{"id":752835,"date":"2026-06-22T12:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T12:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/752835\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T12:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T12:18:15","slug":"why-an-mlb-salary-cap-wont-stop-the-dodgers-from-winning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/752835\/","title":{"rendered":"Why an MLB salary cap won’t stop the Dodgers from winning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Dodgers won the World Series<\/a> last year, and the year before that<\/a>. Their lead is the largest in any division this year. That success, and the money that nourishes it, has battalions of fans beyond Los Angeles all but marching outside ballparks with picket signs reading \u201cSALARY CAP NOW.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a reasonable thought: The Dodgers<\/a> can\u2019t possibly keep winning if they can\u2019t keep outspending the competition.<\/p>\n

Or can they?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of little things that happen behind the scenes that people don\u2019t see,\u201d pitcher Will Klein said. \u201cI understand where people are coming from. It\u2019s easy to be a fan of a smaller team and get mad at other teams outspending you.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think there\u2019s a level of care here, and wanting to win, that exceeds other groups.\u201d<\/p>\n

The obvious disclaimer: Any team would be better with Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, at a combined price of $1.6 billion. The counter argument: The Angels had Ohtani and Mike Trout<\/a> and, well, you know.<\/p>\n

It takes a roster. In Klein and pitcher Eric Lauer<\/a>, the Dodgers have done something they do well besides spend: develop valuable contributors out of players discarded by other teams.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers grabbed Lauer last month, desperate to fill a hole in their starting rotation. The Toronto Blue Jays had cut him, and he would be joining his seventh major league organization. The logical thought: The Dodgers had found a healthy arm to eat up some innings until they could find someone better.<\/p>\n

That still might happen. But Lauer, who is scheduled to start Monday, has put up a 3.22 earned-run average in four starts with the Dodgers. Four starts is a small sample size, but in that time, Lauer is a career league-average pitcher performing 28% above league average.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey got me immediately,\u201d Lauer said. \u201cThey figured me out right away, and they knew exactly what was going to help me.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Lauer, the changes affected his delivery, but the specifics were not as important as finding a kindred spirit in Connor McGuiness, the Dodgers\u2019 assistant pitching coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always had a really hard time explaining myself and what I do, because I think a little differently,\u201d Lauer said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was with the Brewers, it was running joke that it was \u2018the language of Lauer,\u2019 because I would describe things so differently and feel things so differently that, if you weren\u2019t close to me and you didn\u2019t know how I operate, it was very hard to understand what I was trying to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cConnor just immediately got it. It was like he\u2019s been speaking it forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

At one point in his career, Lauer said, he struggled to explain the sensation of catching his heel on the mound as he completed his delivery toward home plate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would describe it as, \u2018I was falling backwards and I would catch myself,\u2019 and it\u2019s a really weird concept to think somebody was falling backwards when it doesn\u2019t look like you\u2019re falling at all,\u201d he said. \u201cIt looks like you\u2019re just moving forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo they were like, \u2018That\u2019s not what you\u2019re doing\u2019 and I was like, \u2018That\u2019s what I\u2019m feeling.\u2019 We have to make the connection between the feel and the real so that we can understand each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a hard time saying anybody has done a better or faster job of helping me than the Dodgers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Eric Lauer, Dodgers pitcher, on his development with the team<\/p>\n

Klein, who joined his fourth organization when the Dodgers acquired him in a minor league trade last June, is in his first full major league season. He has a 2.37 ERA, and his 0.7 wins above replacement is better than any Dodgers reliever besides veteran closer Tanner Scott.<\/p>\n

Klein said other teams had made suggestions on how to improve his game, and with the Dodgers, he has added a sweeper and dumped a slider. But what he needed to do most was throw more strikes, trusting that his lively fastball and curve were good enough to beat the best players in the world.<\/p>\n

In the minors, Klein issued 6.9 walks per nine innings. This season, he has issued 3.6 walks per nine innings.<\/p>\n

The credit, he said, should be shared with the Dodgers\u2019 mental skills coaches.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s easy to see the guys in the batter\u2019s box, especially when you come up watching baseball and being fans of these guys,\u201d Klein said. \u201cIt\u2019s easy to see them being above yourself.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you\u2019re on the mound with them, so you have to see that too. There\u2019s a lot on the mental side that\u2019s helped me here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dodgers <\/p>\n

Dodgers pitcher Will Klein delivers against the Tampa Bay Rays at Dodger Stadium on June 16.<\/p>\n

(Eric Thayer \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

The Dodgers did not include Klein on their postseason roster for the first three rounds last year, but he said coaches at all levels \u2014 in the majors, at triple-A and at the Arizona training complex \u2014 never stopped checking in on him, during the season and throughout October.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re down there, they don\u2019t forget about you up here,\u201d he said. \u201cThat kind of commitment and care was levels above what I had experienced.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the Dodgers added him to the World Series roster, Klein saved the season<\/a>, with four scoreless innings to close out an 18-inning victory in Game 3.<\/p>\n

Lauer called the communication in the Dodgers\u2019 organization \u201cmiles ahead\u201d of any other organization in which he has played.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe training room, the weight room, the coaching staff, the players to each other,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery form of communication is so seamless. Everybody knows what\u2019s going on all the time. There\u2019s no gray area.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all: \u2018This is the plan, this is what we want to happen, this is how we\u2019re going to make it happen,\u2019 instead of: \u2018This is the plan, this is what we want to happen, figure out a way to make it happen.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Klein raved about how the Dodgers treat player families, and about a high-tech pitching machine so lifelike that he could see what it would be like to bat against him. Lauer reflected on his experience as a first-round pick turned journeyman who went to South Korea to revive his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a hard time saying anybody has done a better or faster job of helping me than the Dodgers,\u201d Lauer said.<\/p>\n

What Lauer and Klein say substantially echoes what Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said at last year\u2019s World Series about turning the team into a preferred destination for players, and not just because the team wins and spends.<\/p>\n

\u201cCommunication, being honest, having a really strong player development group in place at the major-league level, and how you treat families and treat the players,\u201d Friedman said then, \u201cI think matters a lot in that.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be clear: There is no indication the players\u2019 union is willing to consider, let alone approve, a salary cap.<\/p>\n

But, if that were to happen, Klein believes the Dodgers would be just fine.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur owners want to win, so they want to get the best product on the field, so they go and spend money,\u201d he said, \u201cand then everyone is mad that they want to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they\u2019ll find ways to win more if they can\u2019t spend as much money. Friedman was with the Rays when they weren\u2019t spending as much money and still had success there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they\u2019re just better at wanting to win than some other people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dodgers won the World Series last year, and the year before that. Their lead is the largest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":752836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,17317,5138,69844,150860,291991,356976,10413,14294,591,229106,187,6621,15624,161,85,6618,361039],"class_list":["post-752835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-communication","tag-dodgers","tag-fan","tag-innings","tag-klein","tag-lauer","tag-level","tag-lot","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-salary-cap","tag-money","tag-other-team","tag-player","tag-season","tag-sports","tag-time","tag-world-series-roster"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/752836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}