The Dodgers are the new Yankees

     The Dodgers, for a while now, have been the 21st century Yankees. They have an ownership group worth billions of dollars and Major League Baseball has no salary cap so teams can really spend as much or as little as they want. For the last 11 years, the Dodgers are found their way to somewhere in top 5 of highest payroll in the MLB, spending well over 100 million more than the league average. Not only do their owners have some of the deepest pockets in baseball, they also found a way to cheat the system while signing contracts. Shohei Ohtani signed the richest contract in history, $700 million, but the team worked out a system to pay him over the course of 20 years. I really don't understand how that's possible or allowed, but the Dodgers found a loophole and its working to their advantage. Despite the super team roster of players, they are somehow paying $80 million less than the New York Mets who are currently fighting for a playoff spot. Absolute insanity.

    Now, the point of my whole argument of the Dodgers being the new Yankees becomes a moot point because despite shelling out huge contracts and being in the top spenders in all of baseball, they've only won 1 World Series. And that was during the COVID year, so does it really count? I do not like the Yankees by any means, but I can appreciate what they did. "27 Rings!" is frequently spouted off by Yankee fans any time they are losing an argument because it really is impossible to debate it. They really are the most successful team in MLB, and maybe American sports, history. New York is a gritty town. Despite all the money and frills of the top 1% in New York City, there's a lot of tough nosed people out there. You hear all the time how tough the city is and Jay-Z put it best, "“That same dude you gave nothing, I made something doing what I do”. New York takes, it very rarely gives. That's exactly what the Yankees did while dominating America's past time.

 But now we move to the west coast and see the Dodgers quickly taking on the model of out spending everyone else, with some clever financial foot work. California is a nice place to live, of the 365 days in a year, California probably has about 355 days of sunshine and decently mild weather. Granted LA is a tough city as well, but its really hard to try and build up that image of toughness when you've got the beach 35 minutes away. 

    Winning is the biggest difference between those Yankee teams, and these Dodger teams. Its become almost become funny at this point watching the Dodgers win 100+ games every single season to turn around and get bounced in the first or second round of the playoffs. I don't think there will ever be another team quite like the Yankees that will utterly dominate the sport, but the Dodgers are certainly making an effort to do that. They just need to start winning more, but honestly I don't think they will. Every single time they step foot on the diamond, the other team is giving their 110% best effort to win. The Dodgers seem to be cursed, or maybe they just don't have that clutch gene needed to win. Time will tell, but for now I don't feel confident.