The Athletic has live coverage of Dodgers vs. Blue Jays in Game 1 of the World Series.
Did you know the ruination of baseball could be just days away? It’s true, apparently. But the team bent on wreaking all that ruination doesn’t seem to care.
Hey, you can’t say those marauding, cash-laden Los Angeles Dodgers didn’t warn us. They’ve actually taken way too much joy in warning us. It was just last Friday that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts stood on the NLCS victory podium and pretty much shouted these words into the euphoric California sky:
“They said the Dodgers are ruining baseball,” Roberts said that night, as 52,000 Dodgers fans basked in the glow of that ruination. “Let’s get four more wins and really ruin baseball.”
Uh-oh. Sounds like we’d better stock the shelves of our doomsday shelters. It’s possible those four more wins could be coming right up, in the 2025 World Series, which begins Friday night in Toronto.
So the Toronto Blue Jays are all that stands between us and the annihilation of this sport as we used to know it? Hoo boy. It sure seems that way — except for one thing …
Um, no, they’re not?
This might not be a real popular opinion in portions of North America we like to call “not Los Angeles.” But the Dodgers are not ruining baseball. In fact, there’s an excellent case they’re actually great for baseball. We’re here to discuss why.
Did Patrick Mahomes’ Kansas City Chiefs “ruin” football?
Did Steph Curry’s Golden State Warriors “ruin” basketball?
Did those sports just shut down operations after those teams kept going back to the championship round year after year after year? Not that we’ve noticed.
Wait. What’s that, you say? That’s not the point? It’s not the winning per se? It’s about the money?
Oh, right. Got it. The money is a thing with these Dodgers. There’s no denying that. But did you know that over the past four seasons, the Mets have significantly outspent the Dodgers in total payroll ($1.28 billion to $1.12 billion, according to Spotrac)? And best we can tell, the only thing the Mets have ruined over these past four years is Hank Azaria’s appetite.
But we understand that the ruination of baseball is a real topic — not just this October but over the next year and change, as we approach possible labor armageddon in 2027. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to study what the Dodgers could potentially be ruining — and see whether the rumblings match reality.
First, however, let’s give you some reactions to this whole concept. It’s time to ask:
Are the Dodgers ruining baseball?
From left, Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten, GM Brandon Gomes, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, pitcher Roki Sasaki and manager Dave Roberts pose after the coveted free agent signed with the Dodgers in January. (Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images)
As you might imagine, the people who run the Dodgers have some thoughts on this.
Dodgers president Stan Kasten: “I think the question is so stupid, because every year in the postseason, how many wild-card teams have advanced? Baseball is just not like that. In a short series, anything can and usually does happen.”
Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman*: “Winning is hard. It’s hard with a big payroll. It’s hard with a small payroll. It’s just hard.”
(*from an appearance on The Athletic’s Starkville podcast during spring training.)
A high-ranking executive of a smallish-market team: “You can’t buy championships. You can’t. You can buy your way to being very competitive. But buying a championship? No. If you’re playing in the Wild Card Series, you’ve got to win 13 games to win the World Series. If not, you’ve still got to win 11. So that’s not easy — for anyone. … (If we can just get in) I’ll gladly take my chances against the Dodgers or the Yankees in a five-game or seven-game series.”
Boy, that didn’t sound very ruinous at all. But maybe you disagree. Whether you do (or don’t), did you know we have a poll you can vote in? Are the Dodgers ruining baseball? You can tell us right here. And see the early results here.
But while we await your reasoned, thoughtful, not emotional-at-all responses, let’s move along, and ask …
Is it just teams that repeat that ruin baseball?
Does that sound like a trick question? If it does, it means you’re totally on to us. If only teams that win back-to-back World Series can ruin baseball, this sport is in awesome shape.
Baseball has problems. Can’t argue otherwise. Wouldn’t even argue with anyone claiming it has a significant revenue-imbalance problem. It needs to work on that. But you know what has been the least of its problems?
The same team(s) winning every year.
That’s because … no, they don’t.
Let’s run through this once again. No team has won two straight World Series in 25 years. That’s the longest gap between repeat winners in history – among any of the four major North American men’s professional sports.
The Dodgers are only the second champ since 2001 to get back to a second straight World Series. And the other — Matt Stairs’ 2009 Phillies — did that 16 years ago. You know why that is? Because the dollar bills and the direct deposit transfers don’t play the games. Real humans play the games. And they’re always reminded: Winning is hard.
