On September 19, 2024, I had the luck and privilege to see what was easily
the greatest offensive day in the history of the sport. Shohei Ohtani created the first 50/50 club with such aplomb, we were unlikely to ever see its like ever again. Never mind that he made
another 50/50 club in 2025.
I wandered in a dazed haze afterwards, wanting to absorb every last instant. As I got into my Uber to go back to the hotel, I had a single sobering thought:
“Tonight isn’t even his final form.”
Last night, we saw something that has literally never happened before. Anyone lucky enough to be at Dodger Stadium to soak it in witnessed the event. Baseball is a team sport. One player is not supposed to be able to put the team on their back and literally dominate.
Football is similar to an extent, but the most obvious analogue is basketball. The greats just took over a game and bent it to their will — greats like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson.
Add another to that list in an entirely different sport: Shohei Ohtani.
What was initially expected to be a lengthy, drama-filled affair made prognosticators look dumb. The pitching was historic. The offense was better, as Tommy Edman rebounded nicely from his goofs against the Phillies. I am still asking wherefore thou art, Mookie Betts? His glove was stellar, but even an average bat would significantly lessen the difficulty of repeating as champions.
Now the Dodgers have dispatched the Milwaukee Brewers with almost-clinical precision. The Dodgers celebrated, of course, but it had the novelty of winning a free cheeseburger at McDonald’s. Or put another way…
My two favorite bad predictions were from The Athletic, which has a couple of familiar names to our community:
Grant Brisbee (MIL): If they could make the Cubs’ defense sweat, they’ll do a number on the Dodgers’ defense.
C. Trent Rosecrans (MIL): Remember last October when the Dodgers made the Yankees look like a poorly coached high school team? Well, after the baseball world seemed to think the Dodgers invented the wheel play last week, wait until they see this Brewers team play. The Dodgers are more talented, but the Brewers just don’t make too many mistakes. Brewers in five.
The Cubs were middling and only advanced because, surprise, the Padres managed to faceplant in the face of
any expectation — again. With all due respect to Mr. Rosecrans, who had the benefit of an extra two weeks of information, yes, the Brewers’ defense was impressive.
However, if you average a literal run per game, you aren’t likely to win. You cannot steal first base, but in your honor, let us re-live the goofy double play in Game 1 that likely reset the karmic scales.
And now we wait. We will break down just how outmatched the Brewers were in a couple of days. We now have the earliest possible preview for the upcoming World Series…against someone.
The Dodgers are now mild victims of their own success, able to literally rest on their laurels for a couple of days, as the Toronto Blue Jays and Seattle Mariners have to travel back to Toronto as the American League Championship Series shuffles along to its sixth game.
Six games — in a championship series?!? In this economy?!? How
bourgeoisie!
Mild kidding aside, the Mariners are currently up three games to two, which is a franchise record for proximity to the World Series. If it were not for Ohtani’s superhuman evening, the baseball world would be agog at the demonstrated power of Cal “Big Dumper” Raleigh and Eugenio Suárez, ensuring a novelty in the ALCS: a home victory.
It is pretty simple. If Toronto prevails, the Dodgers open the World Series in Canada. And yes, we will have a Guide entry for those ready to enjoy Rogers Centre. Spoilers:
It’s kinda mid, but whatever. As an aside, if the Blue Jays prevail,
old friend Buddy Kennedy will be this year’s Taylor Trammell – guaranteed both a winner’s ring and a loser’s ring regardless of who wins the World Series. As trivia, Kennedy was also a member of the Phillies organization this year, too.
And now, for no particular reason, snapshots of my visit to Rogers Centre from April 2024.
—
Michael Elizondo (@elidelajandro.bsky.social) 2025-10-18T08:54:35.035Z
If the Mariners prevail, they will have to schlep back from Toronto to Los Angeles, as the Dodgers will have home-field advantage for the first time since the Wild Card round. I will update
my Guide entry for T-Mobile Park because the food is unexpectedly good, but the park now suffers from logistical failures that make one feel like they are trapped in a human ant farm.
Imagine the psychic horror of trying to enter or leave Dodger Stadium…but now, you are on foot.
