I know, 50% of you will skip this one…and I pity you.
Today is a big crazy day for baseball fans: it is the MLB trade deadline, when those teams that feel they have a chance at post-season glory and World Series immortality will try to acquire significant reinforcements from the teams that have given up hope. The latter teams will dump contracts while trying to acquire younger, cheaper players, many still confined to the minor leagues, so “Wait until next year!” has a chance of coming true for their disappointed fans.
The event has become important since baseball emulated the other professional sports by diluting the importance of the regular season by increasing the number of teams that can qualify for the play-offs. As I have written in the past, I detest this development, which is a deformed offspring on the free agent system. After today, the 30 teams will have split into mostly non-competitive pushovers playing out the last two months without hope and much superior teams “going for the gold.”
The biggest star and the most valuable player in these annual sweepstakes is Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal, the consensus choice as the Best Starting Pitcher in Captivity. Skubal has won the AL Cy Young Award two straight years. It is his free agent year, and the Tigers know his asking price to re-sign in beyond their resources. The team had to trade him now, and almost every team with a ghost of a chance to get to the World Series would love to have him. Who traded for him yesterday? Shockingly the one team that didn’t need him: the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers have won the World Series two years in a row, they are locks to win their division again, they have the most money and the largest payroll in the game, and basically have a team of All-Stars without Skubal. The trade reignited a protest in the sports media and on barstools that the Dodgers were unethically greedy and “ruining baseball” by monopolizing talent, emulating the New York Yankees dominance during baseball’s first century. (The classic 1950s musical “Damn Yankees” was adapted from the novel, “The Year the Yankees Lost The Pennant.”) My view: Nonsense. AOC, Bernie and Mayor Mamdani like that argument, because they are communists. The Dodgers have succeeded because they are well-run and make smart decisions, including making many that benefit fans at the sacrifice of the bottom line. Baseball, alone among team sports, promotes individualism, exceptionalism, and capitalist values. Teams are not are not limited regarding their payrolls, and players are not limited regarding how much money they demand to play. Furthermore, baseball has traditionally benefited by having teams playing the role of The Evil Empire. It’s like the villains in professional wrestling.
[Full disclosure: My feelings on the matter might be influenced a tiny bit by the fact that the Boston Red Sox, currently on a historic winning streak that pulled them out of today’s class of pathetic white flag-waivers into the mob of hopeful “buyers” (23 wins in the last 26 games) swept the Evil Dodgers in a three game series in LA, winning last night 8-4.]
Ethics Alarms 
A very good law school friend and classmate is good friends with Mark Walter, having worked years ago with Mark’s wife. My friend quoted Walter as saying, “When we don’t spend enough money, people are mad at us. When we spend too much money, people are also mad at us.”
I’d attribute the rise of MLB playoffs more to the massive expansion of franchises. If the playoffs were eliminated, there would be two sixteen team leagues. The World Series would most likely be the Dodgers against the Yankees every year. The Rockies and the Athletics, wherever they might be, would end the year forty-five games out of first place. Two or three teams at most might be involved in pennant races. Fan despair would be endemic after the first month of the season.
Yeah, I told dad last night that just because the rich get richer doesn’t mean won’t get swept the Red Sox over the weekend. Cora’s departure has been a magic elixir for that team!!!
As for the trade itself, I’m surprised Detroit didn’t get at least one league-ready arm in return. But the return they did get was decent. River Ryan is nearly ready and while he’s older for a prospect at 27, he projects at worst as a mid-rotation starter…and maybe better. Zyhir Hope has the makings of a very good hitting OF’er (tearing up AA as a 21-year-old), and Brady Smith is has back-of-the-rotation upside…more likely a solid bullpen arm.
Of course, these are all guesses, but for a two-month rental, the return was a pretty good risk.
The evil Dodgers should try to sign Skubal before season’s end, but his agent – the ever-affectionate Scott Boras – will make sure the Dodgers pay a premium to take the #1 FA target off the table before other teams get to bid.
It may turn out that the Dodgers get him for only the stretch run and the playoffs, but if they win another Series and don’t sign Skubal, they still win.
As for the ethical side, I think your summary is spot on. Baseball needs the big free-market teams as the bogeymen for the rest of us to point at. And America needs free-market baseball.
Sorry, that first sentence was horrific. It should read…
“Yeah, I told dad last night that just because the rich get richer doesn’t mean they won’t get swept by the Red Sox over the weekend.”
Proof-reading before posting is my friend…
As usual, the intrepid reporters for the Babylon Bee have the latest scoop on this subject.
https://babylonbee.com/news/dodgers-acquire-kal-el-of-krypton
On the one hand, the Dodgers have replaced the Yankees from a decade ago as the team that is always able to outbid everyone, and especially at the trade deadline. Maybe in a few years, it’ll revert to New York.
Everything you say, Jack, is correct, except that there has developed a sort of salary cap — which teams can ignore if they want to spend enough money. The Yankees have dropped behind the Dodgers recently because they decided they didn’t want to spend the uber bucks. You and I also have the advantage that your Red Sox and my Rangers are not in small markets and can, at least to an extent, spend enough to develop pretty big payrolls.
And yet every year, by this point in the season, there are a number of clubs — the names tend not to change a whole lot — that are hopelessly out of contention. It’s not nearly as much fun rooting for a team that is 40-60 eight years out of ten, and the competition for sports fans’ attention is a whole lot fiercer than it was 75 years ago.
Yes, the Dodgers succeed because they are well run and have made good decisions about recruiting talent. But it sure doesn’t hurt that they have a gazillion more dollars to spend every year than the Kansas City Royals. The Royals could make every bit as excellent judgments and decisions about talent and still never be able to compete with the Dodgers.
There was an excellent article on mlb.com regarding competitive balance a few weeks ago.
https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-competitive-balance-issue-explained
While I am an eternal baseball fan, and follow my team to the end, win or lose, I am also aware of the realities. I look at the NFL for a contrasting approach. While MLB cannot have the same approach to money that the NFL has, it’s instructive to contrast the two.
All NFL teams financially start at roughly the same place, as league revenue is more national and it’s equally shared. They’re not the same, because the local market does matter, but it is easier to have a competitive football team in Kansas City than baseball. Or, to take a famous example, Green Bay.
For the NFL, building a top team starts from the same base, but it is much more dependent on the people in the organization being able not only to evaluate talent, but put together a team and coach that will win. Each team has more or less the same money to spend, and their success is determined much more by their skill in putting together a team.
The NFL also has an advantage in that it is more of a national sport — fans are a lot more likely to root for a team in a different city than in baseball, and one’s favorite team is less dependent on where you grew up or where you live now.
But the NFL also has its teams that consistently do poorly year after year. They demonstrate that organizational talent does make a difference.
Both leagues are successful despite persistent doomsaying of MLB.
Your thoughtful comments always make me feel like the baseball ethics posts “aren’t in vain, for nothin'” as Lena Lamont would say.
Thanks, Jack, I really appreciate that.
What I will definitely say is that your baseball posts have made me think more about the game and have raised points that I’d never considered. I always look forward to them.
And, of course, as an honorary member of The Five, I feel it’s my bounden duty to respond to as many baseball posts as I can.