{"id":80533,"date":"2025-06-05T06:04:46","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T06:04:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/80533\/"},"modified":"2025-06-05T06:04:46","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T06:04:46","slug":"colorado-rockies-news-are-the-los-angeles-dodgers-ruining-baseball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/80533\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado Rockies News: Are the Los Angeles Dodgers ruining baseball?"},"content":{"rendered":"

No MLB team has had a better offseason than the Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a>, who have signed a litany of stars: Roki Sasaki; Blake Snell; Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez; Tanner Scott; Michael Conforto . . . There are more, but I have limited space.<\/p>\n

With all these additions, the Dodgers will head into the 2025 season with a payroll of about $377 million (with $1.778 billion in guaranteed salaries). As Jeff Passan wrote on January 23<\/a>, \u201cThe $120 million or so the Dodgers are in line to pay in luxury tax penalties on top of their payroll is more than the projected Opening Day payroll of 10 teams.\u201d (And that was before the Dodgers signed Kirby Yates to a one-year, $13 million contract.) <\/p>\n

After detailing the Dodgers\u2019 process in signing Sasaki, Passan added this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The anger \u2014 from disillusioned fans, from dispirited front offices, from owners made to look as if they don\u2019t care \u2014 is very real. And it\u2019s growing to the point that people at the highest levels of Major League Baseball acknowledge it concerns them. Most worrisome is the rhetoric that fans are done with the game. That what L.A. is doing is unfair. That the financial imbalance ruins the sport.<\/p>\n

Purple Row is, I realize, a Rockies-centric site \u2014 and I\u2019ll get to them in a second \u2014 but it\u2019s worth parsing Passan\u2019s assertions here. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m no fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers \u2014 and I\u2019m really not a baseball economist. But you have to respect an organization that maximizes its productivity. <\/p>\n

Passan notes, for example, that they scouted Sasaki since he was in high school, and when the time came to recruit him in earnest, they did so. They have created an elite player development system<\/a> (for a team that consistently drafts late). They have an effective analytics department<\/a> and front office. They hired a skilled president of baseball operations, Andrew Friedman, and built a juggernaut that attracts players. <\/p>\n

Do the Dodgers have a profitable television contract? Yes. (It\u2019s $8.35 billion over a 25-year period.) Do they have good attendance? Yes. They led MLB in 2024 with more than 3.9 million attending games<\/a>. Are they in a large market? Absolutely. <\/p>\n

Clearly, these are all advantages. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m just not buying the other 29 extraordinarily wealthy people who own baseball teams saying they can\u2019t compete. Sorry, but that\u2019s a choice. <\/p>\n

As Michael Baumann put it<\/a> in his article \u201cSick of the Dodgers signing all the free agents?Well, get off your butts and do something about it\u201d<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Money isn\u2019t just an incentive, it\u2019s an illustration of institutional want-to. As much as free agents love money, they love want-to just as much. The Dodgers have it easier than most other teams, it\u2019s true. But that advantage is not so great that the other teams couldn\u2019t do something about it if they tried. Trying\u2026 now that\u2019s a novel idea I can get behind.<\/p>\n

Look, the Tampa Bay Rays<\/a> exist. I\u2019m not here to defend their ownership group \u2014 guys, spend some money<\/a> \u2014 but they\u2019ve shown winning isn\u2019t tied to a big payroll<\/a>, attendance, or television contracts. Rather, it\u2019s about how the money is spent<\/a>. <\/p>\n

I have trouble, for example, believing the Ricketts family, who owns the big-market Chicago Cubs<\/a>, cannot spend more to win. Tom Ricketts said<\/a> in mid-January, \u201cThey think somehow we have all these dollars that the Dodgers have or the Mets<\/a> have or the Yankees<\/a> have and we just keep it . . . . Which isn\u2019t true at all. What happens is we try to break even every year, and that\u2019s about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I would argue that\u2019s a choice being made by a person whose family has a net worth of $4.2 billion. The Cubs, according to Forbes<\/a>, are worth $4.225 billion, the fourth most-valuable franchise in MLB, which would suggest they have a sizable revenue stream.<\/p>\n

MLB owners, if you\u2019re going to cry poor, open the books and prove your penury. We\u2019re not taking your word for it. <\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the fact that baseball is amazing, and sometimes (like in, say, 2023), a team catches fire (like, maybe, the Arizona Diamondbacks<\/a>) and they sweep a presumed champion<\/a> (perhaps, the Dodgers) en route to the World Series<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Tied to these issues of the Dodgers spending are questions about an MLB salary cap. Last week, commissioner Rob Manfred said<\/a> he was receiving emails from concerned fans about it. However, as Steve Drumwright explains here<\/a>, MLB does not need a salary cap. The system is working. <\/p>\n