Dodger fans who want to be a bit sneaky should be rooting for the Mariners to prevail in the ALCS, preferably in seven games. In this scenario, the Mariners will have to make
two transcontinental flights after being locked in a dogfight with the Blue Jays. Regardless of who they play, the Dodgers return to action this coming Friday, October 24th.
Also, in the Mariners as AL Champ scenario, I already bought a Game 7 World Series ticket (if necessary) and have already secured my way to and from Los Angeles. If the Dodgers don’t play seven games or face the Blue Jays, I get my money back,
as I still don’t believe in the no-win scenario. Personal scheduling is a bit of a bear right now, and the only way I could attend any World Series game is by going to a potential Game 7 at home against the Mariners.
After being the villains of the NLCS, the Dodgers are already the villains of the World Series, as Dave Roberts confirmed the quiet part out loud after Game 4 with unexpected and refreshing candor.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts: "Before this season started, they said the Dodgers are ruining baseball. Let's get four more wins and really ruin baseball!"
️
#MLB #NLCS #WorldSeries
—
Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing.bsky.social) 2025-10-18T03:53:34.665Z
I think the Dodgers are collectively getting tired of the cries of poverty and haplessness coming from the rest of the league. Folks used to call the Dodgers chokers or paper tigers, and
after the 2022 faceplant, which remains the San Diego Padres’ only moment of triumph in this window, or
the 2023 desert debacle, the mockery was well-earned.
Everyone and their mother outside of the Dodgers’ faithful are gnashing their teeth and already claiming that the Dodgers have ruined baseball. The Dodgers
are ruining baseball, but not in the way one might initially think. Today, we address the bogus argument.
Here is the dumb argument that the Dodgers are breaking baseball:
The Dodgers have so much money from their largest-in-the-league payroll to buy up all the good players, leaving everyone to get scraps. Therefore, MLB needs a salary cap to curtail those ruffians from Los Angeles!
If the Dodgers repeat, then it’s time to shut down the sport in 2027 to get a salary cap in place.
I cannot overstate what a stupid argument the above is. League revenues hit a record high last year. Television ratings are up. Attendance across the league overall is up. To think that there are franchises and fanbases right now that are willing to set all of that on fire is shocking yet not surprising.
At the start of the year, Ken Rosenthal discussed the general state of financial play and why a lockout would be disastrous for the sport.
As we covered before, with slightly outdated numbers, baseball is more dependent on local television deals and ticket sales for annual revenue. With the regional sports network model dying, there has been disruption to the gate receipts or local/regional television deals can impact a team’s bottom line and revenue. The Dodgers have the largest and most stable television deal.
how the big 4 US sports leagues make their money
pic.twitter.com/e1NdpkFRvw
— BrooksGate (@Brooks_Gate)
July 16, 2024
The problem with discussing finances in baseball is what parts of the puzzle are clearly missing.
What is known is how much each team has spent on payroll. The luxury tax threshold in 2025 was $241 million and only seven teams are payers this year: the Dodgers (estimated $150 million), New York Mets ($71 million), New York Yankees ($52 million), Philadelphia Phillies ($45 million), San Diego Padres ($10 million), Toronto Blue Jays ($10 million), and Boston Red Sox ($91,000).
Even with such a generous threshold, sixteen teams did not even spend $200 million on payroll in 2025.
Ten teams did not even spend $150 million on payroll this year: Colorado Rockies ($142 million), Cincinnati Reds ($139 million), Washington Nationals ($137 million), Milwaukee Brewers ($137 million), Cleveland Guardians ($132 million), Pittsburgh Pirates ($112 million), Sacramento Athletics ($111 million), Tampa Bay Rays ($100 million), Chicago White Sox ($87 million), and Miami Marlins ($86 million).
As the Atlanta Braves are the only U.S. team to have open financial books as being owned by a publicly traded company, Forbes magazine has done its best over the past few years to approximate the revenue streams of teams and their payroll spending proportions. Rather than sift through every team, @Brooks_Gate mercifully collated that data into one easy-to-read chart.
