Are the Los Angeles Dodgers “ruining baseball,” or are other organizations failing to compete for the top players?
Coming out of November as the World Series champions, they toppled all of the dominoes in their way with the best roster in baseball. But that didn’t stop them from acquiring even more players to fuel their war machine in the free-agent pool. The New York Mets may have gotten the grand prize in Juan Soto, but the Dodgers have added talented pieces that make the whole baseball world groan, once again the rich got richer.
They’ve signed many guys to bolster an already great pitching staff that was harshly weakened last season by injuries. Roki Sasaki, perhaps the next star to come out of Japan’s budding baseball culture, was the most sought-after player in the international free agent pool and now, in the Los Angeles staff, they have an amazing trifecta of Japanese pitchers: Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Roki Sasaki. As well as, adding Blake Snell, a former Cy Young winner, and two elite relief pitchers in Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates.
They are far and away the favorites to win the World Series in 2025, and after the recent signings, they’ve climbed to the top of the MLB payroll leaders at $303,851,665. The Phillies are second to Los Angeles with $279,332,615 in total allocated money, while the Marlins have the biggest deficit, with $43,630,000 on their payroll.
It’s the natural order for MLB fans to hate the high-spending organizations who have no fear of throwing money at free agents and poaching great players from lesser teams, but maybe it should be perceived as owners who care more than others.
The terms “big market teams” and “small market teams” are thrown around when talking about the humongous gaps between the highest-paying teams and the lowest-paying teams, because of revenue. It’s al true — the Yankees’ total revenue eclipsed 679,000,000 in 2023, according to Statista, this allows more freedom to spend however much they want on players compared to the Oakland Athletics at $241,000,000, which proves how dire the disparity can be for organizations.
However, an underlying factor is the effort taken by the owner. For instance, since 2018, the Detroit Tigers have averaged out to be the 22nd highest payroll in MLB, but from 2007-2017 they were the 5th highest payroll on average. The sudden change from one of the more competitive spending teams to a frugal one comes from the ownership.
Mike Ilitch yearned for a championship for his team more than anything, making any move he thought could instantly make the team better, but his passing in 2017 shifted power to his son Chris, and since then Detroit seems like a small market team, but it truly is just an owner who’s too cheap to go for expensive pieces.
It was the opposite effect for Los Angeles when Mark Walter became the Dodgers owner. He took over in 2012, and since then they’ve averaged the 2nd highest payroll per season, under Frank H. McCourt Jr. from 2004-2011 they were around the 8th highest.
Owners are perhaps the most important part of a successful baseball team, some like Jerry Reinsdorf, Bob Nutting, and John Fisher, and Chris Ilitch are the ones who keep an iron fist on the checkbook, while the guys like Steven Cohen, Hal Steinbrenner, and Mark Walter push for hard for sweet success.
Baseball comes across as an unfair league, dominated by the rich teams that leave the rest in the dirt, but the issue lies in the hands of the owners who don’t try hard enough to compete.
