The Los Angeles Dodgers are doing something in baseball that many teams are not doing by a very large margin. They are pouring out billions of dollars into players with hopes of forming a super team that can win championships for years to come. Some MLB owners don’t want to take part in this, while others have the means to pour all their money out onto the field like the Dodgers ownership group. Throughout the last few years, the team has spent billions on their players, and some are not even being paid much money yet. The team has deferred approximately $900 million into future years for some of their star players to keep their current payroll smaller. This is a common strategy to use for one or two players, but for this sum of money is unprecedented, which is why many are calling for the league to have a salary cap threshold.
This threshold would prevent the Dodgers from being able to offer just pennies on the dime to their players now and pay them their money later. The funds given later would not be a part of the salary cap due to the players either being off the team or retired. This is a cheat code in the system that many are calling for baseball commissioner Rob Manfred to remove to give the game a more level playing field. All teams can make this move, though smaller markets may not be able to keep up. However, it’s not the smartest business decision from a money perspective, as you will most likely lose a lot of money if your franchise does not win a ring.
The current Dodgers team is stacked, to say the least. Their rotation features four arms: Shohei Ohtani, Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Blake Snell, who could be aces for almost any team in the league. Three out of the four ace contracts are in deferred money. They also have a few arms out of the rotation such as Emmet Sheehan and Landon Knack that could be solid rotational arms anywhere in the bigs. In the bullpen, they also have high-end arms such as Micheal Kopech, Ben Casparius and new addition, Tanner Scott, who has deferred money. The reigning World Series champions also features arguably the top lineup in baseball, led by Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts and Shohei Ohtani, all of whom have deferrals on their current contracts.
While the Dodgers are just one team, if another team joins in on their spending spree, it could become detrimental to baseball. There are already big differences between low market teams and high spenders due to market revenue drawn from various factors, and some teams simply cannot compete with teams that offer these kinds of deals. It cuts off another one of their legs by saying you must build from the draft entirely now and you won’t even have the chance to sign a player. That player will just end up going to the Dodgers or another high-market team that offers the most money because baseball is now broken, possibly beyond repair, unless Manfried and the league steps in.