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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. \u2014 Much has been made of the Dodgers<\/a>\u2019 exorbitant spending, magnified by a pair of World Series<\/a> titles for the franchise, as Major League Baseball enters the final year of the current collective bargaining agreement.<\/p>\n The Dodgers open 2026 with a record $381 million payroll, while having over $1 billion in deferrals. As if signing Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez and Blake Snell, and extending Tyler Glasnow and Will Smith weren\u2019t enough, the club once again opened up its wallet this winter, spending a combined $309 million on four-time All-Star outfielder Kyle Tucker<\/a> and three-time reliever of the year Edwin D\u00edaz<\/a>.<\/p>\n Relief pitcher Blake Treinen<\/a>, one of the longest-tenured players on the Dodgers heading into his seventh season with the team, did not mince words when asked about how outsiders view the organization.<\/p>\n \u201cPerception is built from the media and maybe owners that don\u2019t like what the Dodgers are doing because they would have to do something similar,\u201d Treinen said earlier this week. \u201cAnd I say to that, \u2018Maybe you\u2019re in the wrong business.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Treinen thinks more teams should spend the way that the Dodgers do.<\/p>\n \u201cIs it a bad thing that the people who pay our checks and our salaries want a winning product?\u201d Treinen said. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to complain about a team willing to do what it takes to win, then I think you\u2019re in the wrong business. And, if you win, to say that you lose money by winning is a wild statement, so I think the perception is more or less if you don\u2019t like what the Dodgers are doing, either take a look in the mirror or look at the people who aren\u2019t putting a product on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n Treinen went on to say that teams don\u2019t necessarily need to be lavish spenders in order to compete, pointing to how the Milwaukee Brewers posted baseball\u2019s best record a season ago, with the 22nd-highest payroll. The Brewers bested the Chicago Cubs in the NL Central by five games, despite having a payroll nearly $100 million lower than their rival, and reached the National League Championship Series.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t always have to spend money to be great, look at the Brewers,\u201d Treinen said. \u201cBut to say that you can\u2019t compete \u2014 like they did \u2014 is a wild thing, because [they had] the best record in baseball last year. Draft and development is a big deal, a lot of teams have leaned into it. So, if you either invest heavily in one or the other, and the Dodgers have done a great job of doing both and that\u2019s why players sign here. If you don\u2019t like it, then maybe find a new business model.\u201d<\/p>\n How the Dodgers operate has garnered some praise<\/a> \u2014 the Padres\u2019 Manny Machado and the Phillies\u2019 Bryce Harper weighed in on the subject early in spring training \u2014 but the front office wasn\u2019t really seeking it out.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not looking externally for validation,\u201d Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes<\/a> said earlier this month at Camelback Ranch. \u201cThe validation is winning championships and putting out as good a team as we can each and every year, and all we\u2019re trying to do is get a little bit better each and every season, with the goal of winning championships. [Our] coaching staff, our players I think view it as that. Good, bad or indifferent, the external stuff is something we can\u2019t worry about.\u201d<\/p>\n Dodgers manager Dave Roberts<\/a>, speaking at Cactus League media day<\/a> earlier this month, said the fixation on the money spent makes people miss the things they do well.<\/p>\n \u201cIt does get lost, the things that we do well,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cScouting and player development, I think we do as well as anybody in baseball \u2026 to get superstars to play well every night, to put out a good product every single night, I think we do a good job at that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s why the biggest conversation should be that instead of a payroll question,\u201d Roberts added. \u201cWhy are we good for baseball? Because our players play the game the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix”> SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. \u2014 Much has been made of the Dodgers\u2019 exorbitant spending, magnified by a pair…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[2135,17150,426,423,48,52,51,92664,47,50,49,4263,3651,5681,424,92665,427,51470,92550,92666,18490],"class_list":["post-199285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-baseball","tag-blake-treinen","tag-dodgers","tag-game","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-longest-tenured-player","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-money","tag-product","tag-record","tag-roberts","tag-seventh-season","tag-team","tag-team-japan","tag-treinen","tag-wrong-business","tag-yamamoto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}