Every year, without fail, I find myself having to defend the Dodgers. And the Yankees. I know, I just lost some of you right there. But hear me out. I'm a Dodgers fan. And I'm also a Brewers fan. Yeah, I know that’s two National League teams, but when the Brewers were in the American League, I was already deep into both. I live in Milwaukee, grew up in Ashland (think top of Wisconsin, Lake Superior) and I’ll always root for the hometown team. But the Dodgers? They’ve had my heart ever since Kirk Gibson hobbled up to the plate in the 1988 World Series and hit that impossible home run. That moment embedded something in me, drama, grit, magic. It’s the reason I still believe in this game.
But I’ve grown tired of the tired takes. Friends complain every season that the Dodgers “buy wins.” That the Yankees “ruin the game” with their payroll. That small-market teams never have a chance. And every time I hear it, I just shake my head not because I don’t get the frustration, but because it’s just not the whole truth.
The reality is more complicated than the narrative, and if we’re going to have honest conversations about baseball, we need to stop pretending that big-market teams are villains and small-market teams are helpless victims. The real divide isn’t between New York and Kansas City, it’s between owners who want to win and owners who are content to profit off losing.
Revenue in Major League Baseball isn’t some big mystery. Teams make money from local TV deals, ticket sales, concessions, merchandise, national broadcasting contracts, postseason shares, and yes, revenue sharing. That last one was created to help lower-revenue teams compete, a pot that the Yankees and Dodgers and Red Sox pay into, and teams like the A’s and Pirates draw from. The system is supposed to create balance. But there’s a problem: no one is forcing those “small market” teams to actually spend the money they get. And many don’t.
Here’s what I’ve come to realize: when you look at payrolls as a percentage of team revenue, it’s often the supposed “money teams” that are putting a higher portion of their revenue back into player salaries. The Dodgers spend around 43% of their revenue on payroll. The Yankees? Around 45%. Compare that to teams like the Rays or A’s, who don’t just spend less, they spend a much smaller share of what they make. The A’s pulled in somewhere around $220 million in 2023 and barely cracked $60 million in payroll. That’s not trying. That’s gaming the system.
And then you look at the Brewers. They bring in about $300 million a year and spend close to $120 million on payroll. That’s 40% of revenue. That’s doing it the right way. It’s not about raw dollars, it’s about what you’re willing to give back to the product on the field.
We talk so much about payroll totals and forget to ask the more important question: How much of what a team earns actually goes back into building a winner? If a club is pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars and spending a fraction of that on its roster, then it’s not really in the business of competition. It’s in the business of cashing checks. And then, conveniently, it gets to cry poor while blaming the Yankees for all its problems.
And I get it, the Dodgers can afford to eat a bad contract. So can the Yankees. That’s a luxury, no doubt. The big-market teams do have one major edge: margin for error. But they still have to spend smartly and build depth. You don’t win 100 games a season over a decade by luck. You do it by pairing financial firepower with organizational competence. And when it goes sideways, like it does for the Mets regularly, you still have to own the mistakes.
Small-market teams like the Brewers and the A’s have long been forced to innovate just to stay competitive. They were the ones who leaned into analytics before it was trendy, who optimized bullpen usage, who found value in overlooked players. They did more with less, and in doing so, they reshaped the game. Ironically, it's the large-market teams who now copy those strategies and scale them with their bigger budgets. It’s no different than business, disruption often starts small, but it doesn’t stay small for long.
The teams I respect the most are the ones that try, no matter their market size. The Cardinals. The Braves. The Padres. The Brewers. Teams that reinvest, that build up their farm systems, and that spend when it counts. They may not always hit the mark, but they don’t hide behind the excuse of being small. They play to win.
Contrast that with teams like the Pirates, the A’s, the Marlins. There’s no sustained plan to contend. They tank. They tear down. They profit off hope. They cash their revenue-sharing checks and field $60 million rosters, expecting fans to stay loyal. It's a scam. And it’s allowed because there’s no real penalty for losing.
That’s where I think American baseball could learn a little something from the English Premier League. In the EPL, if you finish at the bottom, you’re not rewarded with a top draft pick, you get fucking relegated. Dropped down to a lower league. You lose TV money. Sponsorships dry up. The consequences are real, and they’re brutal. But it forces every club to try. Even teams in the bottom half of the table fight to avoid the drop. There’s no incentive to tank. You either compete, or you suffer the fallout.
That’s the kind of pressure Major League Baseball desperately needs. Because right now, there are teams content to sit at the bottom and wait for the luxury tax handout. Owners who treat the franchise like a long-term asset with guaranteed annual profits, not a civic institution that owes its fans effort and ambition.
I get defensive when people trash the Dodgers. I understand it comes from jealousy, from frustration, from wanting to see their own teams spend that kind of money. But don’t blame L.A. for trying. Blame the teams that don’t. Blame the owners who treat losing as a strategy. Blame the league for not having the backbone to demand more.
Because if you’re a fan in Milwaukee, or Cleveland, or Cincinnati, you deserve more. Your team can compete. The Brewers have proven it, they have the smallest fucking market, they have been winners for a decade. But they need an owner who actually wants to put a contender on the field, not just one who wants to squeeze the lemon until there’s nothing left.
Baseball doesn’t need a salary cap. It needs accountability. If you’re making $300 million, you should be required to spend at least $120 million on your roster. That’s not radical, that’s just honest. Tie revenue sharing to actual on-field investment. Put a floor under these rosters. Stop rewarding failure and call it parity.
And if you’re still mad about the Dodgers’ payroll, that’s fine. But at least acknowledge they’re spending to win. I’ll take that over an owner who spends to survive. I’d rather root for a team that tries, even if they spend a lot to do it, than one whose owner coasts along, does the bare minimum, and treats the team like a passive investment.
Because at the end of the day, it’s not about big markets or small markets. It’s about intent. It’s about who’s actually in it to win and who’s just in it for the fucking checks.
There needs to be a salary floor to rid the sport of grifters like John Fisher and Bob Nutting. The Dodgers are actually healthy for the sport.