Jason Kelce says the quiet part out loud about MLB's big spenders

Jason Kelce says money buys championships in MLB 

Kelce is right that the Dodgers were widely expected to win the World Series again in 2025 coming off their 2024 triumph. However, to make the sweeping generalization about money buying championships is a bit more nuanced than that.

Last year, for example, the New York Mets held the distinction of MLB's top payroll, sitting at $322M, per Spotrac. And while they did reach the NLCS in 2024, they didn't quite win a championship with all that money spent.

The Mets also sat atop the payroll rankings in 2023 and infamously missed the playoffs. In fact, that year's champion — the Texas Rangers — was fourth in payroll with $251M allocated to player salaries. That's not a small sum, to be clear, but it goes to show that it isn't always about spending the most, either.

It's true that smaller market teams, historically, have struggled to win championships. The Tampa Bay Rays, for example, have never won it all. Neither have the Milwaukee Brewers or Colorado Rockies. Even mid-market clubs like the Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres haven't captured the ultimate prize.

But to call the regular season meaningless is false — 162 games truly separates the good from the bad, even if the postseason is ultimately more of a crapshoot than a true indicator of potential. No sport makes you earn it more than baseball, even when you've got all the best players.

So back to Kelce: Does he have a point? To an extent, yes. The spending issue will be a focal point of the next Collective Bargaining Agreement in MLB. However, the Dodgers' journey to repeat champions was far from easy, even if it was "expected."