The current baseball World Series is convenient for writers, such as myself, in that it allows you to have any narrative you want. Do you believe in old school tactics, then you get Dave Roberts. Do you believe in the next trendy thing in tactics and analytics? The Rays have you covered. Do you think having young players is key? Rays. Older veterans in the clubhouse? Dodgers. Do you have to spend to win? Dodgers. Can anyone do it? Rays. Do you need superstars in your lineup? Dodgers. Can you cut corners financially and win with platoon advantages? Rays. If you want to believe it is so, then it is so (even if it isn’t). The legacy of this year’s World Series has never had so many options.
Praise the Lord (PTL!) for the Tampa Bay Rays, who spared us all from having to endure a World Series where the Astros bragged over and over about how great they are and how their cheating didn’t matter. And, I must say I am happy the Dodgers got here again after likely being hosed by said cheating. Maybe this is their year. They have been close for almost the last decade, always seeming to be a piece away. Maybe there is still time for Clayton Kershaw to pitch that one postseason gem that will make us all forget about… all the other starts. I am not here to analyze the matchup however. There are a million websites you can go to that could provide better insights than me (Rays in 7, people). I am actually here to look at the undercurrent that exists in this series and what it means for baseball moving forward.
The Dodgers are, quite notably, one of baseball’s two biggest spenders (a hair behind the Yankees this year thanks to that Gerrit Cole contract). Of course, baseball remains the final major sports league in the US with no salary cap. This theoretically allows teams to spend whatever they want to in order to win. This enthusiasm is usually tempered by losses (spending more on players than they can make back), the luxury tax (which varies depending on how many years you have been on it) and owner greed (some are just in it for the profit). Meanwhile, in the other corner are the Tampa Bay Rays. They are routinely in the bottom three (this year 3rd lowest after being lowest last year) in payroll. Typically this amount is about a fifth of what the big spenders spend. Their full season payroll last season was about the equivalent of Gerrit Cole and Giancarlo Stanton combined. Last season the Yankees had the equivalent of half the Rays payroll just on IR for the year.
The idea of how a team that has significantly less resources could beat two (and maybe three) of the top spenders already this season in the playoffs comes down to a lot of quirks with baseball. The first is that young players are vastly more valuable than their contracts. Because of baseball’s union, young players are very limited in their negotiating power. Older players (aka, the core of the union) have much greater power. This results in very odd discrepancies, like why players such as Shane Bieber can make next to nothing while a player like Clayton Kershaw can make 30 million. Yet, it’s players like Bieber who are generally the best. Additionally, there is the issue of how wisely you spend the money. For decades, the rich went wild in free agency, adding elite veterans at high price tags, and, even worse, adding mediocre veterans at high price tags. This was not money well spent. We are now seeing forward thinking teams like the Dodgers spend more carefully. The Dodgers have spent to vastly expand the quality of their minor league development and to take on bad salaries to get good players (like Mookie Betts paired with David Price). Their payroll is high, but they toss away money to gain good assets. Beyond that comes how to win in the margins.
For decades, smaller market teams have cried foul. Their lack of TV revenue has cut them off from being able to compete financially with the major markets. Because baseball lets each team negotiate their own TV contracts, the amounts vary wildly. While in stadium attendance can rise or fall with wins and losses, TV contracts are fairly stable. In 2020, when attendance didn’t exist, the Dodgers got 239 million. The Marlins got 20 million. While merchandise, tickets, concessions, parking and other incomes will effect overall income, what you see is basically the disparity. During the last full season, the Dodgers spent close to 239 million, and the Marlins spent more like 70 million. Without a salary cap, we will continue to see payroll disparities be similar to TV income disparities. The closest thing some smaller markets had to closing that gap was attendance, which is more linked with the quality of the team, although even that is weighed down by luxury boxes and advertising revenue that is higher in major markets. Now, that’s gone.
