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Baseball fans who grew up during the so-called “Evil Empire” days of the New York Yankees under George Steinbrenner could surely never envision a time when the Bronx Bombers were the ones complaining about another team’s spending.
But that day has apparently arrived.
Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner, who is the son of George, discussed the Los Angeles Dodgers’ spending this offseason during a Tuesday interview on the YES Network with Meredith Marakovits (h/t Brendan Kuty of The Athletic) and admitted it is “difficult” for most other teams to keep pace.
“Well, look: It’s difficult for most of us owners to be able to do the kind of things that they’re doing,” he said. “Now, we’ll see if it pays off. They still have to have a season relatively injury-free for it to work out for them, and it’s a long season, as you know, and once you get to the postseason, anything can happen. We’ve seen that time and time again.”
It’s not as if the Yankees can cry poor considering Forbes recently ranked them as the fourth-most valuable sports franchise in the world with a value of $7.55 billion. By comparison, the Dodgers were 24th at $5.45 billion, which was the second-highest mark in Major League Baseball.
Yet it is Los Angeles that has been pacing the field in spending this offseason.
Kuty and Chris Kirschner of The Athletic cited data from Cot’s Contracts and noted Los Angeles has the league’s highest projected luxury tax payroll of $376.4 million after spending nearly a half-billion in deals this offseason alone.
The Philadelphia Phillies are second at $307.8 million, while the Yankees check in at third at $302.9 million.
Los Angeles was already the reigning World Series champion with stars such as Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, and they responded by adding players such as Blake Snell, Rōki Sasaki, Teoscar Hernández, Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates and others this offseason.
Anything but another run to the World Series would be a surprise, and the Yankees may be waiting for them again after adding Max Fried, Cody Bellinger, Devin Williams and Paul Goldschmidt this offseason.
Teams lower on the spending list likely won’t love Steinbrenner as the messenger when it comes to making a statement about the Dodgers’ spending given the Yankees’ position in MLB’s pecking order.
But he did point to the massive discrepancies that only grew this offseason as Los Angeles continued to add quality players.