how much revenue each MLB team generated last year, and how much of that is going towards their payroll this year
pic.twitter.com/UAZmHhaR8a
— BrooksGate (@Brooks_Gate)
March 29, 2025
As the chart may not fully display, the last three teams are:
- 28th: Tampa – $297 million revenue / $100 million 2025 payroll + tax / $100 million tax payroll / No Luxury Tax / Payroll/Revenue 33.8%
- 29th: Chicago White Sox – $277 million revenue / $87 million 2025 payroll + tax / $87 million tax payroll / No Luxury Tax / Payroll/Revenue 31.6%
- 30th: Miami Marlins – $317 million revenue / $86 million 2025 payroll + tax / $86 million tax payroll / No Luxury Tax / Payroll/Revenue 27%
It makes sense to look at these figures with a healthy seasoning of salt and skepticism, but at first glance, the Dodgers pulling in the most money last year makes sense as the team won a solid 98 games and led MLB in attendance by a healthy margin. Even Dave Roberts has acknowledged that the team is reinvesting money into the club to build a winning product.
"I can't speak to what revenue we're bringing in, but our ownership puts it back into players, a big chunk of it… that's the way it should be with all ownership groups."
Dave Roberts when asked about critics who say the Dodgers are "buying a championship"
pic.twitter.com/rXy1KGcb3u
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX)
October 18, 2025
Built differently
As we covered last time, the Dodgers won 93 games with a significant amount of dead or ineffective cash on the payroll. In fact, some of these contracts were so bad that the team significantly improved when effectively shelving Michael Conforto and others for the postseason run.
Imposing a salary cap misses a larger point. It is not as if dynasties in other sports have not occurred in a salary cap. Off the top of my head, I can think of the Golden State Warriors in basketball, the Kansas City Chiefs and the New England Patriots in football, the Tampa Bay Lightning in hockey.
Putting restrictions on the Dodgers is not going to keep them from signing top-level free agents, which will we discuss momentarily. Putting restrictions on the Dodgers would keep them from signing players like Hyeseong Kim or Michael Conforto or Chris Taylor.
The Dodgers front office is not infalliable, but it is generally smarter than most other teams. Remember that the 2025 Dodgers prevailed in the regular season having approximately 20 players with negative bWAR for the year.
To be fair, some of these players are no longer with the team like Austin Barnes (-.3 bWAR), Chris Taylor (-.6 bWAR), Buddy Kennedy (-.3 bWAR), and Dustin May (-.4 bWAR) or are victims of small sample size like Ben Rortvedt (-.1 bWAR). Yates, Tanner Scott, and Blake Treinen collectively had a -1.7 bWAR during the regular season. Yikes.
If baseball were purely a spender’s paradise, we would have had a Mets/Dodgers NLCS and a Yankees/Blue Jays ALCS. Moreover, the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers would have playoff spots instead of the Guardians and Mariners. Obviously, these events did not happen.
Yes, the Dodgers and Ohtani agreed to terms of a $700 million contract with defferals. Ohtani’s effective salary is $2 million per year with the remaining $68 million being held in deferral per league rules. Moreover, I have seen reporting I have seen that the Dodgers have already recouped the entire value of Ohtani’s contract in new licensing deals and merchandise sales through the exponential explosion of interest caused by Ohtani’s signing.
Shohei Ohtani’s 10-year, $700 million contract is enormous, but according to sources, the Dodgers made back the entirety of the contract in Ohtani’s first season in tickets, marketing deals in Japan/global, merchandise.
His impact on baseball’s growth cannot be understated.
— Joon Lee (@joonlee)
October 18, 2025
At first glance, I thought the Dodgers had already recouped the first year (i.e. $70 million) of Ohtani’s contract, but further investigation will be needed to confirm this reporting as the Dodgers have suddenly brought in an extra $700 million in the span of a year.
Even with that eye-popping increase aside, I generated a list of moves that Dodgers had done to demonstrate how shrewd they have been. I updated it to show the argument that the Dodgers are just buying everyone to be nothing but sour grapes.
Actually, this story is so good, we need to pause for a moment to reflect on Ken Rosenthal’s reporting on the subject from a few months ago that largely slipped below everyone’s collective radar, before continuing this list.
A universe where Ohtani ended up a Padre is indeed a dark one, but the institutional incompetence of the Anaheim Angels cannot be overstated or underestimated. Back to the list…
The answer is no, but it is easier to blame others than admit fault and try to do better. It would be nice if these cheapskate owners that refuse to even try to field a competitive team for more than pennies on the figurative team could sell for a profit and leave our sport alone. Something tells me we will not be that lucky.
