The Los Angeles Dodgers have made 102 moves this offseason, and according to Bleacher Report, their payroll including luxury tax is estimated to exceed $375 million, which is $70 million higher than the two teams that are closest to them, the Phillies ($308 million) and the Yankees ($300 million).
The Dodgers won the World Series last year, and the offseason before that, they guaranteed over $1 billion in salary to players.
And it seems that is likely going to be the case this year, because the Dodgers have the best odds to win the 2025 World Series at +300, which is nearly three times better than the second closest, the Yankees at +800, according to ESPN.
The Dodgers signed top names this offseason, such as highly anticipated Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki, All-Star pitchers Tanner Scott and Blake Snell, as well as outfielder Teoscar Hernandez.
“I do think that the contracts the Dodgers are giving out are kind of absurd, such as Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell, and even Yoshinobu Yamamoto,” says lifelong Dodgers fan Rick Alther.
Also, in an article by Mike Petriello, he says that “If there’s been a theme of this baseball offseason, it’s the Dodgers signing every member of your extended family.”
This is why the MLB needs to incorporate a payroll cap to give all teams a chance to win.
Many fans are upset about this, deeming it unfair that a major market team can go out and buy themselves a world series, while smaller teams, like the Oakland Athletics are left to struggle. In fact, the 67 million dollar deal they made with right-handed pitcher Luis Severino broke the Athletics record for the biggest deal in team history.
Severino will be the only player on the Athletics making over $20 million a year. Meanwhile, the Dodgers have four. According to the Northern Iowan, it would take the Athletics 15 years to match the spending the Dodgers did this offseason.
Free agent pitcher Jack Flaherty, who pitched with the Dodgers last year, said on X that “A certain team is not ruining baseball, a lot of teams are just doing very little.”
But smaller teams don’t have many chances to do something trying to compete with bigger teams who can offer more money.
A huge factor for teams to be able to spend lots of money for good players is how much they make. The more money a team makes, the more money they have available to buy good players to make the team perform better.
And the teams that win more usually have more fans, which explains why the Dodgers and Yankees both had the highest fan attendance — 3,941,251 tickets sold this year, averaging over 48,000 fans per game, according to ESPN.
And this creates a vicious cycle that only teams that are winning and making money can benefit from. And by adding a salary cap, it can create equal chances for teams to win. The Yankees have won the World Series 27 times, and there are five teams who have yet to even win one.
The National Hockey League added a salary cap for the 2005-06 season and they gained the most parity, meaning teams all have roughly the same amount of skill, of all major sports leagues around the world.
Another possible solution could be a salary floor to keep teams spending money on players that will improve their performance.
“MLB could create a salary floor. Some teams just aren’t spending money even though they have it,” says Alther. “This rule might make some teams spend more money during the offseason.”
There are many managers around the league that are less motivated than others. Some are more willing to spend money than others. By adding a salary cap or floor, it will provide everyone a more equal chance to win, preventing teams from taking over, and squashing the chances of winning for others.
This is the opinion of Cam Jones, a sophomore baseball player and reporter for the Chief Advocate.
