Ever since the signing of super-star Japanese two-way player, Shohei Ohtani, the Los Angeles Dodgers have been on a rampage, bringing fear to Major League Baseball. Before the 2024 season, Ohtani signed a 10-year, 700 million dollar contract. 10 years, 700 million? That’s 70 million dollars per year, right? Wrong. Ohtani’s contract defers $68 million of his $70 million per year until his contract is up. So currently, Ohtani is making $2 million per year while being arguably the best player in baseball, while the other $68 million per 10 years is waiting for him after his retirement. Crazy. Well, not crazy enough for the Dodgers.
Five days later, the Dodgers traded for Rays’ pitcher Tyler Glasnow, who was on the rise of becoming a star pitcher. Then, the Dodgers used their newly signed super-star Japanese player, Shohei Ohtani, to convince a highly anticipated free agent pitcher from Japan to join their already-stacked team. Starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto signed a 12 year, $325 million contract, with a $50 million signing bonus just 16 days after Ohtani! Although Yamamoto’s contract is not deferred like Ohtani’s, this contract does reveal the Dodgers plan to take over Major League Baseball, using deferred contracts. Ohtani’s $68 million in deferred money allows the Dodgers to continue spending money and just pushing back when they will have to spend it.
Before signing Ohtani, the Dodgers already had a stacked roster with players like utility player Mookie Betts, first baseman Freddie Freeman, outfielder Teoscar Hernandez, and catcher Will Smith, but now they could be defined as a superteam. During the trade deadline in July, 2024, utility player Tommy Edman was traded from the Cardinals, who had a huge contribution to the Dodgers cruising to the championship in 2024, and eventually beating the Yankees four games to one in the World Series. Justin Talamini, an Indian Hills senior and lifetime Yankee fan is disappointed in his team compared to the Dodgers’ spendings: “I look at my Yankees completely differently. It’s beyond me that the Yankees aren’t just doing the same thing as LA. We all know they have the money. I personally just feel we have a lazy front office and it makes me so mad.” I have to agree with that. Before George Steinbrenner gave ownership of the team to his sons, he would spend all the money he could in order to win. Now, the Yankees have a different approach to winning.
During the 2024 offseason, the Dodgers signed two pitchers who had great 2024 showings, reliever Tanner Scott, and starter Blake Snell, another highly anticipated starter/reliever pitcher from Japan, Roki Sasaki, re-signed outfielder Teoscar Hernandez, and re-signed utility player Tommy Edman. Blake Snell’s 5-year, $182 million contract defers $66 million through 2035-2046, when Snell will be sitting on the couch watching movies while making money. Then, right before the season started, catcher Will Smith signed a 10-year, $140 million contract with $50 million in deferred money. All of these moves contributed to yet again, another World Series win in 2025. Talamini continues, “I feel the Dodgers are affecting baseball in a way we have never seen before, because in 10-15 years we will look at this dynasty and just congratulate them for how they ended up outsmarting all of us.”
Now as we are two seasons deep into the Shohei Ohtani-Dodgers era, with the past two championships in the Dodgers’ hands, this LA team is still going full speed ahead. On December 12, 2025, Mets fan-favorite closer, Edwin Diaz, signed a 3-year, $69 million contract with the Dodgers, where only $13.5 million will be deferred. Yea, only sounds appropriate. Now if that wasn’t enough, on January 21, 2026, after a long few months of negotiations with teams, and patience from fans across the MLB, former Cubs and Astros rising star, right fielder Kyle Tucker, signed a 4-year, $240 million contract with the Dodgers with $30 million in deferred money. Although these contracts aren’t as long as the Ohtani contract, this still shouldn’t be possible with the amount of debt the Dodgers will be in. Junior Michael Young believes, “To be honest, I do not think it is the Dodgers that are the problem here. They have the money, invested it well, and got two rings out of it. In my opinion, the real issue is teams like the Rockies, Angels, and Pirates, to name a few teams, who are ruining baseball. These teams are actively not being competitive because they have different ways of getting money.” I cannot back up the Angels here, but the Pirates and Rockies also do not get enough recognition in their respective cities. Ethan Gray, another junior, agrees, “”Poorer” franchises like the Marlins and Pirates who have been historically bad are ruining baseball because even though they have more than a billion dollars to work with, they don’t like to spend money to improve their teams.” Gray also believes that not only are these teams ruining baseball, but how teams can have contract deferrals, running with the memo, win now, pay later, and how there is only a luxury tax instead of a salary cap. I agree with both statements, and Gray’s solution, “I think the MLB will have to replace luxury tax with a salary cap and get rid of deferred contracts.”
Senior Ryan Hurley shares an additional perspective, “I feel that the Dodgers are ruining baseball in many different ways. I think that they are ruining the game because they are spending an absurd amount of money getting players. For example, this off-season they signed Kyle Tucker to a 4 year 240 million dollar deal, which includes a lot of deferred money so that they can sign more players.” Signing Kyle Tucker just provides additional evidence of the Dodgers taking advantage of deferred compensation on recent Dodgers contracts.
I believe that even with people thinking that this is healthy for baseball, no baseball player should be worth this much money. They play baseball for a living; they do not save lives. That is besides the point of what the Dodgers are doing as a team. In Major League Baseball, there are only about 6 high market teams that have similar to the Dodgers payroll. Teams like the Pirates, Athletics, and Rays cannot compete to the level of the Dodgers. Nate Fadini continues, “For poorer teams like the Pirates or Guardians, it’s really frustrating for them because they don’t have the money to spend on deferrals that teams like the Dodgers can, or money for contracts that the Mets give players.” Superstar outfielder Juan Soto is who Fadini means on the Mets, who has the most amount of money in a contract ever, which he signed in the 2025 offseason due to Mets’ owner Steve Cohen being willing to spend money in order to win. Even if there are owners who only care about profit, like the Pirates’ Bob Nutting, how would the team even compete financially in a city like Pittsburgh compared to Los Angeles. Similar to Michael Young and Ethan Gray’s earlier comments, Indian Hills History teacher and MLB fan, Mr. Heusser, believes that “the Dodgers aren’t doing anything wrong in what they are doing, it’s MLBs fault for the system that they have. LA found a loophole that allows them to defer money down the road in which they are not killed with the luxury tax. They are betting on the luxury tax ceiling becoming higher in the future. The bigger problem is the bottom feeding teams don’t spend money.”
There does eventually need to be a solution, and whether or not that solution is a salary cap or floor, the players may not like it. Former Phillies, now San Diego Padre, Nick Castellanos believes that there should be a salary floor, because if all the owners spend at least a certain amount of money each year, they would be able to compete more. But, a potential salary cap means that players won’t make as much money in the future, which is not what they want. Mr. Heusser predicts that “MLB will make a rule that teams can no longer defer money. I am 50/50 whether MLB will put in a salary cap and floor.” With the players meeting coming up before the 2027 season, a potential lockout is seemingly unavoidable. The players association must come to an agreement to a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, which may be difficult due to players fighting to a potentially proposed salary cap and any other qualities to make sure the game stays fair for players other than the teams. Justin Talamini speaks for all of us no matter what team we root for, “I think the future of the MLB is bad. The players are going to go on strike because of the whole salary cap issues and I’m just not ready for that. I just want to watch baseball without all of this drama and get back to the Yankees winning again.”
Why this is happening to the MLB is simple: the Dodgers found a loophole in Major League Baseball, which allows them to defer money in order to win now and pay later, resulting in controversy for the future of the MLB and their system.