Shohei Ohtani's record-breaking deal with Dodgers is another sign of baseball's broken system
Shohei Ohtani's 10-year, $700 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers makes him the highest-paid athlete in North American sports history, shining a blinding light on baseball's broken system.
MLB is the only league among the big four to operate without a salary cap or a salary cap floor, and it's strangling the competitive balance in the sport year after year.
In a league where teams are all owned by billionaires who make the rules, it's hard to muster up much sympathy for their perceived plight in situations like this. However, a deal such as Ohtani's shows just how uneven the playing field is in baseball, and it's only getting worse.
Ohtani's contract shakes out to $70 million per year, which, as of right now, is higher than the entire payrolls of eight MLB teams in 2024, per Spotrac. Furthermore, it nearly matches the combined payrolls of the Baltimore Orioles ($42.8 million) and Las Vegas Athletics ($38.6 million).
On top of that, the rest of MLB watched the Dodgers add Ohtani to their books after spending $222.78 million alone on their roster in 2023. So, if you're a small market team or even in the middle of the row, how on earth do you compete? Spoiler alert: you don't.
Spending more doesn't equal success, as the New York Mets and others have recently proven. However, it does give teams a serious edge over their competitors. It's certainly not the Dodgers' fault that teams throughout the league couldn't even dream of signing Ohtani, but it is what's wrong with baseball, and the only way to fix it is by forcing owners to spend.
Admittedly, introducing a salary cap after decades of Wild West spending would be a tough sell. However, agreeing on a salary floor might be more palatable, and it could save baseball from the out-of-control path it's taking now.
Occasionally, a cheap and scrappy underdog breaks through baseball's glass ceiling, but those instances are few and far between. Baseball is essentially an afterthought in many cities where other pro sports thrive. It comes and goes like a whisper in places like Cincinnati, Kansas City and Pittsburgh and will continue to do so as long as the MLB and its owners allow it.
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