The Los Angeles Dodgers are ruining baseball. That's the endless complaint from a number of uninformed fans, outside observers, certain media members and opposing owners happy to push for a salary cap to guarantee themselves more profits.
A few years ago, however, they were the laughingstock of the sport. When they won the 2020 World Series in Arlington, these same fans and outsiders called it a "Mickey Mouse ring" that didn't count. The Dodgers then won 106 games in 2021, only to be eliminated in the playoffs by an Atlanta Braves team that went 88-73. After winning 111 regular season games in 2022, they won just one postseason game, losing in the NLDS to the 89-73 San Diego Padres who finished 22 games back in the standings.
In 2023, they once again won 100 games, only to get swept in the NLDS by the 84-78 Arizona Diamondbacks. After all these failures, fans derisively referred to the Dodgers as "chokers," without a single full-season title since 1988.
In each of these seasons, the Dodgers ranked at or near the top in team payroll. They still lost in the playoffs to teams that won under 90 games. Fast forward two years, and they are now presented as villains in a way no other team has since the late 1990s Yankees teams. And it's pretty clear they realize how poorly reasoned these complaints actually are.
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"My honest opinion is the majority of takes about the Dodgers couldn't be more lazy," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told Bob Nightengale of USA TODAY Sports this week, "that it's just about the payroll. It's about the draft. It's about layering on where we pick in the draft annually. The player development. How we acquire international talent. How we perform consistently at the major-league level.
"I actually think it's a competitive advantage in the sense that people feel that way, and not look at themselves in the mirror and see how they can operate things better. So that's beneficial for us."
Utility man Miguel Rojas agreed. "At the end of the day," he said, "it's not about wasting money or spending money to buy the best players because that's not going to guarantee you anything. You can see it. There are another five or six clubs close to us in payroll, and they haven't accomplished it. That's why people aren't talking about them, because they haven't won.
"People just talk about us."
The Dodgers came from behind late in Game 7 of the 2025 World Series, shocking the Blue Jays in Toronto. Who were the players responsible? Max Muncy, who the Dodgers picked up essentially for free as a minor-league free agent, hit a towering home run in the eighth inning to make the score 4-3. Miguel Rojas, a backup signed by the Dodgers for virtually nothing, by today's baseball standards, to provide depth, hit the game-tying homer in the ninth inning. Will Smith became the hero in the 11th inning, a player the Dodgers drafted at the end of the first round and turned into one of the best catchers in the sport.
The 2024 NLCS MVP was Tommy Edman. The hero of Game 3 of the 2025 World Series was reliever Will Klein, who was DFA'd twice last season by the Seattle Mariners and Athletics. LA identified some qualities in his repertoire they believed could be improved, and it's possible they don't win the series without him.
"Having the payroll and the depth that gives you," Roberts added, pointing out the team's player development, "certainly is a benefit. No one's debating that. But I do think that the players we acquire, how we play the game every night, getting younger players to assimilate in a star-studded clubhouse, that's important. That's hard to quantify, but that's of value.
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"If you look at the World Series the last couple of years, there's a lot of home-grown guys making league minimum that have been on postseason rosters."
Again, if "buying" a championship were possible, why haven't the Mets and Yankees won in the last 15 years? The Mets, for example, haven't won since 1986. They've spent a nearly identical number on player payroll as the Dodgers have over the last five seasons. The Yankees haven't won since 2009, despite routinely ranking in the top three. Of course, money is an advantage. It's also not the only thing that matters.
The Dodgers' key acquisitions this past offseason were Kyle Tucker and Edwin Diaz. Diaz had an ERA over 10 before going down for several months with arm surgery. Tucker is having the worst season of his career, hitting just .235 with four home runs. Meanwhile, LA's bullpen has been helped out by Klein, homegrown player Kyle Hurt, Edgardo Henriquez, Jack Dreyer, Alex Vesia and Blake Treinen. Their ability to find talent everywhere is the reason they surpass other teams who spend more. And it's why they're such an easy excuse.
Identifying unheralded players is hard. Complaining about money is easy. Oh, and as Roberts said, it's lazy too.