That brings us to the Colorado Rockies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s anyone leading the \u201cpoor us, we\u2019re a mid-market team\u201d contingent, it\u2019s Rockies owner Dick Monfort. And, to be fair, with a reported net worth of $700 million, he is less wealthy than some of his fellow owners. Moreover, to his credit, he has been willing to spend. The Rockies are, consistently, in the middle of the pack in MLB spending. (Witness Kris Bryant\u2019s seven-year, $182 million contract<\/a>.) <\/p>\n

The problem is how the Rockies spend that money. (Again, witness Kris Bryant\u2019s contract<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The Rockies\u2019 problems are embedded throughout the organization. Evan Lang has cataloged their failed player development systems, both through the MLB draft<\/a> and international signings<\/a>. Skyler Timmins has documented their resistance to change<\/a> \u2014 and the fact that Bud Black stays employed despite how bad the Rockies have been for the last five years boggles the mind. Ben Clemens wrote about the Rockies\u2019 inability to make productive outs<\/a>. (Seriously, this is a mortifying read.) <\/p>\n

I could go on, but you get the idea. <\/p>\n

Yes, the Rockies have a smaller budget than other teams, but they also spend the money they do have badly. Giving them more money \u2014 whether through changing the economics of baseball or TV revenue sharing \u2014 would do little to change the Colorado Rockies. The owner does not appear to be committed to winning, and there is no sense the organization the value in fielding a winning team. The Denver Broncos<\/a>, Colorado Avalanche<\/a>, and Denver Nuggets<\/a> suggest this is misguided. Winning sells \u2014 and creates an investment in life-long fans. <\/p>\n

Sure, Coors Field provides a terrific in-park experience, but that\u2019s not enough.<\/p>\n

For me, this comes down to working the problem (e.g., define the problem; diagnose the root cause; identify and implement a solution; and sustain the results). When you have a problem, don\u2019t cry foul and ask to have the problem changed (e.g., a salary cap, TV revenue sharing, or divisional realignment). Instead, use your resources, and work the problem \u2014 like the Rays have. <\/p>\n

Too many MLB teams refuse to work the problem because they are not incentivized to get better. <\/p>\n

The Dodgers should not be penalized for taking the resources they have and maximizing them better than other teams have. <\/p>\n

They\u2019re winning, and they\u2019ve earned it.<\/p>\n

\u2605 \u2605 \u2605<\/p>\n

This week on the internet<\/p>\n

We tend to think of sports teams as valuable assets and the owners as extraordinarily wealthy \u2014 which is true. <\/p>\n

But in the grand scheme of the corporate world, they\u2019re kinda mid. <\/p>\n

I think the message from this is clear: Coors Field needs Krispy Kreme kiosk. <\/p>\n

\u2605 \u2605 \u2605<\/p>\n

You should be mad about the Dodgers spending \u2014 but not for the reasons you think | Bleed Cubbie Blue<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about this article for a while, and this seemed like the right time to share it. Sara Sanchez writes of the Dodgers\u2019 more-than-$1 billion in deferred salaries, \u201c[T]he players get less than fans think they are getting and the billionaires at the helm profit on the interest off the difference in that money.\u201d This one is worth your time.<\/p>\n

Five Rockies prospects with most at stake as non-roster invites to 2025 spring training | Denver Post ($)<\/a> <\/p>\n

For Kyle Newman, it\u2019s about four pitchers (Chase Dollander, Carson Palmquist, Sean Sullivan, and Gabriel Hughes) as well as KB-lookalike Benny Montgomery.<\/p>\n

The strangest looking MLB mascots and how much they make | Bola VIP<\/a><\/p>\n

If you wondered how Dinger compared to his peers, here you go. <\/p>\n

\u2605 \u2605 \u2605<\/p>\n

Please keep in mind our Purple Row Community Guidelines<\/a> when you\u2019re commenting. Thanks!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No MLB team has had a better offseason than the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have signed a litany…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2405],"tags":[290,901,5,167,52,4316,39,181,289,4,169,178,168,180,179,19992,173],"class_list":{"0":"post-80533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-rockies","8":"tag-angeles","9":"tag-are","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-colorado","12":"tag-colorado-rockies","13":"tag-coloradorockies","14":"tag-dodgers","15":"tag-front-page","16":"tag-los","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-purple","20":"tag-rockies","21":"tag-rockies-news-notes-links","22":"tag-row","23":"tag-ruining","24":"tag-the"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114629251135374113","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}