“I’ve been in the World Series,” said Kasten, who was the president of those Atlanta Braves teams in the 1990s that went to the postseason every darned year — and won one World Series. “My teams never won two in a row, because it’s hard. I think any team that wins twice deserves a Wacky and Wild column, because it’s hard, man. You have to do everything right, and then all the breaks have to go your way. And that’s really hard.”
But it isn’t only those Braves teams and these recent Dodgers teams that have been reminded that winning is hard. This goes back a quarter-century now.
The previous repeaters — the 1998-99-2000 Yankees — may have seemed as though they were ruining baseball, too. But did they? Shortly after that three-peat happened, baseball teams started sharing a lot more revenue. And while that hasn’t stopped the Yankees from spending, it hasn’t transported them to the Canyon of Heroes much, either.
Does it tell us anything that of the past 22 World Series (counting this one), the Yankees have played in only two of them … and have won one of them? It kinda seems like it does. Did you know 18 of the other 29 teams have played in a World Series since the last time the Yankees won one? What about that translates to teams that repeat definitely ruin baseball?
Oh, and one more thing. These Dodgers might seem like the Michael Jordan Bulls to some of you. But there appears to be a high probability that MLB will insist on playing out this entire World Series anyway. And yes, the Dodgers have been informed of that.
“As we stand here today,” Kasten said, on the day the Dodgers booked this World Series reservation, “we haven’t done anything yet.”
All right — what about three out of six?
The Dodgers celebrate after defeating the Yankees to win the 2025 World Series. They are trying to win their third title in six years. (Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)
Want to expand the window beyond two Octobers? Let’s do that. If the Dodgers win this World Series, that would make it three they’d won in the past six Octobers. So would that be a sign this sport is broken?
Ehhh, Madison Bumgarner’s 2010-12-14 Giants would like a word, please.
“I heard last night that the Dodgers have got a chance to win three out of the last six,” said the smallish-market exec, who was granted anonymity so he could speak freely. “Well, 10 years ago or so, the Giants won three out of five years. So if the Dodgers win three out of six, I don’t feel like that’s that significant. … If they start winning three or four in a row and this is now non-competitive, that’s another story.”
But “non-competitive” is not how you would describe this sport since this version of the Dodgers became a force. The Dodgers have operated under this ownership group, plus a Friedman-led front office, since the 2015 season. Since then …
• 28 of the 29 other teams have played postseason baseball games. (The only exception: Arte Moreno’s Angels.)
• And 15 of the 30 teams have played in the World Series. Yes, 15.
So how have these Dodgers ruined baseball again? If we told you that over the next decade, that team you root for has a 50 percent shot to compete for a championship, would you take that? Or would you say: Shut down this whole frigging sport until we get a system where any team can win? You know, just like (cough, cough) the NFL.
Which is the Any-Team-Can-Win Sport again?
We’re going to take a short detour here because we can’t help ourselves. Every October, we hear the same whining.
The Dodgers are in the World Series again? Oh, no. Why can’t baseball be more like football, the sport where Any Team Can Win?
We had such a good time dispelling this myth last February during Super Bowl week, we’re going to run that back. Here’s an excerpt from that column, except with an update to include this postseason:
Want to guess how many teams have played in the last nine Super Bowls? Believe it or not, it’s only eight. Yes, eight. Out of a potential 18 slots, just these eight teams have shown up: the Chiefs, Eagles, Patriots, 49ers, Buccaneers, Rams, Falcons and Bengals.
Meanwhile, in the Sport That’s Broken, you know how many teams have played in the last nine World Series? That would be 11: The Dodgers, Yankees, Rangers, Diamondbacks, Astros, Phillies, Braves, Rays, Nationals, Red Sox and now the Blue Jays.
So the biggest myth of all is that baseball is that sport where you can just buy yourself a parade. In the last 15 seasons, the team with the biggest payroll has won it all exactly twice – the Dodgers in 2024 and the Red Sox in 2018.
Even if we start with 2001, it’s only three times, with the 2009 Yankees joining the list. As recently as 2023, the teams with the two biggest payrolls — the Mets and Yankees — didn’t even make the playoffs.
So before you play that Why Can’t Baseball Be More Like Football card … careful what you wish for!
Yes, but aren’t the Dodgers different?
