John and A.J. muse about whether the Dodgers' offseason spending spree is good for baseball as a whole
A.J. Carter: I’ve been doing some thinking this week about competitive balance, specifically the competitive balance in the National League and how, despite all the repeated references to Steve Cohen’s money tipping the balance in terms of attracting free agents, the real threat has been Magic Johnson’s money (and his partners’) with the Dodgers. Look at the list of this offseason’s signings: Rosi Sasaki, Blake Snell, Tanner Scott, Blake Treinen. Not to mention Michael Conforto and the Korean speedster Hyesong Kim. By adding that list to their already championship roster, have they made the entire season irrelevant?
John Coppinger: Not necessarily. They have an outstanding team. Built for any type of baseball you want. Regular season, playoffs, 1-0 games, 12-11 games, they’re equipped for it all. But don’t forget that they’ve been doing this for a few seasons now, and only in 2024 did they win their first title. And even then they were one loss away from being eliminated in the first round. The free agents are great but by no means are they all guaranteed to have great seasons. Sasaki has adjusting to do, Snell started shaky last season (though that’s in large part to signing a contract so late), and relievers are fickle from one year to the next. The Dodgers are still the World Series favorite. But I won’t go as far as to say the season is irrelevant.
A.J Carter: I’m wondering, though, what type of message this sends to the rest of baseball – and not just to the small market teams. They seem like they can afford whomever they want. They seem to have cornered the market on Japanese players (Sasaki, Ohtani, Yamamoto). And they seem to have figured out how to make it all sustainable. Where’s the room for optimism?
John Coppinger: The message to the rest of baseball is that you can do this too. I find it ridiculous that team owners can’t figure this out. While I wouldn’t expect everyone to be able to spend quite like the Dodgers do, there are teams that have multi billionaires as owners but are simply content to treat baseball as 100% business and run the gamut of not trying to win at all to do just enough to fool them into thinking they’re trying. The previous Mets regime was on the latter end of that spectrum for years until Steve Cohen came in with a plan and with money. And nobody did more with less than the Rays.
The message to the rest of baseball is that you can cry or you can try. Unfortunately, the bulk of the rest of baseball has chosen to cry (or in the Athletics case, to cry, then move.)
A.J. Carter: So put yourself in Rob Manfred’s shoes for a second and ask yourself the question: Is this something you want to see? Is it better for baseball – a sport you are trying to grow both domestically and internationally – to have one superteam that everyone is chasing, or is it better to have (and I hate to use this word but can’t think of anything better) parity?
Back in the 1950s, before your time but sadly, not mine, it was the Yankees and everybody else. Outside of the Bronx, they were hated, People wrote Broadway musicals about making a deal with the devil to beat the Yankees. Have we reached the stage of “Damn Dodgers?”
John Coppinger: We have. They’re the Death Star now. As for what Rob Manfred would prefer? I think he honestly prefers what will make the owners money and more ratings for the sport. Doesn’t matter if it’s parity or one Death Star. The way he coddles small market owners, he might be content to let the Death Star rise and hope a plucky underdog beats them. Or hope that the New York teams continue to try to keep pace and face the Dodgers in more LA vs NY playoff series to draw the viewers in. Is that good for baseball? It really depends on who you ask.
A.J. Carter: If you ask me, I’ll always root for the underdog (I was so hoping the Commanders would beat the Eagles last Sunday) but I want my dog to have a chance. It’s bad enough that fans in Miami and Sacramento have nothing to root for this year, but when that extends to Cincinnati, Denver and Phoenix, something has to be done.
But enough of this hand-wringing. I think I’m starting to sound like that crotchety old man who constantly harkens back to the “good old days.” A bigger question is what Steve Cohen and David Stearns should take away from what the Dodgers have been doing. After all, they repeatedly cite LA as a model of sustainability. Do they need to carve out a different portion of the globe – say, Latin America – to match the Dodgers’ Japan dominance? It looks like they have been doing a little bit of that already, but there are only so many 16-year-old Dominican shortstop phenoms. I think they have been focused on prudent lavish spending, which is not an oxymoron if you think hard. Should they change?
John Coppinger: There’s no need to change. The Cohen regime, from Day One, has tried to model the Dodgers’ Magic Johnson era. They spend on the big guns, they hoard and develop prospects, they spend money on development tools like the pitching lab, and they try their best not to rely on trades which subtract instead of add. It’s been the Dodgers’ modus operandi, and the Mets have been following that path. To say that the Mets need to change because of what the Dodgers are doing now is pointless because that’s what the Mets have been doing. It seems like the Mets’ only fault is that they’re not in Los Angeles and they don’t have Shohei Ohtani, neither of which they can control. But in terms of what they can control, they’re doing fine. They’re on the right path.
A.J. Carter: As they say, only time will tell. Meanwhile, I think we can expect another parade down Sunset Boulevard later this year, if the fires don’t get there first.
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