The Dodgers Are Annoying, Greedy—And Good for Baseball

In January, when the Los Angeles Dodgers signed outfielder Kyle Tucker to a four-year, $240 million contract, the sports talk radio hosts of America knew just what to do. The Dodgers, fresh off a second consecutive World Series victory, had landed the biggest prize in Major League Baseball’s free agent market. It was time to commence handwringing about competitive balance. “It’s terrible for baseball,” longtime sports yakker Chris “Mad Dog” Russo told Dan Patrick, a fellow veteran of the trade, on his show after news of Tucker’s signing broke.

Russo (a lifelong San Francisco Giants fan) then made the familiar case that something must be done to stop the Dodgers from spending their way to success. He ticked through a list of their big-name free agent signings over the past few years, from Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto to, this winter, Edwin Diaz and Tucker; pointed to their half-billion-dollar payroll; and lamented their monotonous run of playoff appearances, now at 13 straight seasons. “I mean this is getting to be a joke,” he said. “You can’t tell me it’s good for the sport.”