Nobody is going to pretend it isn’t helpful to have a bazillion dollars to invest in everything that could possibly lead to more winning. The Dodgers have done that.
But are they really breaking baseball? You’ll have to work harder to prove that than just grumbling about this whole repeating schtick. Wouldn’t you have to prove that the Dodgers’ spending is so out of control, compared with the rest of the sport, that it’s both unprecedented and dangerous?
We asked Friedman about payroll disparity on Starkville in spring training. He raised an excellent point.
“I haven’t gone back and spent any time on this,” he said, “but just anecdotally, I feel this way. If you go back and look at the early 2000s Yankees, I think their payroll disparity compared to, like, even No. 2, or to the median or whatever, is much more out of whack than what it is right now. Actually, I think things are tighter in a lot of ways than they were then. And for some reason, it wasn’t a big topic then, but is now.”
So was that an accurate depiction of that era? Turns out it was accurate. Here’s a look at that seven-year period in which the Yankees didn’t merely rank No. 1 in payroll; they were in another orbit compared with whoever was spending the second-most money, both in dollars and percent above what the next closest team was spending.
| YEAR | NYY PAYROLL | ABOVE NO. 2 | GAP |
|---|---|---|---|
|
2004 |
$182.8M |
$57.6M |
46% |
|
2005 |
$205.9M |
$94.6M |
78% |
|
2006 |
$194.7M |
$74.6M |
62% |
|
2007 |
$189.6M |
$46.6M |
33% |
|
2008 |
$209.1M |
$71.3M |
52% |
|
2009 |
$201.5M |
$65.7M |
48% |
|
2010 |
$201.7M |
$63.5M |
39% |
So that’s an incredible stretch of seven straight seasons in which the Yankees dished out at least $46 million more than the next-biggest spenders. Now that’s a level of spending that would have been great fodder for the ruin-baseball crowd. Except in real life, what did the Yankees ruin?
Yes, it bought them one more title, in 2009. But they appeared in zero other World Series.
So how do these Dodgers compare?
They passed the Yankees in payroll in 2014, then ranked first in each of the next four years. But in the next eight seasons beginning with 2018, the Dodgers have been the top spenders only three times, according to Spotrac — in 2021, 2022 and this season. Over the two seasons before this one, they ranked third (in 2024) and eighth (in 2023).
In other words, they’re simply doing what big-market teams do — and, more importantly, what they’re supposed to do. Let’s circle back to the small-market exec quoted earlier because he accepts the very different ground rules his team works under. He just doesn’t blame the Dodgers for it.
“If I was the president or GM of the Dodgers, I’d be doing the same thing,” he said. “I mean, they’re making a ton of money. The rules don’t prohibit them from doing what they’re doing. So why would they sit on anything? … I don’t think it has anything to do with the Dodgers. If anything, it’s an issue MLB and the owners have to figure out.”
Are there important differences between what the Dodgers’ money allows them to do versus what teams in the bottom half in payroll can do? Obviously. This exec brought up one of his team’s talented young players. He’s a candidate for a big contract extension. It might not happen — on this team — but the Dodgers wouldn’t blink once before writing this guy that check.
“If we sign him and we’re wrong on that, that buries us for a long time,” the exec said. “We don’t have the means to overcome those types of signings if they don’t work out, where teams like the Dodgers can do it, the Red Sox can do it, the Phillies can do it, the Yankees can do it. That’s not even an option for us. One bad contract sets us back a long time. And that’s probably what bothers me the most, because it’s depth.
“The depth (the Dodgers) are able to accumulate … the way they use the 40-man roster, and the way they’re able to sign guys that are injured and just stack and stash them away. There’s an art to that. There’s a lot of thought that goes into it. But they have the finances to do it. And teams like ours don’t.”
Is the Dodgers’ star power ruining the sport?
The Dodgers have seven players signed to guaranteed deals of at least $100 million, including Shohei Ohtani ($700 million), Mookie Betts ($365 million) and Freddie Freeman ($162 million). (Harry How / Getty Images)
We live in a star-driven land in a star-driven culture. The Dodgers got the memo.
They are bursting with star power. But is that the same thing as: The Dodgers sign all the stars? Sorry. Not true.
