Bad For The Game?

By Mike Rifkin

The Los Angeles Dodgers won their first legitimate World Series since 1988 (sorry 2020). This offseason has shown that they are not satisfied with just this title and want to run it back. Here is a list of players the Dodgers have signed this offseason with salary. Blake Snelll ( 5//182 million), Tommy Edman (5/59.5 million), Tanner Scott (4/72), Teoscar Hernandez (3/66), Blake Treinen (2/22), Michael Conforto (1/17), Roki Sasaki (1/ 6.5) ). 

So, are the Dodgers spending this kind of money bad for the game? No, this is what big market teams should be doing, spending their resources. Now if you do want to be mad about something it is the deferred money in some of those contracts, but they found a loophole in the system. 

Now is it bad how much they’re outspending other teams? Yes, but that isn’t the Dodgers fault it’s on the owners of these other teams that refuse to spend money. Now I am unsure if baseball will implement a salary cap in the next CBA, but it is something to consider. But I really think what baseball should do ( and they won’t ) is to get owners, who operate these teams to win games. Winning goes hand and hand with attendance, so if you win games people will show up putting more money in the owner’s pocket. But the owners who refuse to spend money to make these teams watchable, that’s the real problem in Baseball. 

As fans we can complain about what the Dodgers are doing, but it’s the same thing as the Yankees under George Steinbrenner, they have spent money. The whole issue of what the Dodgers are doing is really the fault of Major League Baseball itself. But at the end of the day, the Dodgers have become the villain in Baseball, and we’ll have to wait and see in the next CBA if MLB addresses it.