There is a fear that the Los Angeles Dodgers are breaking baseball.
They sign the expensive free agents, make smart trades and have an incredible farm system, too.
The Dodgers are already back-to-back World Series champions. They aren’t showing any signs of slowing down, either.
With all of the spending and success has come an ominous warning from ESPN’s Jeff Passan and Buster Olney, who see the potential for a work stoppage when the collective bargaining agreement expires.
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“The players went on strike in August of 1994, of course, and that fall’s World Series was canceled,” ESPN’s Buster Olney recalled in a new article on Thursday. “But it remains to be seen how far the owners will push to revamp the system, and whether the players’ coalition will hold together as strongly as it did three decades ago.”
It certainly sounds like big change is viewed as a need by many.
“Let’s not forget the Mets, either. Their Opening Day payroll is upward of $50 million more than the Dodgers’,” Passan wrote in the same article. “But Buster’s points stand regardless: The spending of the top two teams has reinforced to 28 others that change is necessary. They believe that change comes via a salary cap. Regardless of whether the league can ever convince players to accept one, the vast majority of people in baseball — even among the Dodgers and Mets — acknowledge that significant changes need to come following the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement on Dec. 1. How significant will determine the length of a potential work stoppage and whether it affects the 2027 season.”
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Of course, no one in baseball wants to miss games, either.
But there’s a balance between short-term action and long-term viability. And once the CBA is up at the end of this season, there will be a lot of big questions to be answered.
None of this is entirely the Dodgers’ fault, but they will be in the crosshairs of a bunch of teams if this gets particularly contentious.
