Following their 2024 World Series victory, the powerhouse Los Angeles Dodgers have gone on one of the most ridiculous and borderline overpowered free agency runs in sports history.
Since the free agency phase of the offseason began, the Dodgers have signed eight players, significantly higher than the average of the other 29 teams with roughly two players signed this offseason.
It isn’t just about the quantity of the signings, but also the quality. Los Angeles signed Japanese phenom, Roki Sasaki, a 23-year-old pitcher who has a plethora of career accomplishments in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, including a career 2.10 Earned Run Average, two all-star appearances, a perfect game, a World Baseball Classic title and the NPB’s record for both total strikeouts as well as consecutive strikeouts in a single game.
So far, the second biggest piece of the Dodgers offseason has been the addition of starting pitcher, Blake Snell. The nine-year veteran has racked up two Cy Young Awards, two ERA titles, an All-Star Appearance, in addition to an American League Pennant under his belt.
Other notable signings include Kirby Yates (3.17 Career ERA, 2x All Star), Tanner Scott (1.75 ERA in 2024), Hyeseong Kim (.304/.364/.403 KBO Career), Teoscar Hernandez (2x All Star, HR Derby Champ, 3x Silver Slugger), Michael Conforto (.251/.348/.456 MLB Career), and Blake Treinen (2.78 Career ERA), according to CBS Sports and BaseballReference.com.
All of these additions and resignings come just months after their World Series title, in which they had six all stars, three Silver Sluggers award winners, four players with MVP votes, and of course, generational talent and 2024 NL MVP, Shohei Ohtani.
While the already star-studded Dodgers continue to bulk up their roster, teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates and Miami Marlins are left in the dust. The issue of extreme deviation in roster talent isn’t solely due to the Dodgers’ motivation to spend money, but also to small market teams’ reluctance to spend and the pushback to add a salary cap and floor in MLB.
The topic of a salary cap in Major League Baseball has been of interest for years now, especially because the other major North American sports leagues have already implemented this for decades. The implementation of a salary cap in MLB wouldn’t just stop teams like the Dodgers from dominating the free agent market, but it would also force low spending teams to start spending money and become more competitive. The salary cap would certainly come with a floor, creating a much smaller margin of spending between teams.
For the time being, the gap between teams will remain. The teams that spend in free agency will continue to be at the top, while the cheap teams stay towards the bottom, outside of a few outliers.
From 2018 to 2024, six of the seven World Series winners have been in the top 12 of spending in MLB, according to Spotrac.com.
What this means is that teams that don’t spend money, to put it harshly, will not win.
This has to change. Baseball is already a dying sport in many people’s eyes and the same teams, like the Dodgers, being at the top every year is not going to make people tune in to watch.
Some people have given up on the 2025 season, despite the first regular season game not beginning until late March. Fans of lower spending or non-competitive teams, like myself (a Pirates fan), feel there is no point in entertaining this upcoming 2025 season.
Many analysts in MLB assume and predict that the Dodgers will be the winners of this year’s World Series, which clearly does not give hope to fans of other teams, according to ESPN. If this becomes a regular occurrence year after year, then is there truly a purpose in keeping up with baseball?
I believe that if the Dodgers become this year’s world champs, there will be little purpose to the coming seasons. They have numerous players locked up for multiple seasons and I don’t think the talent of the team will decline.
While I think the state of baseball is in jeopardy while the Dodgers’ dynasty arises, I think there is hope in the years after the Dodgers run ends. This is because of a monetary tactic, called deferred contracts.
Deferred contracts are a way to sign players, however, a portion of the money given to that player will be after his contract expires. What this means for the Dodgers is that, while they can sign a bunch of players now, their ability to sign players in the future will be hindered due to their amount of deferred contracts in later years.
One of these deferred contracts is the three-time MVP and two-way star, Shohei Ohtani. Ohtani’s full contract is 700 million dollars, however, only 20 million of that is being given to him during the 10 years of the contract, according to The Sporting News. The other 680 million dollars will be handed to him from 2034 to 2043. This means the Dodgers have much more room to spend, as they are only paying Ohtani 20 million dollars a year until 2034. On the other hand, starting in 2034 when Los Angeles has to pay Ohtani 68 million a year, this will most likely hurt their chances of signing other players.
I believe there is something to look forward to after Los Angeles’ reign comes to a close. Hopefully, at that point, there will be some sort of salary cap, or salary floor and teams will be much more balanced.
However, for the foreseeable future, the state of baseball is not looking good. If changes don’t come soon, there is a possibility that MLB will fall into a hole from which it can’t climb out.