If The Dodgers Are Bad For Baseball, Why Was The World Series So Much Fun?

A unicorn led disconnected nan crippled pinch a azygous and past trotted retired to nan mound to transportation nan bottommost of nan first. Another pitcher won Games 2, 6, and 7 of nan World Series, throwing 17.2 innings on nan way. A catcher group a record, squatting down nan sheet for 74 Fall Classic frames and yet ended nan bid by hitting nan last go-ahead location run.

Just arsenic everyone feared aliases sneered, nan Los Angeles Dodgers are champions. Again. In what immoderate forecasted arsenic a harbinger of doom, nan sinister strategy of employing nan champion shot subordinate connected nan satellite on pinch a generous number of his astir adjacent peers proved effective. It’s not fair, immoderate group will opportunity successful nan coming months astir nan truth that nan squad broadly believed to beryllium nan champion yet won it all.

But, for now, location is unspeakable news for nan “Dodgers are bad for baseball” crowd: The 2025 World Series was fantastic. The 11-inning Game 7 instantly rocketed to nan precocious echelons of all-time sporting events. Alongside the 18-inning Game 3. And nan Ohtani Game from nan Championship Series. An epic October. This is why we watch baseball. This is why we emotion baseball. A decade from now, location will beryllium diehard fans who will opportunity they sewage hooked connected nan athletics this autumn.

The consciousness of awe would beryllium nan aforesaid if nan Blue Jays had prevailed alternatively – they supplied half nan play and half nan highlights. Ultimately, nan bid crowned a reliable champ not conscionable because nan Dodgers were favored for months, but because, successful nan end, they had to scratch and claw their measurement to nan top. Just because their triumph was projected doesn’t mean it was easy aliases predictable. The galore jaw-dropping moments erstwhile nan full bid seemed to hinge connected a azygous plaything aliases a swipe of nan mitt aliases specified centimeters (both because it was truthful adjacent and because it was successful Canada): Don’t show maine you saw those coming.

If this is what a surgery athletics feels like, don’t hole it.

To beryllium a small little sanctimonious and a batch little poetic: People return rumor pinch Dodgers because of their payroll. Including nan penalties for blowing past nan various taxation thresholds, nan Dodgers paid much than half a cardinal dollars for their rings this season. Small marketplace owners would show you nan Dodgers should beryllium cheaper. If nan Dodgers didn’t effort truthful difficult astatine roster building it would beryllium easier to support up. Is that really title works?

The Dodgers won nan World Series because they’re the astir costly team. And because they are good astatine spending money – which, arsenic nan New York Mets demonstrated this season, is not ever a given. Even nan fans and defenders would person to agree. It’s intolerable to abstracted nan spot of nan nine – an All-Star squad of nine-figure free agents – from nan success. It costs a batch to beryllium nan premier destination successful nan sport. To salary Mookie Betts what nan Red Sox wouldn’t. To salary Freddie Freeman what nan Braves wouldn’t. To salary for practically an full ballot of Cy Young contenders, thing that intends it’s not excessively overmuch of a problem if immoderate of them person to walk nan bulk of nan regular play connected nan injured list.

And past there’s Ohtani. For six seasons nan 2nd coming of Babe Ruth languished connected LA’s different team. Even alongside nan unassuming greatness of Mike Trout, Ohtani connected nan Angels ne'er made it to nan nationalist shape of nan postseason. That’s a problem pinch baseball; it takes much than 1 aliases 2 elite players to build a winning club.

Baseball fans loved Ohtani erstwhile he was an Angel. But now they emotion him and they get to watch him commencement Game 7 of nan World Series. Ever since he joined nan Dodgers, he’s played till nan past time of nan past bid of nan play each season. Isn’t that amended for baseball? Last year, he could only deed and still he was a revelation. This year, fans watched nan afloat breadth of his abilities pushed to caller heights by nan stakes of October. Maybe it will get boring eventually, but that’s not nan lawsuit conscionable yet.

In nan aforesaid offseason that nan Dodgers agreed to salary Ohtani $700m, they besides made Yoshinobu Yamamoto nan highest-paid pitcher of each time. Truly, an embarrassment of riches. Ohtani’s statement is famously deferred specified that its coming time worth is importantly little than nan eye-popping number associated pinch it. It’s a concession he made for nan definitive logic of affording nan Dodgers capable financial elasticity to walk connected different apical talent. That’s what championship-winning teams do pinch financial flexibility: they flex it.

Some group assumed Yamamoto, who came to LA from Japan, picked nan Dodgers because his countryman, Ohtani, was there. In his opening property conference, Yamamoto clarified: He wanted to win. And nan Dodgers seemed for illustration nan champion spot to do that.

But, of course, that cognition and nan eventual reality is inexorable from their willingness to motion some Ohtani and Yamamoto conscionable a fewer weeks apart. A cardinal dollars worthy of shot talent, 1 of whom started Game 7 and nan different who vanished it. Yamamoto thought he could triumph pinch nan Dodgers. Turns out, nan Dodgers won because of his heroics. Is it a flaw successful nan strategy that nan feline who was tin of winning 3 games successful a seven-game bid ended up not only connected nan squad that was consenting to salary him nan astir to do so, but 1 that besides had capable different high-priced players to upwind up successful that situation? Is it a situation that nan Dodgers were consenting to out-bid everyone other to guarantee Yamamoto was connected nan biggest shape and not sitting astatine location receiving somewhat smaller checks from different club?

Baseball will walk nan offseason, and nan adjacent 18 months, debating those very overmuch not rhetorical questions. The Dodgers’ trophy will radiance a spotlight connected a payroll disparity that has proven meaningful if not really predictive. A reckoning awaits, tiresome arsenic it whitethorn be.

So here’s 2 much questions to return into winter: Is it adjacent that nan squad that tried nan hardest to combine nan astir talent yet won? I deliberation so. And was it fun? Oh, absolutely.