{"id":419780,"date":"2026-01-19T18:48:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T18:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/419780\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T18:48:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T18:48:07","slug":"l-a-dodgers-growing-dynasty-drawing-exposure-to-mlbs-competitive-imbalance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/419780\/","title":{"rendered":"L.A. Dodgers growing dynasty drawing exposure to MLB\u2019s competitive imbalance"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dodgers are a \u201cmodel franchise, an empire built on countless smart decisions\u201d and it is \u201cfoolish\u201d to think that any team can operate like the Dodgers after signing free agent LF Kyle Tucker<\/a>, according to Tyler Kepner of THE ATHLETIC. In the last CBA, the owners and players \u201cagreed on some measures to curb outright tanking and service-time manipulation.\u201d But nothing has \u201cchanged the reality that some owners are richer and more aggressive than others.\u201d The league \u201cneeds a system that further incentivizes the low-payroll teams to spend.\u201d Give those teams \u201cmore money,\u201d but \u201cforce them to spend it on players.\u201d Kepner: \u201cThat sounds great in theory, but if owners raise the floor, they will want to lower the ceiling. That is a salary cap<\/a>, and there\u2019s no indication it will ever happen.\u201d In simplest terms, with the CBA expiring this December, the sides \u201cneed to reach an agreement without a salary cap that protects the 2027 season — while also changing the perception that the sport is fundamentally unfair.\u201d The players and owners should \u201cfind creative ways to dull the Dodgers\u2019 edge,\u201d so other teams can \u201ccome closer to matching it.\u201d But you \u201ccannot make the Dodgers dumber or less driven to win.\u201d Kepner: \u201cAnd as long as they are smart, motivated and opportunistic, this era will belong to them\u201d (THE ATHLETIC, 1\/19<\/a>).<\/p>\n

VALIDATING CLAIMS: The WALL STREET JOURNAL\u2019s Jared Diamond wrote if there are any doubts that MLB was \u201churtling toward a labor meltdown next winter, they were obliterated on Thursday night.\u201d The Dodgers can operate this way because under the ownership of Guggenheim Partners CEO Mark Walter, they have \u201cdeveloped into a financial powerhouse unlike anything baseball has ever seen.\u201d They have led MLB in attendance<\/a> in each of the past 12 full seasons. They earn more sponsorship revenue<\/a> than any of their peers, \u201cthanks largely to\u201d P\/DH Shohei Ohtani\u2019s \u201cunrivaled popularity in the U.S. and Japan.\u201d And when the cable TV business is \u201ccollapsing in many markets,\u201d the Dodgers \u201chave a blockbuster TV deal\u201d that will pay them more than $330M a year through 2038. This comes at a time when baseball\u2019s future \u201cis in peril.\u201d MLB\u2019s CBA expires after the upcoming season. The entire industry is \u201cbracing for a bitter negotiation that could result in missed games for the first time since the player strike that caused the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.\u201d In many ways, the Dodgers \u201care the primary reason why<\/a>\u201d (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 1\/16<\/a>).<\/p>\n

CAP CALL: THE RINGER\u2019s Ben Lindbergh noted the \u201cconsolidation of stars on one dynastic team will continue to cause widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the sport\u201d and — much to Commissioner Rob Manfred\u2019s\u202fdelight — \u201celicit calls for a salary cap.\u201d Payroll is not \u201cperfectly correlated with regular-season success,\u202flet alone playoff fortunes.\u201d Still, it is \u201creasonable to suggest that there might be just a\u202fslight\u202fimbalance in a sport whose highest payroll is more than six times the size of its smallest.\u201d The\u202fquestion\u202fis \u201cwhich problem is bigger: one well-run team with institutional advantages flexing its financial might, or several low-payroll clubs (including some\u202fsuccessful ones) stubbornly spending\u202fbelow their means\u201d (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 1\/16<\/a>).<\/p>\n

STOP COMPLAINING: In S.F., Bruce Jenkins wrote \u201cenough with the jabbering about salary caps, how it\u2019s time to \u2018blow up the system\u2019 and oh, poor us.\u201d The Dodgers \u201creached the pinnacle honestly, in a capitalistic structure that properly hands no favors to the incompetent.\u201d The way it looks from here, the Giants have a \u201cpretty fair shot at finishing second\u201d — exactly their fate in 2014. It is \u201cadmittedly tough to build a promotional campaign around, \u2018Hey, we\u2019re No. 2,\u2019 but it can be a ticket to the postseason.\u201d Jenkins: \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to know what Giants ownership is telling president of baseball operations Buster Posey right now, but he should be focusing on betterment\u201d (S.F. CHRONICLE, 1\/18<\/a>).<\/p>\n

TIME FOR A FIX: In Minneapolis, Michael Rand wrote when MLB\u2019s CBA expires at the end of 2026, the \u201centire spot needs to disappear down a dark hole and not dare come back up for air until it has a salary cap and a better revenue model that allows every team a reasonable chance to compete for a championship.\u201d Rand: \u201cA system is broken when half of the teams in a league (at least) go into season without a reasonable expectation of competing because of financial imbalance. The NHL, NBA and NFL do not operate this way. MLB needs to get its act together\u201d (MINNESOTA STAR TRIBUNE, 1\/16<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dodgers are a \u201cmodel franchise, an empire built on countless smart decisions\u201d and it is \u201cfoolish\u201d to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[3307,49,48,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-419780","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}