Major League Baseball and/or the MLBPA has created themselves a true baseball villain in the Dodgers. Like the Yankees of the past, the Dodgers have went and purchased many of the greatest players in the game. Los Angeles has been on fire (whoa, poor choice of words*) this offseason landing a tidal wave of free agents including: Tanner Scott, Roki Sasaki, Blake Snell, Teoscar Hernandez, and others. This adds (not Teoscar he was already there and resigned as a free agent) to their World Series winning all star lineup of which several players are considered the very best in baseball. Yes, we're talking about you Mookie, Freddie, and Shohei. They are spending future money with abandon by deferring contracts. (Fancy word for an I.O.U.) Play today and we'll pay you (hopefully) someday in the future.
Will this epic team and deferred salary strategy be good for baseball? It will be good... if they lose. Everyone likes they legendary stories of the underdogs. Average Joes Gym vs Globo Gym, David vs Goliath, and Jon Stewart vs Congress are all legendary stories. These stories are fun, intriguing, and unexpected. Mostly because the underdog wins. (except for Jon Stewart, sorry Jon) Did you hear the one about David and Goliath where Goliath won? Of course not, nobody cares about that story, it was an expected outcome. If the Dodgers win the World Series this year it won't be intriguing or unexpected. It will be boring and baseball can be boring enough on its own.
Games are not fun or entertaining to watch with a high disparity of talent because the outcome is predictable. Fans do not show up to watch the Harlem Globetrotters win the game. Winning is a forgone conclusion for the Globetrotters but the fans show up to see the trick shot magic and the crazy antics. The question baseball has to ask itself... are we here to play a serious game or are we here strictly to entertain? If you're answer is the latter then you should trade out some of your teams to start playing against the Savannah Bananas at least then we'll be entertained. If you think that competitive games can be serious and entertaining then there should be some measures to ensure the talent is spread across the league.
If you are interested in continuing the competition the MLB should seriously consider a hardline team salary cap or limiting/eliminating deferred contract deals. Why? What if the Dodgers don't have enough money in the future to pay their players? They win 4 titles in 5 years and all those contracts start coming due and they dont have the money. How could that even happen with a team that has so much money? Say MLB starts to have a decline in viewership and those revenue streams start to dry up, will the MLB be on the hook if a franchise can not pay its obligations? Are the Dodgers too big to fail?
*Is this too soon? Nope. Laughing is our coping mechanism. We are sad to see the fires in southern California that have taken lives, homes, and communities. Natural disasters suck and we feel for you, we live in Florida so yep, we also live in a naturally occurring disaster area. Do not lose hope though people will be there for you, well... they'll be there for like the first few weeks and then fade away while you attempt to repair the disaster of your life. Insurance, if you have it, will take a very long time to pay out and even the payout won't reimburse you for all the heartache and torment of such a disaster, let alone actually covering the true cost of replacing the things and home that you lost. Weird how insurance companies are so happy to insure you and love taking your premiums but when actual disasters happen they turn into your 85 year old grandma. (a little slow and forgetful also turns out they spent all their money on bingo, paying shareholders, and early bird specials so they can't really afford to pay you back for anything and are now completely dependent on the government for support.)
We're glad to see Shohei Ohtani committed $500k to help. We'd embarrass him and say dude you signed a contract for $700 million and that's all you can give? We won't say that at $70 million per year and 162 games played Shohei is donating just over 1 baseball game worth of checks. Yes that's 1 baseball game! Dude didn't notice his translator "stealing" $17 million but cant give up more than $500k for entire neighborhoods being burnt and firefighters risking their lives in your own town? Way to step up to the plate. We know his money is deferred so maybe he can give like $70 million future dollars in like 2040 when he gets paid. So, we won't say anything about that and unfortunately, we would help out but we're still trying to get our roof fixed from Hurricane Milton. We don't expect any of the Tampa Bay players to help out because we're not sure they make enough to cover the cost of our roof... or even their own roof.
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