(Photo by Meg Oliphant/Getty Images)
The Los Angeles Dodgers have spent well over a billion dollars this offseason on just three players: Shohei Ohtani ($700 million), Yoshinobu Yamamoto ($325 million), and Tyler Glasnow ($136 million).
They have gotten every major free agent available, and some people on social media are complaining, saying that they are ruining baseball.
Those opinions are relative: some say the teams that don’t spend (the Colorado Rockies, Washington Nationals, etc.) are ruining the game.
Others say that teams like the Dodgers and the New York Mets, who continually flex their financial muscles, are the ones messing up the game.
Who is right?
Well, Evan Drellich of The Athletic thinks the Dodgers are good for the game because the whole “villains and super teams” storyline creates narratives to follow.
He suggests those narratives increase overall interest in the game: to be fair, the ones mad at LA want to see them lose, and their fans (a large fanbase who won’t miss a game this year) wants the contrary.
“IMO: Baseball sells theater, and super teams and villains rile the blood and create narratives to follow, so the spending is good for baseball and the Dodgers are good for baseball, and the fact that you talk about them and (may) hate them is exactly why it’s good for baseball,” he tweeted.
IMO: Baseball sells theater, and super teams and villains rile the blood and create narratives to follow, so the spending is good for baseball and the Dodgers are good for baseball, and the fact that you talk about them and (may) hate them is exactly why it’s good for baseball https://t.co/K5K03T9Tyt
— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) December 22, 2023
If you think about it, the Dodgers aren’t breaking any rules.
They just happen to be in a very good financial (and geographical) position to lure players from Japan, and are taking advantage of it.
Having teams like the Dodgers, who are willing to spend to win, is the dream, or should be.
Having squads that don’t spend money to improve their rosters and also don’t come up with other outside-the-box ideas to develop their own stars (like the Tampa Bay Rays) is detrimental to the competitive spirit of the game.
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