It has become clear in recent years that this does not effect the results on the field as much as some people think it does. The Royals, Rays, Indians and Tigers have made appearances in the World Series in the last decade. All of these carry lower payrolls. While having a higher budget certainly correlates to playoff and World Series appearances (look at the Yankees, Red Sox and Dodgers who frequently make both), it does not cause success (LOL Mets). So does the financial gap even matter? I believe it does.
Growing up, baseball superstars were the kings of the sports world. Griffey, Jeter, Canseco, Clemens, Pizza, Ichiro, Henderson, and more. These were household names in America. What’s more, certain players were known for their teams, and this went beyond just the Yankees. Robin Yount was the Brewers, Frank Thomas was the White Sox, Jim Thome was the Indians, Kirby Puckett was the Twins, George Brett was the Royals, Greg Maddox was the Braves, Tony Gwynn was the Padres, and I could go on and on. The main thing that has been lost in modern baseball is the star player. This season saw the meteoric rise of Fernando Tatis Jr. A flashy, young star who was full of talent, he made a real dent in popular culture. There have been others recently too. Francisco Lindor, Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, Mike Trout and others. Most of these have fizzled out in the popular marketplace (beyond hardcore baseball fans). Why have baseball players lost their value? I believe there are three reasons. One is not seeing them in the playoffs. Having far fewer teams in the playoffs (compared to other sports) has hurt baseball here. Most modern fans care only about playoffs and rings. Second, they only appear 4 times a game or once a week give or take. In every other sport, you see your favorite player at least a quarter of the time doing what they are best at. Finally, unless you are a major market, you can forget about having a career-long team superstar. No one on the Rays is going up on the wall of a Tampa Bay kid’s bedroom. They won’t be in Tampa Bay in three years unless they want to take a massive discount. The same applies to almost half of teams in baseball. The Marlins have NEVER had a player get past their arbitration years.
If you want baseball to truly thrive moving forward, smaller markets need to find a way to be able to keep at least some of their star players. I am experiencing this first hand as an Indians fan with Francisco Lindor, who’s arbitration clock is up, and he will be leaving the team either by trade or free agency. And there are plenty more like him. I don’t expect Fernando Tatis Jr. to spend his career with the Padres. Nor do I expect Yelich to spend his career with the Brewers, nor Luis Robert with the White Sox, nor Jesus Luzardo with the A’s. Not only does this mean these fans shouldn’t get attached, it also means these teams likely won’t have much in the way of Hall of Fame players down the line either. Players take the cap of the team they are with the longest. Is Manny Machado going in as an Oriole? Or as a Padre. He will probably spend more time with the Padres. Yet, his best play came with the Orioles. Bryce Harper? Philly. The Rays and Marlins might never have Hall of Fame players.
The legacy of this World Series will be with the fans. All World Series legacies’ rest with the fans, really. Who remembers those two Marlins World Series wins? Almost no one, because Miami has very few baseball fans. Teams like the Rays are winning, but they aren’t winning fans. Even if they win this World Series, next year, their ballpark wouldn’t be half full even in the best circumstances. Long term, that is terrible for baseball. You can’t have your winning teams not have fan bases. The Rays and Marlins, have actually had a ton of success as franchises. Over the last 20 years they have been better than teams like the Blue Jays, Twins, Mets or Mariners. But it doesn’t matter. Fans come out if you win, but they only stay if they have someone to root for. Overhauling the roster year after year removes any attachment fans have to the players. You can root for laundry by watching the box score. After this pandemic (and it’s financial effect) is over, how many fans will be left for a lot of these small market teams? Every team left in this situation can still win, but the wins mean less and less with every fan that stops caring. The lesson of this World Series isn’t whether spending money can win games. We know that it can, but you don’t have to spend to win. The lesson is that a World Series Championship doesn’t matter when no one is there to celebrate it. Whether the Rays win or not, they still won’t have many fans. The Dodgers will. Only the Dodgers winning the crown will be remembered.