The Los Angeles Dodgers have firmly planted themselves as the proverbial villain of Major League Baseball, not just because they are the defending World Series champions but also due to their unrelenting front office that put together another impressive free agency period.
One year removed from signing Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Teoscar Hernández, while also trading for Tyler Glasnow and agreeing to a contract extension, the Dodgers bolstered their roster with the additions of Blake Snell, Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates.
L.A. additionally re-signed Kiké Hernández, Blake Treinen and Teoscar Hernández, each of whom played a pivotal role in the team winning the 2024 World Series.
Dodgers spending aggressively in free agency has prompted calls for an MLB salary cap, and that’s likely to be a contentious topic when the next collective bargaining agreement (CBA) needs to be negotiated after the 2026 season.
While the Dodgers have faced heavy criticism and claims of ruining baseball, Andrew Miller shared why he believes more teams need to follow their lead during his appearance on the “Foul Territory” show:
“Quite the opposite, honestly. It can’t be summed up any better than when Bret Rooker came out. Somebody came up to him and was like, ‘Hey, what do you think about this? The Dodgers just get everybody. They’re going to walk away with this.’
“His comment, to paraphrase, was, ‘When teams sign players, that’s good for players and good for the game.’ As a fan, when you open up the paper or open up the blog, that your team is on on a player, your team is trying to improve, your team thinks they can go out and get this piece to make them a World Series contender, or take them from getting into the playoffs to winning the playoffs.
“I think that is good for baseball. That is interest. We love having good offseasons, and the fact that you can take a bunch of teams out of the factor immediately because their GM or president or owner is saying, ‘Hey, we’re just not going to do it this year,’ that’s bad for baseball.
“So the Dodgers going out and signing guys is great. Maybe not everybody can sign the Ohtani deal. I don’t know. Maybe it’s possible, maybe they don’t think they can work a whole team around that. But everybody can sign a Kirby Yates. Everybody can use Kirby Yates in the seventh, eighth, ninth inning of a playoff series and be better for it.
“So I don’t think they have any huge advantage in the sense that they’re doing something nobody else can do. Everybody can go out there and compete if they like, just like the Dodgers.”
Miller served on the MLB Players Association eight-man executive subcommittee during negotiations to restart the sport amid the 2020 pandemic and in labor bargaining from 2021-2022. He retired before the start of the 2022 season and was hired by the MLBPA in July 2024 as a special assistant for strategic initiatives.
Miller’s stance ironically is similar to a sentiment shared by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, who noted the Dodgers have continued to operate within the league’s rules set forth by the CBA.
But Manfred also expressed concern over fans of other teams having an immediate sense of dread at the start of a season.
Unsurprisingly, the likes of Blake Snell, Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts have been among those to not take umbrage with how the Dodgers front office has operated.
Are Dodgers ruining baseball?
Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten recently dismissed the notion of the Dodgers being bad for baseball, citing World Series odds are still not in their favor and increased interest ultimately benefits MLB as a whole.
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