Why was Boston unwilling to do what the Dodgers did? The answer, of course, might be sheer stinginess: The Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Red Sox and the Liverpool Premier League club, was apparently worth up of $6 billion since late in 2015, so its not as if FSG principal owner John Henry would have been bankrupted by a Betts deal. Yet these are the Red Sox were discussing. They arent understood for financial restraint, and its more difficult to fault the team that simply had MLBs greatest payroll for not spending than it is a perennial penny-pincher like the Pirates or a fairly freer-spending however still frequently frustratingly tightfisted team like the Cubs that regrets their so-called “biblical” losses.
How did the Dodgers do that? The Dodgers and the Red Sox are both big-market, high-revenue clubs with current track records of success. The Red Sox had the greatest payroll in baseball in each of the past 2 seasons; the Dodgers had the highest payroll in baseball in each of the four seasons prior to that.
As we learned just a few hours later on, Betts could do (and make) a lot more than that. At 10 a.m. ET, WEEIs Lou Merloni reported that the Dodgers and Betts were close to a contract extension that was “stated to be for 10-plus years and worth in between $350-400 million.” By midday in Los Angeles, the 12-year, $365 million deal was done and announced, and the huge Betts story line was over prior to the season even started.
I do not accentuate Rosenthals since-updated copy to flag it for Freezing Cold Takes. Ive exhumed it to demonstrate how improbable the possibility of the Dodgers ponying up a pre-pandemic-sized super star extension appeared to somebody apparently in the understand. To plugged-in reporters and the public alike, Bettss windfall was inconceivable prior to breakfast and done prior to supper.
“The financial impact of groups playing most or all of the season without fans practically definitely will avoid Betts from getting $400 million on the open market, or the $300 million the Red Sox reportedly used him,” Rosenthal composed, echoing remarks by others. “For now, all Betts can do is enjoy his time with the Dodgers and put everything else aside,” Rosenthal concluded.
Those months remade the world and dramatically altered our presumptions about MLB groups offseason costs habits (before Betts signed his extension, at least). In January, Merloni stated the Sox had used $300 million over 10 years and that Betts was “looking for” $420 million over 12 years. Maybe Bettss target agreement came down since he was fretted about what decreased earnings would do to complimentary firm, or possibly the Dodgers merely met him in the middle, which Boston was reluctant to do.
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The Dodgers led his list with nearly half a billion dollars in surplus value created, overshadowing the overalls of every team other than the second-place Astros. Nearly 80 percent of that worth was derived from position gamers, the Dodgers developmental specialty. Aucoin likewise identified that the Dodgers routed just the Yankees in making the ideal calls on which prospects to discharge or get.
Betts, the only cash on the Dodgers books for 2023 is the combined $6.5 million they would owe Pollock and Muncy if their gamer and club options, respectively, for that season arent exercised. (The Yankees, by contrast, are already on the hook for $81.25 million that year.) If we sort Spotracs list of 2023 group payrolls, that includes the complete option quantities, the Dodgers ranked 24th without Betts on the books– one spot below Pittsburgh and just above Oakland and Cleveland. The only other groups whose long-term payrolls remained in L.A.s vicinity were bad, low-cost, or both. The Dodgers are neither. Not surprising that they sprang for a lot of more years with Betts.
The West has worthier oppositions than it did a number of seasons ago, the Dodgers are Dorian Gray. When I asked Kasten what the Dodgers title window was, he said, “No, were the Dodgers. Kasten, who had actually long been with the division-dynasty Braves before his Dodgers days, has actually now known that feeling two times.
The Dodgers have won 5 more division titles since that piece was published (on top of the 2 they won from 2013-14), and their 2019 roster led the National League with 106 wins and qualified by some metrics as one of the finest groups of all time. The 2020 Dodgers, meanwhile, are the consensus choice as baseballs finest team and the favorite to win the World Series.
According to several sources, the Dodgers still boast baseballs third-best collection of prospects, simply as they did in 2015. In 2015, group president and CEO Stan Kasten informed me that unlike some smaller-market teams, the Dodgers didnt have to select in between winning now and winning later on. “Its different here in L.A., where we enunciated clearly on day one we were going to do both things at as soon as … invest and make the current group competitive, as well as investing in the longer-range plan, the searching and player development,” he said.
Under president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, who was poached from Tampa Bay in October 2014, the Dodgers have not hung on to every young player who progressed in the big leagues: They would reclaim the Yordan Álvarez for Josh Fields swap from 2016, although Álvarez wasnt extremely promoted at the time. But theyve largely resisted jettisoning promising potential customers for short-term upgrades. Because L.A. has kept its young, cost-controlled prospects-turned-stars and avoided long-term outlays on aging totally free representatives, it slipped under the competitive balance tax limit without suffering on the field (unlike the Sox), and was almost without long-lasting agreement dedications before the Betts extension.
The decisive distinction in between the group that let Betts go and the team that simply extended him is that the Dodgers were much better located competitively and financially to allocate this quantity of money without flinching. While the Dodgers havent won a World Series because 1988, no current group has actually competed for titles as consistently; Los Angeles is a perpetual playoff device that tracks only the 1990s-2000s Braves and Yankees for the most consecutive postseason looks. And no group invests smarter or develops more adeptly than the Dodgers do.
