No angst in rival players over Dodgers spending
GLENDALE, Ariz. — Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred shared some conflicting feelings about the big-spending Los Angeles Dodgers this week, praising the franchise’s competitive spirit in one breath before addressing the financial disparity they have created in the next.
Players elsewhere around the league don’t seem nearly as conflicted.
“Teams spending money is never bad for baseball and never bad for players. Ever. In any situation,” Athletics slugger Brent Rooker said.
If Manfred is looking to find some sympathy from MLB’s rank-and-file regarding his worry over the sport’s financial health, it’s probably not going to come from the guys on the field.
MLB is the only major professional sport in America that doesn’t have a salary cap, though there are luxury tax penalties for passing certain spending thresholds. Last season, the Dodgers had a $353 million luxury tax payroll and had to pay a $103 million tax. The Athletics had the lowest luxury tax payroll at just under $84 million.
Los Angeles’ spending didn’t slow this offseason. The Dodgers signed two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell to a five-year, $182 million deal and made sizable investments in players like Teoscar Hernández, Michael Conforto, Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates and Roki Sasaki.
That came one year after the organization splurged on more than $1 billion in commitments to Japanese stars Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Los Angeles’ spending has dwarfed all but a few franchises. Opposing players might be envious of those fat paychecks, but it’s hard to find them complaining.
Even Manfred — who said he has received emails from fans worried about competitive balance — can’t fault the Dodgers’ approach.
“The Dodgers have gone out and done everything possible, always within the rules that currently exist, to put the best possible team on the field, and that’s a great thing for the game,” Manfred said Tuesday. “That type of competitive spirit is what people want to see.”
Walker Buehler threw the final pitch of the 2024 season, recording the last out for the Dodgers in their World Series-clinching Game 5 victory. He signed a one-year, $21.05 million with the Boston Red Sox during the winter, but the right-hander isn’t about to talk smack about his former employer.
“Teams spending money is never bad for baseball and never bad for players. Ever. In any situation.”
Athletics slugger Brent Rooker
The 30-year-old knows exactly why players are flocking to Chavez Ravine.
“I don’t think it’s odd,” he said. “It’s a first-class organization and obviously coming off a huge World Series and, I think on top of that, you layer in that on a team right now where there’s probably four or five Hall of Famers, I think it’s an attractive place to play.”
That doesn’t mean there isn’t some awe from players about the formidable roster that the Dodgers have built thanks to their deep pockets.
“I worked out with some guys that ended up signing with the Dodgers and was like, at a certain point, ‘I didn’t know they had room on the 40-man [roster],'” Red Sox pitcher Patrick Sandoval said.
The Arizona Diamondbacks are one of the teams trying to keep pace with the Dodgers in the National League West. They signed ace right-hander Corbin Burnes to a six-year, $210 million in December, but they are still projected to have a payroll that will be roughly half the size of the Dodgers.
“I don’t think it’s unfair at all,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. “They’re within the rules. They’re doing what they have to do to get the best players on the field. When I was a kid, it was the Yankees, remember? George Steinbrenner was going crazy with his spending, and it yielded world championships. That’s what we’re all chasing.”
Lovullo makes a good point about the Yankees. Baseball has had a long history of financial disparity, particularly since free agency started in the 1970s.
Even so, there haven’t been many dynasties over the past 40 years. The Dodgers are trying to become the first team to win back-to-back World Series titles since Steinbrenner’s Yankees had a three-peat from 1998 to 2000.
Third baseman Max Muncy is in his eighth season with the Dodgers and says a big payroll certainly helps to build a talented roster, but it doesn’t mean much once the season starts. He points to 2023, when the Diamondbacks swept the Dodgers out of the postseason in the NL Division Series despite having a much smaller payroll.
“This sport is really tough,” Muncy said. “It doesn’t matter what kind of roster that you have. Time after time, teams have shown that you get into the playoffs and anything can happen.”
NASCAR driver Katherine Legge said she has been receiving “hate mail” and “death threats” from auto racing fans after she was involved in a crash that collected veteran driver Kasey Kahne during the Xfinity Series race last weekend at Rockingham.
Legge, who has started four Indy 500s but is a relative novice in stock cars, added during Tuesday’s episode of her “Throttle Therapy” podcast that “the inappropriate social media comments I’ve received aren’t just disturbing, they are unacceptable.”
“Let me be very clear,” the British driver said, “I’m here to race and I’m here to compete, and I won’t tolerate any of these threats to my safety or to my dignity, whether that’s on track or off of it.”
Legge became the first woman in seven years to start a Cup Series race earlier this year at Phoenix. But her debut in NASCAR’s top series ended when Legge, who had already spun once, was involved in another spin and collected Daniel Suarez.
Her next start was the lower-level Xfinity race in Rockingham, North Carolina, last Saturday. Legge was good enough to make the field on speed but was bumped off the starting grid because of ownership points. Ultimately, she was able to take J.J. Yeley’s seat in the No. 53 car for Joey Gase Motorsports, which had to scramble at the last minute to prepare the car for her.
Legge was well off the pace as the leaders were lapping her, and when she entered Turn 1, William Sawalich got into the back of her car. That sent Legge spinning, and Kahne had nowhere to go, running into her along the bottom of the track.
“I gave [Sawalich] a lane and the reason the closing pace looks so high isn’t because I braked midcorner. I didn’t. I stayed on my line, stayed doing my speed, which obviously isn’t the speed of the leaders because they’re passing me,” Legge said. “He charged in a bit too hard, which is the speed difference you see. He understeered up a lane and into me, which spun me around.”
The 44-year-old Legge has experience in a variety of cars across numerous series. She made seven IndyCar starts for Dale Coyne Racing last year, and she has raced for several teams over more than a decade in the IMSA SportsCar series.
She has dabbled in NASCAR in the past, too, starting four Xfinity races during the 2018 season and another two years ago.
“I have earned my seat on that race track,” Legge said. “I’ve worked just as hard as any of the other drivers out there, and I’ve been racing professionally for the last 20 years. I’m 100 percent sure that … the teams that employed me — without me bringing any sponsorship money for the majority of those 20 years — did not do so as a DEI hire, or a gimmick, or anything else. It’s because I can drive a race car.”
Legge believes the vitriol she has received on social media is indicative of a larger issue with women in motorsports.
“Luckily,” she said, “I have been in tougher battles than you guys in the comment sections.”
Legge has received plenty of support from those in the racing community. IndyCar driver Marco Andretti clapped back at one critic on social media who called Legge “unproven” in response to a post about her history at the Indy 500.
“It’s wild to me how many grown men talk badly about badass girls like this,” Andretti wrote on X. “Does it make them feel more manly from the couch or something?”
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