Believe It or Not, White Sox Fans Should Be Rooting for the Dodgers in the NLCS

The natural instinct for every Chicago White Sox fan is to hop on the Milwaukee Brewers bandwagon for the rest of the MLB postseason — especially now that they’re matched up against the Los Angeles Dodgers, baseball’s new evil empire.

The Dodgers represent everything that feels wrong with the sport right now. They’ve monopolized talent, they spend ten times what most organizations even can spend, and they somehow keep finding loopholes to take on $700 million contracts without taking a real hit to their payroll.

Yes, Los Angeles develops homegrown stars — but they also buy championships.

Six of the Dodgers’ top eight players in fWAR are making north of $14.5 million per year. Five of their seven most valuable guys weren’t even drafted by the organization. They were signed in free agency or pried loose via trade. They have six players on $100+ million deals — and even when one of those deals turns out to be a dud, they just spend their way out of it like it’s nothing.

So of course Sox fans want the “average joe,” scrappy Milwaukee Brewers to win it all. Who doesn’t? They’re right up I-94 and they’ve got familiar faces like Andrew Vaughn and José Quintana, which gives it a sentimental twist for Sox fans who still miss what could’ve been on the South Side.

But be careful what you wish for.

White Sox fans — and fans of any team with a cheap owner — should not want Milwaukee to win the World Series.

The Brewers are a small-market team. Even in a year like 2025 when they’re supposedly "all in," they rank 17th in payroll with only two players making more than $10 million. They made the playoffs in 2024 with a lower payroll than the 41–121 White Sox.

They hover around the middle of the league in spending every year. They’re not aggressive at the deadline. In fact, they’ve got a reputation for trading away stars even when they’re winning — just to avoid paying them. Corbin Burnes. Josh Hader. You’ve seen this movie.

On July 31, the Brewers had the best record in baseball and held just a one-game lead over the Cubs. The roster was good — but clearly needed reinforcements. Milwaukee stayed quiet. Actually… worse. They traded away pitching depth, sending Nestor Cortes to the Padres. Their “big” additions? Danny Jansen and Shelby Miller — who was shut down for the season by early September.

If the Brewers — an organization allergic to big contracts and blockbuster trades — go on to win the World Series simply by trusting their internal options, it gives cheap owners across baseball the worst possible ammunition.

But if the Dodgers — the franchise that plays exclusively in the deep end of the talent pool — win again, or if a team like Seattle (12th in payroll and aggressive at the deadline, adding Eugenio Suárez and other rentals) takes it, it further cements a precedent baseball desperately needs:

If you want to win, you have to spend.

Will it force owners like Jerry Reinsdorf to change? Probably not. But it’s the only leverage Sox fans have left — pressure by example.

The last thing this fanbase needs is Jerry pointing at the Brewers celebrating a title and saying, “See? You don’t have to spend to win.”

He doesn’t need any more excuses.