"OF ALL THE things to cause outrage, to intensify the bleating that baseball is broken and the Los Angeles Dodgers are the culprit, the signing that generated the most consternation was that of a relief pitcher. Not Shohei Ohtani's $700 million contract in 2023. Not the $325 million guaranteed to Yoshinobu Yamamoto a few weeks later. Not the $182 million that added two-time Cy Young winner Blake Snell last offseason."
""It's difficult for most of us owners to be able to do the kinds of things they're doing," New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner told the YES Network a week after the Scott deal. That the Yankees -- the most valuable franchise in baseball, the game's foremost revenue machine, owners of the highest payroll each of the first 14 years this century -- had joined the chorus typically reserved for smaller-market teams questioning the game's fairness was no accident."
The Dodgers' four-year, $72 million contract with left-hander Tanner Scott produced intense outrage across nearly every MLB fan base, outpacing reactions to much larger signings. High-profile contracts for Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki provoked less consternation. New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner publicly criticized the Dodgers' spending as difficult for other owners to match. Influential team officials have emphasized flaws in baseball's financial system while signaling an unstated preference for a salary cap. Owners, MLB, the MLB Players Association, players and executives from other major sports are shaping public messaging ahead of collective-bargaining negotiations that follow the Dec. 1, 2026 expiration.
Read at ESPN.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]