Ben Verlander sounds off on Dodgers ruining baseball narrative

When Dave Roberts boldly declared that the Los Angeles Dodgers planned to really “ruin baseball” by winning four more games in the World Series, it only confirmed the frustrations of angry fans around MLB.

The Dodgers, boasting the most expensive roster in baseball – though not by much – have really turned things up a notch during their postseason run as the NL’s third seed, winning all but one game they’ve played to punch their tickets to the World Series while the American League might still have two more games to play before they can name a champion.

And yet, in the opinion of Ben Verlander, LA isn’t the problem with baseball. No, the real problem is franchises that refuse to pay their players and allow them to hit the open market, where they inevitably want to sign with a team like the Dodgers who value them according to their talents.

“Why are people mad at the Dodgers? Calling them a super team? Saying this is bad for baseball? Let me tell you something. The problem is not the Dodgers. The problem is all these other teams not willing to pay their own players when they have them,” Verlander explained.

“The league would look totally different if the Pittsburgh Pirates paid Tyler Glasnow and the Tampa Rays paid Blake Snell and the Boston Red Sox paid Mookie Betts, and the Los Angeles Angels paid Shohei Ohtani. Shohei Ohtani is the greatest player in the world. He was with the Angels, became a free agent, went back to the Angels with the same contract he ended up signing, and they said no. So he goes to the Dodgers. Freddie Freeman was with the Braves. They offered him less money, a hometown discount. That became a fiasco. Dodgers took him. Mookie Betts was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers by the Boston Red Sox. They literally sent him to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Tyler Glassnell, Blake Snell, Tampa Bay Rays didn’t want him. Didn’t want to pay them. Dodgers decided to pay them.”

Interesting stuff, right? Well Verlander took it a step further, noting just how much LA reinvests into their on-field product, which is a stark contrast to some other organizations.

“The Los Angeles Dodgers spend about 75% of their revenue on the team whereas most everybody else in the league is in the mid 30%. So it’s not that the Los Angeles Dodgers are a problem. It’s that these other teams just need to pay their players when they have them,” Verlander noted. “We should not be mad at the Los Angeles Dodgers for putting the money in the team and wanting to be a competitive team and winning championships. Freddie Freeman wanted to stay in Atlanta. Mookie Betts traded to the Dodgers. Shohei Otani offered the Angels the same thing. Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell didn’t get paid by the Tampa Rays. We wouldn’t be sitting here blaming the Dodgers. Don’t blame the Dodgers. Blame the other teams.”

Now granted, Los Angeles makes money at a borderline unprecedented clip in professional sports, so their administrative costs are a much smaller segment of their budget than a small-market team barely getting by. But still, if an organization with means is willing to re-invest its profits into the players who actually get the job done on the field, why does that bother fans more than their own favorite team not being willing to do the same?