Contrast in Twins and Dodgers' offseason moves highlights MLB's problem

The Dodgers are basically playing a different sport than teams like the Twins.

Nov 1, 2024; Los Angeles, CA, USA; General view as Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts (30) celebrates with the Commissioner’s Trophy during the 2024 World Series championship parade near Los Angeles City Hall. / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Major League Baseball is broken. That's been the case for a long time, but the gap between the haves and the have-nots is only getting bigger. The most recent move highlighting that disparity came on Sunday morning when news broke that the Dodgers are signing All-Star reliever Tanner Scott, making him the latest major addition in what has been a ridiculous offseason for the best team in baseball.

Let's compare the offseason moves for the Twins and the defending World Series champs in LA.

Notable Dodgers offseason moves

* Signed LHP Blake Snell (5 years, $182 million)
* Re-signed OF Teoscar Hernández (3 years, $66 million)
* Signed LHP Tanner Scott (4 years, $72 million)
* Signed OF Michael Conforto (1 year, $17 million)
* Extended IF/OF Tommy Edman (5 years, $74 million)
* Re-signed RHP Blake Treinen (2 years, $22 million)
* Signed IF Hyeseong Kim
* Signed RHP Roki Sasaki

The defending champions have gotten substantially better in the last few months. They've added some big-name free agents and brought back a few of their own key pieces. They also landed two dynamic international players in Kim and Sasaki, who are on smaller contracts by design. This is a team that already had all kinds of stars on huge contracts: Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Will Smith — the list goes on.

Notable Twins offseason moves

* None

Due to payroll restrictions imposed by Minnesota's outgoing ownership group, the Twins haven't signed a single major league free agent yet. Not one. They've signed a few players — guys like Mike Ford, Armando Alvarez, Huascar Ynoa, and Anthony Misiewicz — to minor league deals, made a couple very minor trades, and settled pre-arbitration deals with a bunch of their own players, but that's it. Because of the contracts they already have on the books and the payroll restrictions, they'll have to subtract via trade if they want to do any notable adding before Opening Day.

After signing Scott, the Dodgers' projected payroll is around $370 million, which is miles ahead of every other team in the league. There's a second tier (the Phillies, Yankees, and Mets) of big-market teams in roughly the $295-310 million range. Then it drops off to $245 million or so.

And then you've got teams like the Twins, whose payroll is somewhere in the $130-$140 million range. And Minnesota isn't even in the bottom ten in the league. The Marlins and White Sox have payrolls of less than $90 million, meaning the Dodgers are spending more than quadruple what those teams are spending on their rosters.

So yeah, baseball is broken. The lack of a salary cap or a salary floor enables the Dodgers to live in an entirely different world of roster-building than small-market teams. They can just add and add and add without any real financial restrictions. And while anything can happen in the postseason, there seems to be a very strong chance that the Dodgers will repeat as World Series champions.

For the fairness and balance and overall good of the sport, something has to be done.

When Tanner Scott’s deal is made official, the Dodgers’ luxury-tax payroll for 2025 will exceed $375 million. That is about $70 million more than the next-highest team, Philadelphia. The Yankees are the only other team with a CBT payroll projected to be over $300 million.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) January 19, 2025

Dodgers' payroll is $370 million, per FanGraphs.

Meanwhile, the whole AL Central division has a combined payroll of $544 million spread across five teams.

Dodgers' spending will get 100X more attention than the AL Central's lack of spending, but it's two sides of the same coin.

— Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) January 19, 2025