Yamamoto, Glasnow and Ohtani: Dodgers Buy the MLB
“We could not be more excited to bring Yoshinobu Yamamoto to the Dodgers,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said in a statement. “You don’t win three MVP awards by the age of 25 without an exceptional combination of talent, work ethic and mental toughness. He’s an elite pitcher with an impressive dedication to his craft who will only become more dynamic in a Dodger uniform. We are thrilled for him to be a mainstay at the top of our starting rotation for years to come.”
As a life long and die hard SanFrancisco Giants fan, I threw up in my mouth a bit when I read this quote. The Dodgers, the arch rivals of my Giants, have spent an unprecedented amount of money this off season. This is not news to baseball fans, but nobody yet knows how this will pan out. However, with the Yamamoto contact finalized, the Dodgers have spent 1.1 Billion dollars theoretically. Here are the contract details:
Yoshinobu Yamamoto signed a 12 year / $325,000,000 contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, including a $50,000,000 signing bonus, $325,000,000 guaranteed, and an annual average salary of $27,083,333.
Tyler Glasnow signed a 5 year / $136,562,500 contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, including a $10,000,000 signing bonus, $136,562,500 guaranteed, and an annual average salary of $27,312,500. In 2024, Glasnow will earn a base salary of $15,000,000 and a signing bonus of $10,000,000, while carrying a total salary of $17,500,000.
Shohei Ohtani signed a 10 year / $700,000,000 contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, including $700,000,000 guaranteed, and an annual average salary of $70,000,000. In 2024, Ohtani will earn a base salary of $70,000,000, while carrying a total salary of $70,000,000. Ohtani’s adjusted salary with the Los Angeles Dodgers is $2,000,000.
That last part maybe the most important and it’s not because the Dodgers signed Shohei Ohtani to a ten year deal. It is because Ohtani decided to defer most of his annual salary for the next ten years, which then allowed the Dodgers to make their moves with Glasnow and Yamamoto. The Dodgers are hoping to buy themselves a World Series and Ohtani is in cahoots with them. Shohei Ohtani has done everything in baseball except for getting that World Series ring…
But, while this is all well and good for Ohtani, it is not good for baseball. While there are a few teams that can compete with the Dodgers, for instance the Yankees or the Braves, most teams won’t be able to. Most teams can’t spend that kind of money to add to an already huge payroll. The Dodgers have bought the league for the next decade or so. I’m a Giants fan, so you can take me seriously when I say the Dodgers had a World Series caliber team already, but maybe just not a World Series caliber coach in Dave Roberts. If Dave Roberts can’t win a World Series this year, he should be fired.
So what happens to baseball when the World Series can be bought? It gets boring, that’s what happens. If it is boring, attendance will lower and with lower attendance comes less money. And while, thanks to Ohtani’s deferments plus a talented team to watch, the Dodgers will likely be alright. But without that attendance money, how will other teams continue to compete? I don’t think baseball will see a salary cap imposed any time soon. I thought that the higher ups were trying to make the game more exciting by adding the pitch timer and some of the other new rules that have been implemented like the wider baseline to first. But I don’t think anybody is going to watch the Dodgers predictably win most of the World Series championships coming down the road. I know they want to be rid of that stigma of only being able to win a championship during a shortened Covid-19 afflicted season. I know that they’ve made the playoffs just to fail so many recent years. I know that Ohtani wants his World Series ring. But as fans, we do need to think about what this does to the game in the long haul.
I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes I’m wrong, but when it comes to this particular set of circumstances, I believe I am right. As fans do we want to root for our team or just against the Dodgers? Keep that in mind as the 2024 season begins to take shape and the off season begins to wind down.
