Cue the whining. Again.
The fan bases of 29 other teams are mad, their anger directed at Baseball’s Villains, and that should sound familiar. Once the news broke Thursday night of the Dodgers’ signing of free agent outfielder Kyle Tucker – a transaction that will become official once the club makes a corresponding move to free a spot on their 40-man roster – the “they’re ruining baseball” crowd went into overdrive.
With one additional twist. Now, if you listen to the experts on social media, the Tucker signing makes the implementation of a salary cap in baseball more justified than ever. In other words, if a lockout following the 2026 season takes place because of that very issue, it’s all Andrew Friedman’s fault.
Wrong, and wrong. (Oh, and where does the Mets’ signing of Bo Bichette at three years and $126 million, reported Friday morning, fit into this scenario?)
Salary caps were owners’ version of paradise a full decade before Frank McCourt’s reign of error as Dodgers owner began in 2004. Remember, the reason for a strike in 1994 that wiped out the last seven weeks of the regular season and the entire postseason was the owners’ insistence on a salary cap, tied to a revenue sharing mechanism, and the players’ own insistence that there wouldn’t be one, which has lasted to this day.
That particular stoppage lasted the entire winter and into spring training when clubs assembled groups of replacement players, preparing to begin the season with scab labor. That nonsense was halted when District Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor – now Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor – issued an injunction that stopped the replacement players scheme, restored the economic status quo and enabled the 1995 season to open on time.
Another reminder: While a salary cap might also include a salary floor, forcing the teams at the bottom of the payroll chart to at least spend something, the main benefit of a cap would be to put more money in the bank accounts of the billionaires who own the teams. And if the teams at the bottom aren’t spending now, what makes you think they’ll spend any more than they have to, even with a salary floor?
In other words, there won’t be an appreciable difference. Owners who want to win will spend. Those who don’t will find an excuse.
The Dodgers are the convenient lightning rod for all of this, as back-to-back champions with an ownership that seems to care as much about winning as its fan base does. And never mind that (a) in each of the last two Octobers they were a game away from elimination, (b) they were ousted in the first round the two years before that, and (c) their 2020 World Series victory inside the COVID-19 bubble was discounted as a “Mickey Mouse” championship even though that October grind may have been harder than normal.
Why shouldn’t they spend as much as they can? And why should they listen to anyone else’s opinion of their ability to spend? They abide by the rules – contract deferrals are perfectly legal and available to anyone, for example – and they spend with the knowledge that they’ll pay competitive balance taxes as well, money that goes to those clubs that receive revenue sharing funding. Often, that money is not spent on player payroll.
All of that said, what have the Dodgers done this winter? They had two areas of need, shoring up what at times was a dreadful bullpen in 2025, and seeking a corner outfielder after the dismal failure of the Michael Conforto signing. They’ve taken care of both needs, with Edwin Diaz and Tucker, a four-time All-Star, two-time Silver Slugger, Gold Glove outfielder and a World Series champion in 2022 with Houston.
(I’m guessing Dodger fans won’t hold that against him. He wasn’t there in 2017.)
Is the game’s economic model broken? The demise of Main Street Sports, the parent company of the FanDuel networks, has created serious issues for teams that not only are searching for new homes for those telecasts but are also scrambling to replace the income from those contracts.
The Dodgers, with a Spectrum contract that runs thorugh 2037 and pays them $320 million a year to air their own network, seem insulated from that issue for now. How that might change remains to be seen. But give the current owners credit for the foresight to have made that deal shortly after their purchase of the club in 2012.
And give them credit for signing Shohei Ohtani – remember, the Angels were offered the same 10-year, $700 million, $680 million of it deferred deal and turned it down – and then leveraging it with deals in Japan that created even more profit.
Maybe this is just a smart, efficient organization, one that likely would thrive as well with a salary cap as it does now.
“I think that people just overlook the fact that every year we probably have (a) top five farm system in baseball,” manager Dave Roberts said during his briefing before Game 7 of the World Series in Toronto. “This year I think we probably have the No. 1 or No. 2. We pick at the bottom of the draft every year, towards the bottom, and we still have young guys, whether by way of trade or development, that continue to help contribute.
“(And) on the business side, I think that we do a great job of marketing our organization.”
Exhibit A: Japan.
Friedman noted during that World Series that one of the organization’s goals was to create “a destination spot where our own players didn’t want to leave and where players from other teams wanted to come. … I think there’s a lot that goes into it, (being) known as a really good player development organization. Players ask those questions. When we’re meeting with players in the off-season, they want to know that you can help maximize their ability, and that you’re getting the most out of their teammates. Because when you can do that and do it well, you tend to win more games.
“I think communication, being honest, having a really strong player development group in place at the Major League level, and how you treat families and treat the players, I think matters a lot in that.”
And maybe that’s the Dodgers’ secret ingredient: The executives care as much about winning as do their players.
jalexander@scng.com