To some, Major League Baseball has a spending balance problem, and recently, one of baseball’s top spenders shared his thoughts on the matter.
Notably, the Los Angeles Dodgers have created a rift in baseball due to their aggressive offseason spending. To make matters worse, they’ve won back-to-back World Series titles in the midst of this, only furthering the divide between aggressive owners and owners unwilling to shell out the big bucks.
New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner recently spoke with Gary Phillips of the New York Daily News about his concerns that the Dodgers may be distancing themselves further and further away from everyone else.
The two teams met in the 2024 World Series, where the Dodgers won in five games.
“Of course it’s a concern,” Steinbrenner said. “They do have tremendous resources, and they’ve gotten the job done. That’s the big thing. They’ve played to their potential when they needed to.”
“But of course it’s always a concern anytime I feel that one team is pulling away from the other 29, (or) selfishly pulling away from me. I’m not quite sure I’m convinced of that yet because so much happens during the course of the baseball season. But all we can do is do the best we can, put the best team together, the best roster together that we can,” he added.
Of course, this sort of statement seems hypocritical coming from a team that had a $304 million payroll in 2025 and is almost always amongst the league leaders in total dollars spent. Nonetheless, the Yankees will need to put together a very aggressive offseason spending-wise if they wish to keep pace with the Dodgers in 2026 and beyond.
