best preliminary bid to Ohtani when he came to visit from Japan; they signed him as a result of they promised him he’d be capable to play each methods. Think about if they may’ve gone to Adley Rutschman and stated, “We promote our prospects quicker than anybody — do you need to get jerked round in Triple-A for 18 months or do you need to be on our huge league roster by Labor Day?”
Right here I return to the Components 1 instance. Purple Bull has dominated the price cap period as a result of they got here into it with one of the best automotive. And whereas the price cap saved Purple Bull from overspending to retain that benefit, it additionally hamstrung its rivals. With synthetic shortage imposed on design and development assets, a spot that might’ve been closed in months continued for 2 years. Cheaper and extra aggressive aren’t linked attributes of a sport, however possession will promise the latter so as to get the previous anyway.
I discover this to be an odd second to panic over the Dodgers’ supposed dominance anyway. As a result of the richest contract in baseball historical past obtained signed this winter, and the Dodgers weren’t even within the working. Going by our High 50 free agent record, they’ve signed the no. 6, no. 19, (presumably) no. 39, and no. 44 free brokers; re-signed no. 11 and no. 20; and misplaced (presumably) no. 8 and no. 24.
Their most costly free agent, Snell, has much less assured cash coming to him than both the Giants’ or Diamondbacks’ high free agent signings. And one of the best participant the Dodgers signed — and the one whose absolute attraction to the Dodgers ought to be most troubling to the opposite 29 groups — was Sasaki. That had nothing to do with cash and every part to do with surroundings.
Cash isn’t simply an incentive, it’s an illustration of institutional want-to. As a lot as free brokers love cash, they love want-to simply as a lot. The Dodgers have it simpler than most different groups, it’s true. However that benefit shouldn’t be so nice that the opposite groups couldn’t do one thing about it in the event that they tried. Making an attempt… now that’s a novel concept I can get behind.