Is Shohei Ohtani Ruining Baseball?
Are the Los Angeles Dodgers making so much money out of Japan that nobody else stands a chance?
The Los Angeles Dodgers, winners of the last two World Series, signed outfielder Kyle Tucker, the top free agent of this year’s hot stove league, to a four year, $240 million contract.
Will this cause baseball team owner’s to lockout players for 2027 season while demanding a salary cap on rich teams like L.A.?
Will players sit out 2027 while demanding a salary floor on parsimonious teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates, who have a pretty awesome stadium?
Tucker’s is the second highest average salary contract in baseball history after the $700 million / 10 year contract that the Dodgers signed pitcher/hitter phenom Shohei Ohtani to two years ago.
Paying so much for a few years for Tucker, a fine corner outfielder (left or right field), but not one with an awesome track record, suggests that the Dodger management is pushing all their chips forward to win more World Series while they still have a starting line-up with three first-ballot Hall of Famers: Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman.
Of course, victory in baseball’s postseason is pretty random. The Dodgers’ 2025 World Series victory depended upon a seventh game win that was at least the most exciting since the upstart Pirates beat the mighty Yankees 10-9 in 1960.
For instance, with the scored tied and two outs in Toronto’s bottom of the 9th, the hottest hitter of the postseason, Toronto’s Ernie Clements, facing the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto on zero days rest, ripped a long flyball to left, which Dodger left fielder Enrique Hernandez initially misjudged, then turned around in a desperate attempt to make a Willie Mays miracle catch:
Hernandez himself couldn’t believe what ensued.
Toronto outplayed Los Angeles in the World Series, but lost due to an improbable series of unbelievable plays like this one.
Of course, Ohtani’s contract was …
Paywall here.