The Dodgers R&D department was and is one of the biggest in baseball, however parity in sabermetric gamer evaluation looked closer than ever. The Dodgers were early adopters of sophisticated developmental technologies and techniques that would indirectly clear payroll space for Betts.
According to the Baseball Gauge, the Dodgers led all 2019 teams in WAR derived from the draft and lapped the league in overall homegrown WAR and percentage of general WAR produced by homegrown gamers. (Homegrown gamers were specified as those who had been with one organization for their whole professions.) That doesnt appear set to change in 2020: Roster Resource notes the Dodgers with the second-highest variety of homegrown gamers on their 40-man roster. Just look at the origins of the groups eye-popping projected lineup behind Betts: Cody Bellinger, Corey Seager, Joc Pederson, and Will Smith are all Dodgers draftees, as is just recently optioned top prospect Gavin Lux, who will be back because batting order quickly. Max Muncy, Justin Turner, and Chris Taylor were castoffs from other companies who remade themselves in L.A.– with some help from the Dodgers, whens it comes to Muncy and Taylor– and ended up being efficient players, All-Stars, and even MVP vote-getters. A.J. Pollock is the lineups lone complimentary representative initially signed to a multiyear, million-dollar-plus deal.
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The Red Sox have actually homegrown stars too, however those players have actually gone into or approached their prime making years. With a farm system that rates amongst the bottom tier of teams, the Sox have not groomed replacements or a supporting cast. Theo Epstein once assured to construct a “scouting and gamer development device” that would yield a “continuous circulation of effect skill” in Boston, and his successor, Ben Cherington, made excellent on that objective (as hell attempt to do once again in Pittsburgh). Dave Dombrowski, who displaced Cherington, wasnt a Kasten-style steward. He spent (not constantly sensibly) and hemorrhaged potential customers. And hi, he won a World Series– the one thing Friedmans Dodgers have not done. Possibly that was worth it. The method he won, composed The Athletics Evan Drellich when Dombrowski was dismissed, didnt suggest that the Sox could “smell a Dodgers-like run.” There was a window in Boston, and it quickly closed– for the Red Sox, Dombrowski, and Betts.
When the Dodgers have actually opted versus bidding or attempting to make a trade, its typically been because their lineup was strong already and the potential player in concern wasnt elite enough to make a meaningful effect on their World Series odds. For several years, they waited and saw for the ideal unusual skill to come along. Anthony Rendon apparently didnt wish to play in L.A. Francisco Lindor apparently would have cost them Lux. Bryce Harper spurned their four-year, record-AAV deal. (The Dodgers did OK without him.) The Yankees barely outbid them for Cole. Mookie came along, and the Dodgers didnt miss their shot to set Bellinger and Betts in a fantasy outfield.
The definitive difference in between the team that let Betts go and the team that just extended him is that the Dodgers were much better positioned competitively and economically to allocate this amount of money without flinching. When I asked Kasten what the Dodgers title window was, he stated, “No, were the Dodgers. Simply look at the origins of the groups eye-popping projected lineup behind Betts: Cody Bellinger, Corey Seager, Joc Pederson, and Will Smith are all Dodgers draftees, as is recently optioned leading prospect Gavin Lux, who will be back in that batting order quickly. If we sort Spotracs list of 2023 group payrolls, which includes the full option amounts, the Dodgers ranked 24th without Betts on the books– one spot below Pittsburgh and simply above Oakland and Cleveland. Friedman, who inked his own extension last year, had not awarded a $100 million contract to any Dodgers gamer prior to Betts and still hasnt signed a free agent for more than the $60 million it took to charm Pollock in 2019.
And so, as the Dodgers once did, Boston employed a top-ranking Rays executive– a former Friedman lieutenant– to teach it how to match small-market vigilance with big-market bucks. Since 2014, both Betts and Friedman have actually shown that they do not have holes in their games. When Betts landed in Los Angeles, a model player met the model group.
In 2015, I proposed another method that the Dodgers could flounder: The groups small-market, ex-Rays/As-executive tandem of Friedman and then-GM Farhan Zaidi could continue to operate as if they were still running resource-strapped groups. Friedman, who inked his own extension in 2015, had not granted a $100 million contract to any Dodgers player prior to Betts and still hasnt signed a free representative for more than the $60 million it required to woo Pollock in 2019. He has spent to extend or re-sign his own stars, consisting of Clayton Kershaw, Kenley Jansen, Turner, and Muncy. Hes likewise invested on facilities: statheads and player development staff; ingenious pitching programs and other high-tech training tools; global facilities. And hes made trades to deliver veteran talent: Rich Hill and Josh Reddick in 2016, Yu Darvish in 2017, Manny Machado in 2018, and Betts this year.
In August 2012, the last-place Red Sox dumped the declining trio of Adrián González, Carl Crawford, and Josh Beckett on Ned Collettis Dodgers in exchange for extra parts, potential customers, and wage relief. The next year, the Dodgers paid those players practically $57 million for a combined 4.5 WAR and lost in the NLCS, while the Sox won a World Series.