Of the 17 MLB players with current contracts guaranteeing them $300 million or more, three of them are Dodgers: Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. That’s a lot. But it also means 82 percent of the players in that $300 Million Club aren’t Dodgers. And the next-largest contract below that group – $288.78 million – belongs to a man who plays for the Kansas City Royals (Bobby Witt Jr.).
Just two of the top 10, by total dollars, are Dodgers: Ohtani and Betts. That’s not even more than the Padres (who also have two, Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr.).
Want to do this by average annual value? The Dodgers still have only two of the top 10: Ohtani and Blake Snell.
We don’t present these facts to make it seem as if there’s no difference between the Dodgers and, say, the Reds. Not claiming that.
The Dodgers have seven players with deals that guarantee them at least $100 million. They spent about $1.5 billion on free agents over the past two winters. They’re projected to pay more than $167 million in luxury tax. Those are wild numbers to digest.
And those four starting pitchers they’ve rolled out there this October — Snell, Yamamoto, Ohtani and Tyler Glasnow — to spin off a combined 1.40 ERA, are rocking contracts that add up to an average annual value north of $160 million a year. (FYI: We’re using Ohtani’s pre-deferrals AAV of $70 million to compute that.) That’s more than what 15 teams are paying their entire roster.
But are we sure that’s ruining the sport? Star power drives eyeballs — and dollars — to these games, you know. Especially this time of year. That seems good, not ruinous.
Who knows how many people will watch this World Series just for the fun of rooting against the Dodgers. But we’re willing to bet it’s more people than show up for Marlins games.
It’s no different from the way millions of otherwise dispassionate Americans have rooted against Tom Brady’s Patriots, LeBron James’ Cavaliers/Heat/Lakers and Mahomes’ Chiefs. The NFL and NBA had no second thoughts about cashing in on that time-honored dynamic. Why would baseball want to zig when they’re all zagging? (Correct answer: It wouldn’t.)
“The game benefits from the Dodgers,” that small-market exec said. “And in Japan, if it wasn’t for the Dodgers, we wouldn’t have the fan base there that we have. … So when we go to the next big (national/international) streaming deal, we’re all going to benefit from the Dodgers. We’re going to be watched all around the world because of the Dodgers.
“I know,” he went on, “that’s probably not what people want to hear. But it’s true. So I just don’t worry about it.”
A year from now, when the labor drums are pounding, his team’s owner — and probably all of the small-market owners — won’t be telling us that. You can bet they’ll be trying to convince us that a salary cap will solve everything.
They might leave out the part about how, in the NFL and NBA, the cap hasn’t stopped Mahomes and Brady, and Steph and LeBron, from playing in the finals every darned year.
Maybe those owners are even rooting for the Dodgers to blitz through the Blue Jays to help “prove” their argument. But there’s a better chance that working to prove that point could ruin baseball than that the Dodgers are about to ruin it.
On the latest episode of the Starkville podcast, former Mets general manager — and current MLB Network radio host — Steve Phillips had some thoughts on that.
“I don’t want that to be the narrative as we go into a (labor) negotiation,” he said. “I think it’s a lose-lose for everybody if that’s the notion that everybody has. (In reality), we’ve had the fewest repeat winners of any of the professional sports. We’ve had the most different teams in the playoffs of any of the professional sports. And yet everybody says, oh, you need the salary cap to be able … to balance things out.
“I understand that it’s different. But it doesn’t have to lead to some sort of a work stoppage (because) we’re trying to fix something that’s more of a problem in every other sport that has the salary cap. And so I worry about it, but I’m hoping that cooler heads prevail.”
“It doesn’t have to lead to a work stoppage.”
It’s another fantastic Starkville, with @StevePhillipsGM & @realnedcolletti joining me & @dougglanville with GM perspective on:
Are the Dodgers really ruining baseball?
Game 7
Vlad
Ohtani
World Series preview
Lots more… pic.twitter.com/o3DXnRkP2e— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) October 22, 2025
Cooler heads are always the best kind of heads. So remember that, OK? Because for the next week or so, this should be compelling baseball theater.
In one corner, there is Canada’s team, playing for its first championship since Joe Carter’s home run landed 32 years ago. And in the other corner, it’s the biggest, baddest, most star-studded team in this sport, trying to do what no team has done in a quarter-century.
We don’t know what’s about to happen. But whatever it is, the word that won’t describe it is ruination …
And we’ll let you in on a little secret. The manager of the Dodgers isn’t a big fan of ruination, either — as long as the ring fits.
