Bryce Harper is fine and good with what the Dodgers have built for themselves. Sure the Dodgers payroll dwarfs some small market franchises but money aside, they do everything well.
“I don’t know if people will like this,” Harper said, “but I feel like only losers complain about what they’re doing. I think they’re a great team and a great organization.”
Harper is not interested in putting money aside or the lure of LA’s bright lights. The Dodgers and their $320 million payroll have come to pay the Phillies an early season visit. It’s almost as if people have no idea that the Phillies payroll sits at $283 million.
Heck the Mets payroll is almost as much, ($322 mllion per Spotrac), and you don’t hear quite the same amount of whining about it.
It’s About The Money
Still it’s the Dodgers with the massive payroll and all those deferred contracts totalling almost a billion dollars. The grumbling has extended all the way to the top in New York and Yankee owner Hal Steinbrenner:
“It’s difficult for most of us owners to be able to do the kind of things that they’re doing,” Steinbrenner said of the Dodgers on YES Network’s “Yankees Hot Stove” show.
Imagine saying that when your team is worth $7 Billion. Not to to mention being the ‘Evil Empire’ long before the Dodgers came along to push them in the money spending department.
Labour Trouble Coming
We all know what this is really all about and it will continue to be until baseball’s players and owners find a way to the next collective bargaining agreement. The current one ends after the 2026 season.
Shots have already been fired on this front. Rumblings of ownership taking another stab at a salary cap. Baseball being the only one of the big four pro sports without one. MLB and commisioner Rob Manfred will use whatever they have, the Dodgers payroll just the latest:
“We need to pay attention to it and need to determine whether there are things that can be done to allay those kinds of concerns and make sure we have a competitive and healthy game going forward,” said Manfred.
And the battle continues.
