Add New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner to the collection of franchise stewards weighing in on the Los Angeles Dodgers’ spend-happy winter. While you might think that a Steinbrenner scion could relate to the Dodgers better than anyone, he instead used part of his appearance on YES Network’s “Yankees Hot Stove” to lament how “difficult” it is for other owners to maintain pace with the defending champions.
“It’s difficult for most of us owners to be able to do the kind of things that they’re doing,” Steinbrenner said in the interview that aired Tuesday night. “Now, we’ll see if it pays off. They still have to have a season relatively injury-free for it to work out for them, and it’s a long season, as you know, and once you get to the postseason, anything can happen. We’ve seen that time and time again. We’ll see who’s there at the end.”
Regardless of how you feel about the Dodgers offseason, it is undeniably a wee bit funny that a Steinbrenner is expressing this sentiment about another team’s runaway spending. Yes, Steinbrenner’s estimated net worth is $1.5 billion, according to Forbes, an impressive figure that can be credited to — at least in part — his late father’s unrivaled enthusiasm for tossing coin at his baseball team’s roster. To be fair, Steinbrenner’s estimated worth is several times less than Dodgers owner Mark Walter’s $6.2 billion figure. At the same time, estimates have the Yankees generating the most revenue among MLB clubs, all the while spending a lower percentage of that estimated revenue on their payroll than the Minnesota Twins, Colorado Rockies, Kansas City Royals, and others. Those estimates are unlikely to be 100% accurate, but if they’re in the vicinity of reality then the Yankees could certainly spend more. Steinbrenner’s appetite for doing so is another matter entirely.
Beyond that, it’s also funny that Steinbrenner is saying “we’ll see if it pays off” about a Dodgers team that, as you may recall, just defeated the Yankees a few months ago in the World Series. The future is unwritten, and perhaps these Dodgers won’t capture another crown in the short term. Be that as it may be, let’s not pretend the Dodgers are, say, the Steve Cohen Era Mets (a team that, despite gaudy payrolls and tax bills, hasn’t won so much as a division title since 2015). Rather, the Dodgers are MLB’s model organization for various reasons, beginning with their on-the-field excellence.
As a refresher: these Dodgers haven’t missed the playoffs since 2012. During the interim period, they’ve won nearly 100 more regular season games than any other club (the Yankees rank second in that category), along with 11 division titles, four pennants, and two World Series championships. Whatever happens over the next few years, it’s safe to conclude that the Dodgers know what they’re doing — and that this grand experiment, if we’re pretending it’s such a thing, conducted by Walter and Andrew Friedman is not only a success, but an overwhelming one when viewed with a wide lens.
Anyway, all of this sound and fury from other owners stems from the Dodgers sporting forecasts that include a payroll exceeding $319 million and a luxury tax payroll nearing $390 million, according to Cot’s Contracts estimates. (Both figures could increase between now and Opening Day if the Dodgers reunite with longtime ace Clayton Kershaw as expected.) Spotrac’s estimates have just three other teams within $100 million of the Dodgers’ tax payroll, with one of them being the Yankees.
Expect all this griping and fussing from other franchise owners to continue until the next Collective Bargaining Agreement is negotiated with the MLB Players Association after the 2026 season. At which point, it seems reasonable to expect that, at minimum, the other owners will attempt to penalize runaway spending — and specifically the Dodgers — even more than they already have in recent CBA.
Read the full article here