There have been critics of what the Los Angeles Dodgers are doing with their salary dollars. Still, maybe MLB needs to look at the overall situation and change some things.
For anyone with a pulse who keeps up with the MLB world, they know that the Los Angeles Dodgers have been on a spending spree.
The Dodgers, already with a sizable salary number for the ballclub, went and pulled up a few more pennies from their salary couch in the offseason. They signed free-agent reliever Edwin Díaz and free-agent outfielder Kyle Tucker to big-money deals.
In doing this, the Dodgers are simply looking to fortify their roster while heading into the 2026 MLB season in search of a third straight World Series championship.
Should Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, general manager Brandon Gomes, and the Dodgers' organization get a lot of hate for these moves? After all, they're just looking to get better.
But this is not a perfect system for free agency at all. What can be done about righting a wrong? Tyler Kepner, senior MLB writer for The Athletic, offered some suggestions in a commentary that was posted on Monday.
"The league needs a system that further incentivizes the low-payroll teams to spend," Kepner wrote. "Give them more money, but force them to spend it on players. That sounds great in theory, but if owners raise the floor, they will want to lower the ceiling.
"That is a salary cap, and there’s no indication it will ever happen," Kepner continued. "The players stood firm against a cap in 1994, striking that August before the owners could unilaterally impose one.
"The standoff cancelled the World Series and delayed the next season," Kepner wrote. "The lesson: Insisting on a salary cap is a warhead so dangerous it should never be deployed again. You can’t win a war by destroying the planet."
Look at these numbers which, minus tax penalties, shows a discrepancy between the Dodgers' opening payroll in 2025, compared to the Miami Marlins' payroll. The Dodgers had a $325.9 million payroll; the Marlins had a $69.1 million payroll. Miami's payroll was the lowest across all MLB teams.
Kepner considered that the Dodgers were making calculated, good moves. The organization watches what actions they do take when it comes to improving its roster.
Are some teams and their fans jealous of what the Dodgers do? Of course. Yet they're not cheating the system; they're working within it.
In order to change the discrepancy between the haves and have-nots in the MLB world, maybe MLB needs to get busy and change some things.
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