MLB’s perception problem
Baseball's biggest challenge is reminding fans of how many different teams have won the World Series this century
It feels like for my entire life, Major League Baseball has more of a perception problem that a real problem.
The latest existential crisis for baseball is because Shohei Ohtani, the best player of this century, signed as a free agent with the Los Angeles Dodgers for $700 million over 10 years. Ohtani’s average annual salary of $70 million the next decade is more than the entire Oakland A’s 2023 payroll.
Those numbers left our jaws on the floor. Then before fans of the other 29 teams even had a chance to process their outrage, came the news that that Ohtani will only receive $2 million a year for the next 10 years. The other $680 million will be deferred, making the present-day value closer to $460 million.
This allows the free-spending Dodgers even more cash flow to surround Ohtani with even better players to pursue a championship. The disgust, outside of Los Angeles, will continue the rest of the offseason, and really for the next 10 years that Ohtani is wearing a Dodgers uniform.
It’s been a slow offseason for baseball. The only other major news was that outfielder Juan Soto, one of the best players in the sport, was traded by the San Diego Padres to the New York Yankees for five prospects. Soto is still only 24 years old, but he’s already been traded twice in his potential Hall of Fame career because his employers decided they didn’t want to pay him his market value.
Baseball doesn’t have a salary cap, so as the richest teams spend obscene amounts of money, it can feel hopeless as a fan of a team that isn’t located in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia or Houston to acquire the best players and win championship.
Trust me, I know the frustration. I grew up an A’s fan and am currently employed by the Colorado Rockies Triple-A affiliate. It feels hopeless for a lot of teams. That’s a problem. But is perception different than reality?
As Ken Rosenthal noted the other day, MLB has seen more teams win championships than the other three major team leagues this century.
Since 2001, when the Arizona Diamondbacks won it all, no MLB has won consecutive titles. There’s been 16 different champions in the last 23 years. The only teams to win multiple titles are the Red Sox (4), Giants (3), Cardinals (2) and Astros (2).
In that same time, the NFL’s had only 13 different champions.
The NBA and NHL have just 11 different champions.
The NFL, NBA and NHL all have salary caps. The NFL has a “franchise tag” to ensure teams don’t lose their franchise player. The NBA has the “Larry Bird exemption,” allowing you to exceed the salary cap to keep a star player, plus the salaries of players involved in all trades must be even.
Those leagues enjoy the perception that every team always has a chance to win, even though mini-dynasties rule the NBA, and the only realistic path to a Super Bowl title involves an elite quarterback.
MLB does not have a salary cap, but does have a competitive balance tax that sometimes acts like a quasi-salary cap. That CBT is far from perfect. It shouldn’t be hailed as the panacea for sports leagues trying to thread the needle between union and owners.
Still, the facts are that last year was one of the most competitive for baseball.
According to Spotrac, the Orioles had the second-lowest payroll in baseball and won the second-most games. The perpetually underfunded Rays had the fourth-lowest payroll and the fifth-most wins. The Reds had the eighth lowest payroll, the Marlins the ninth, and the Diamondbacks the 10th. They all reached the playoffs, including a World Series appearance for the D’backs.
Out of the 12 MLB playoff spots in 2023, five went to teams in the bottom third of MLB payroll. The top three teams in payroll – the Mets, Yankees and Padres – all failed to reach the postseason entirely.
To be fair, last year was an aberration. The Orioles, Reds, Marlins and D’backs were rebuilding for many years until recently. And the Texas Rangers spent extravagantly on free agency and rode the players they bought to the World Series title.
The question, for me, is not whether a team with a low payroll can be successful in baseball. It's whether they can achieve sustained success for 5-10 years with the current financial structure.
The Rays have done it, reaching the playoffs five straight years, including the World Series in 2020, despite a payroll in the bottom eight each year.
The A’s had their moments of sustained success, reaching the postseason four straight years from 2000-03, then in 2006 after just missing out two years in a row, and later three consecutive playoff runs from 2012-14 and 2018-2020. That’s 11 playoff trips in 21 years. Yet, the A’s advanced past their first round just once, prompting former general manager Billy Beane to famously sigh, “my sh** doesn’t work in the playoffs.”
Plus, the years between those playoff appearances for the A’s were quite lean, a never-ending cycle of drafting and developing young players, winning with a lower payroll, then trading their players away once their earnings increased, and enduring more losing until the next wave of young players emerged. The Rays are faced with the same formula.
So these are the conundrums for baseball.
The perception is only the richest teams can win a title, but it’s actually been fairly balanced.
The same reasons that make baseball enjoyable for its biggest fans — the strategy, the historical importance of numbers, the one-on-one games within the game, the daily presence in your life — make it really hard for casual fans to embrace it.
Baseball’s biggest fans have never been happier. Attendance was up 9.6 percent last year, the highest total since 2017. The rule changes made the product quicker and more lively. The sport is infused with young players and stars from all around the globe.
But as baseball becomes more and more of a regional sport, where fans stop paying attention once their team is eliminated, it struggles to capture the casual fan.
It’s hard enough for the masses to follow a 162-game regular season, then you have recent postseasons that lacked star power because the nature of the sport makes it tougher for stars to dominate in October. The best hitter must wait until eight of his teammates have their turn before he can hit again. The best starting pitchers need 3-5 days of rest between their starts.
This makes the playoffs a crapshoot, which makes it possible for teams with smaller budgets to win it all. Yet that doesn’t translate to higher interest in the playoffs. Ratings were way down. Too many games turn into a spreadsheet battle with multiple relievers. Strikeouts continue to rise, leading to less action.
The World Series ended with Josh Sborz striking out Ketel Marte. Who? Exactly.
By comparison, the NFL’s Super Bowl ended with two star quarterbacks, Jalen Hurts of Philadelphia and Patrick Mahomes of Kansas City, trading touchdown drives in the final five minutes of the final quarter, then Mahomes engineering a drive for a game-winning field goal in the final seconds.
The NBA’s Finals ended with Denver’s Nikola Jokic averaging over 30 points a game and outdueling Miami’s Jimmy Butler.
So now, you’ve got Ohtani, the sport’s global two-way icon who has never played in the postseason, heading north up I-5 to join the Dodgers. The biggest star joining the team that always gets to the playoffs, but only won it all during the Covid year with no home games.
Objectively, this is outstanding news for baseball. Yet the sport is reeling with angst over the total dollars of the contract and the deferred payments that allow the Dodgers to spend even more money.
Oh well, at least people are talking about baseball. Drama and outrage are usually the only way to stay relevant in the offseason.