The Dodgers received 100 video games in 2023. Then they signed the highest two free brokers in that yr’s class: Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a pair of unicorns the likes of which aren’t accessible each offseason. In 2024, the Dodgers had the perfect document in baseball. Then they received the World Sequence, and alongside the way in which made the final two rounds of the playoffs look fairly simple. Ohtani received the NL MVP award.
After which they signed a bunch of latest 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 for those who’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 can be keen to lose the whole 2027 season if it meant MLB instituted a wage cap.
I feel the tenor of among 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 stored developing empty. I like Anthony Santander as a lot as the following man, however Toronto’s column on the We Tried Tracker appears like a field of crayons and reads like an Olivia Rodrigo tune. In that vein: Everybody needed Sasaki, to say nothing of Yamamoto and Ohtani final yr, and it sucks to look at the article of your affection select another person.
However private disappointment isn’t a ok motive to alter the foundations.
I’ve been reluctant to handle this matter 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 believe 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 lifeless. Till then, it’d be a extra productive use of your time to take a position on whether or not an alien invasion may peg again the Dodgers.
The second motive I stored pushing aside this matter is that it’s silly.
I assume being silly doesn’t precisely disqualify an thought from being in style, and on-line polls aren’t well worth the paper they’re not printed on, however greater than 13,000 folks stated they’d be OK with dropping a whole season in an effort to get a wage cap. I do know it’d take a very long time for me to drive to every one in all their homes and slap them within the face with a fish and ask them if they’ve hassle remembering to breathe out and in, however I feel it’d be well worth the effort.
As a result of I bear in mind the injury accomplished in 1994-95, the final time possession actually tried to interrupt the union and institute a wage cap. It scared everybody throughout the sport to loss of life 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 serious 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 injury 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 arduous wage cap, is a bastion of aggressive steadiness. That’s why it’s had two repeat Stanley Cup winners prior to now decade, whereas the final profitable World Sequence protection got here in 2000, despite the fact that hockey is the one sport with a extra chaotic playoff construction than baseball. Should 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 concerning the monetary tips the Vegas Golden Knights and Tampa Bay Lightning have performed in an effort to assemble their Cup-winning rosters. Has the wage cap turned Winnipeg right into a sizzling free agent vacation spot? And what are the Arizona Coyotes as much as as of late? I haven’t heard from them shortly.
The bigwigs in each sport desire a wage cap. System 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 received the championship each season because the price cap got here into drive, and one group, Pink Bull Racing, received 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 received 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 received 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 per 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 answer to an issue that doesn’t even exist. As Rob Mains wrote for Baseball Prospectus yesterday, baseball’s aggressive steadiness is definitely properly inside historic norms in the intervening time. Should you really need each group to have an equal shot at successful a title yearly, no matter foresight or teambuilding capacity or monetary dedication, possibly “sports activities” isn’t your factor in any case. May I curiosity you in checkers as an alternative?
Can the Dodgers supply high free brokers extra money than anybody else? I assume. 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 beginner bonus caps, the draft, and the arbitration system. Second, on the very high. The Yankees are paying Aaron Choose and Gerrit Cole a mixed $76 million in 2025, which is an enormous sum of money. However would you moderately 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 can do lots with that sum of money. Like signal Aaron Choose.
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 group keen to pay Ohtani $46 million a yr after deferrals, nor have been they means 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 ready out within the CBA. Which means high free brokers — the basketball or hockey equivalents of Ohtani, Yamamoto, Snell, and Freddie Freeman — are making selections about their future based mostly on issues aside from cash.
The Dodgers are essentially the most persistently aggressive group within the league. They’ve a popularity 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 essentially the most glamorous metropolis in North America, the place it’s heat and sunny all yr 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 can be much less profitable in attracting expertise? Don’t blame the CBA, blame Randy Newman.
Not each group can supply the identical mixture of cash and life-style the Dodgers can. (Me? I’d moderately dwell in Baltimore or Milwaukee than L.A., however I hate sizzling climate and I’m not a wealthy, good-looking 28-year-old.) What they’ll do is construct up different components of their group, to allow them to supply one thing the Dodgers can’t.
To start with: Enjoying time. The Dodgers may 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 group within the richest league on the earth, with Emirati house owners who may purchase and promote Guggenheim Baseball Administration 10 instances over. They’ve the best-regarded coach since Béla Guttmann and win the league most years. (Not this yr, 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 depart Man Metropolis they’re by no means going to see the sector, and discover their means elsewhere. Some gamers would possibly favor to throw center reduction for a playoff group, however others would possibly wish to shut or begin for a darkish horse membership.
Or how concerning the motive the Dodgers have all these openings for pitchers: Their pitchers maintain getting harm. Neglect participant payroll, the Dodgers are certainly spending hundreds of thousands of {dollars} on cadaver ligaments. The Mariners have managed to equal the Dodgers’ pitching outcomes whereas holding their starters more healthy; how arduous wouldn’t it have been for them to influence Washington native Blake Snell to come back dwelling in the event that they’d made a aggressive supply?
Cleveland has an amazing monitor document for creating pitchers; the Guardians may put their achievements in recruiting materials if the monetary parts have been even shut. The identical with the Orioles and hitter growth. “Positive, we may be 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 growth system is tough, however when an injury-prone beginning pitcher goes for $15 million a yr, 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 middle. It’s only a matter of want-to.
Sarcastically, the so-called small-market groups solely made their lives tougher by proscribing the quantity that may very well be spent on beginner expertise. The Angels didn’t make the very best preliminary bid to Ohtani when he came to visit from Japan; they signed him as a result of they promised him he’d have the ability to play each methods. Think about if they may’ve gone to Adley Rutschman and stated, “We promote our prospects sooner than anybody — do you wish to get jerked round in Triple-A for 18 months or do you wish to be on our large league roster by Labor Day?”
Right here I return to the System 1 instance. Pink Bull has dominated the fee cap period as a result of they got here into it with the perfect automobile. And whereas the fee cap stored Pink Bull from overspending to retain that benefit, it additionally hamstrung its rivals. With synthetic shortage imposed on design and building sources, a spot that might’ve been closed in months continued for 2 years. Cheaper and extra aggressive are usually not related attributes of a sport, however possession will promise the latter in an effort 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 operating. Going by our Prime 50 free agent listing, 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 the perfect 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 all the pieces to do with setting.
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 will not be so nice that the opposite groups couldn’t do one thing about it in the event that they tried. Attempting… now that’s a novel thought I can get behind.
