We called them “the new owners” back then. In its fourth month as the Dodgers’ new owners, Guggenheim Baseball agreed to assume a quarter-billion dollars worth of contracts — over six seasons — to land Adrián González.
Half that money would go to González. The other half, well, that was the value of the three other player contracts the Dodgers absorbed to induce the Boston Red Sox to trade him.
The Dodgers had started that 2012 season in bankruptcy court, and all of a sudden the baseball world nervously wondered whether the new owners had a spending limit, or at least what that spending limit might be.
“I haven’t found it yet,” team President Stan Kasten said then. “I’ll let you know when we get there.”
Not there yet.
In 2025, the Dodgers are projected for about half a billion dollars in payroll, benefits and luxury taxes, based on baseball’s tax accounting system, for one season alone. No major league team has ever spent that much.
Half. A. Billion.
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The Dodgers agreed last week on a $72-million contract with reliever Tanner Scott. Never in their 125-year history have the Philadelphia/Kansas City/Oakland/Sacramento Athletics awarded a player $72 million, and yet eight players on the 2025 Dodgers roster have more money guaranteed than Scott does.
In 2012, the baseball world wondered about the new owners. In 2025, the baseball world mutters about them, and how they are allegedly ruining the game.
No one in Dodger blue was apologizing Wednesday, when the Dodgers introduced pitcher Roki Sasaki at a televised news conference.
“Another superstar from Japan!” exulted Joe Davis, the voice of the Dodgers.
“Two superstars from Japan aren’t enough?” the baseball world surely mumbled.
For Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations, the chorus of “You’re ruining the game!” is nothing more than background noise.
“I think I look at it from the other side,” Friedman said. “The inverse of that hopefully means that our fans are really happy.
“From our standpoint, that’s our only mission: to do everything we can to be great stewards of this organization and to reward our incredibly passionate fans.”
Kasten happily addressed the perception that the Dodgers are ruining baseball.
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“Let’s talk about that for a minute,” he said.
First, he said, check the odds. The Dodgers might be considered the best team in baseball, but the oddsmakers put their chance of winning the World Series at about one in four. That means there is a 75% chance this superteam is not a championship team.
“So, obviously, it hasn’t damaged the game competitively,” Kasten said.
“And, on the entertainment side, which is what we are, it’s really good when there is one team beloved by their fans, who come out in record numbers, leading all of baseball in attendance, while that same team can be hated and lead baseball in road attendance. That’s a win-win for baseball.
“And this is also really contributing to the enhanced globalization of central baseball around the world. So it’s a win-win-win. This is really good for baseball. I have no question about it.”
In Japan, thanks primarily to Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers games are regularly aired on television — live in the morning, with a replay in the evening. Joel Wolfe, the agent for Sasaki, said he had visited multiple ballparks there with a team store for home team merchandise, a kiosk for visiting team merchandise, and a kiosk for Dodgers merchandise.
“I think the Dodgers do have a home-field advantage in Japan,” Wolfe said.
Kasten said the Dodgers plan to launch fan clubs in Japan.
“That is something Premier League and European soccer clubs already do, amassing international fans,” he said. “We’re doing a pilot program to start that and see how it does.”
The Dodgers get the same share of international merchandise sales and international broadcast revenue that every other major league team does. They do have two massive financial advantages beyond league-leading attendance: a record $8.35-billion television contract that by itself covers much of the payroll, and Ohtani’s record $700-million contract that basically pays for itself through boosts in attendance, advertising, and sponsorships.
The Dodgers are running half a billion in payroll and taxes without losing money.
“Other teams, markets, cities just don’t have the same kind of opportunity we do,” Kasten said. “We have an opportunity because of our market and because of the support of our fans, who enable us to continue to invest in our team.”
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Is that fair? More to the point: Does that destroy any semblance of competitive balance?
What the Dodgers have bought themselves is a ticket to the playoffs. They have not bought themselves a championship, because the 12-team postseason tournament is about a run of short series where (say it with us) anything can happen.
The Dodgers were eliminated in the division series by an 84-win team in 2023 and by an 89-win team in 2022. They were one game away from elimination in the division series last year, and in that case the narrative would have been “Should Dave Roberts be fired?” and not “Should Dave Roberts be in the Hall of Fame?”
Said Kasten: “Nothing is automatic, especially in this sport, especially with the way our postseason is set up. Anything can happen. We’ve been on both sides of that crucible.
“Still, we look forward to participating every year.”
Every year. There go the Dodgers again, with all their crazy spending, the only team in baseball that plays a six-month preseason schedule. For them, Opening Day is in October.
There are kids who will have their bar mitzvah this year who never have lived through an October without the Dodgers in the playoffs. You can say the Dodgers are ruining the game, or you can just say mazel tov.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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