Cody Snavely
The Los Angeles Dodgers are in the news again this past weekend for ruining baseball, again, after securing 23-year-old Japanese ace Rōki Sasaki to a $6.5 million agreement and signing top left-handed relief pitcher Tanner Scott to a multi-year deal.
All over social media, it is a battleground between the haves and the have-nots as the rich get richer and the rest of the league is left pondering the question: when enough is enough?
Well, after much consideration, it is time for the Dodgers and their fans to fully embrace the new evil empire and become the villains of Major League Baseball.
Every story needs a villain, and that could also apply to sports. In baseball, the 1990s New York Yankees won multiple championships into the early 2000s. In the National Football League, the dominant New England Patriots won six Super Bowls under future Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady. In the National Basketball Association, there are other teams, such as the Los Angeles Lakers, Golden State Warriors, and Miami Heat, and their respective stars, such as Steph Curry and LeBron James.
After winning the 2024 World Series over the New York Yankees, the Dodgers have entered that era, and there’s no turning back.
Many will argue that the hate started last offseason when the Dodgers, a perennial World Series favorite, inked arguably the most talented baseball player ever, two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani, to a massive 10-year $700 million deal with $680 million deferred. But in reality, the hate started much earlier, in 2012, when the Dodgers were sold to the Guggenheim Baseball Management group.
Since that sale, the Dodgers, under owner Mark Walter, Cheif Executive Officer Stan Kasten, and ten seasons under President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman the team has made the postseason every year, won four National League pennants, and two World Series championships. They are the new premier franchise in baseball.
However, after last offseason, when the Dodgers spent over one billion dollars, brought in Shohei Ohtani, signed Yoshinobu Yamamoto, traded for Tyler Glasnow, and continued to add throughout the season at the trade deadline, they upped themselves this winter. So far, this is how the offseason looks for the Dodgers:
- Signed
- Blake Snell (5-year, $182MM)
- Michael Conforto (1-year, $17MM)
- Re-signed Teoscar Hernandez (3-year, $66MM)
- Re-signed Blake Treinen (2-year, $22MM)
- Hyeseong Kim (3-year, $12.5MM)
- Roki Sasaki ($6.5MM Int Signing)
- Tanner Scott (4-year, $72MM)
- Extended:
- –Tommy Edman (5-year, $74MM)
- Lost:
- –Walker Buehler (Red Sox, 1-year, $21.05MM)
- –Gavin Lux (traded)
- –Daniel Hudson (retired)
- –Kevin Kiermaier (retired)
Add in the fact that the Dodgers are still not done, as they’re expected to re-sign Clayton Kershaw and possibly Kiké Hernández eventually, and then you understand where people’s frustrations come from.
However, anger and frustration are close neighbors of envy. Other teams wish they could be the model organization, wish they had the player organization relationship the Dodgers have, and wish they had the player development systems Los Angeles has. They wish they had the pull that a player would be willing to take less and defer millions just for a chance to play with the Dodgers.
However, as of right now, it cannot be replicated. Not all teams can do what the Dodgers are doing financially and what they have built over the last decade.
People can say they hate the Dodgers deep down, but they don’t hate them; they hate what they’ve done and what they’ll continue to do while their favorite team can’t.
And the argument that the Dodgers are bad for baseball is a falsehood. The Dodgers are doing everything within the rules, and at the end of the day, they only have to appease one fanbase: their own.
What this should do for Major League Baseball is make all twenty-nine other teams try harder and spend more money, and challenge the Dodgers not to vent and hope for a lockout during the next CBA negotiations.
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