Baseball is 'DEAD', claim livid fans as free-spending Dodgers sign new star player to take payroll over $2 BILLION
Fans are up in arms after the Dodgers landed Kyle Tucker on a $240million deal that widened the gap between the biggest and smallest spenders in Major League Baseball.
Los Angeles this year became the first team in a quarter century to win back-to-back World Series crowns, thanks in no small part to big-money signings including Shohei Ohtani ($700m) and Yoshinobu Yamamoto ($325m).
Now Dave Roberts' team is looking to cement its dominance with more additions. A month after agreeing a deal with Edwin Diaz, the Dodgers beat the Mets and Blue Jays to Tucker who has reportedly agreed a four-year, $240m deal.
The former Chicago Cubs right fielder was widely considered the best player in free agency this offseason and his $60m-a-year agreement is baseball's second highest average annual salary - behind only his new teammate, Ohtani ($70m), and that deal is heavily backloaded.
LA is now slated to pay eight-figure salaries to at least 14 players next season, including Ohtani, All-Star pitcher Blake Snell ($31m) and World Series MVP Yamamoto ($27m).
On Friday, data compiled by Spotrac detailed the disparity between the Dodgers and their rivals when it comes to guaranteed salaries for 2026.
Kyle Tucker is joining the Los Angeles Dodgers on a four-year, $240million contract
Led by the likes of Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers have won back-to-back World Series crowns
The Tampa Bay Rays will have the MLB's lowest guaranteed salary for 2026 ($70.74million)
Los Angeles is top of the list with an astonishing figure of $2.114bn - nearly $1b more than their nearest rivals, the San Diego Padres ($1.27bn).
In fact, there are only two other teams (the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Mets) whose guaranteed salaries will top $1bn.
The Tampa Bay Rays, meanwhile, are bottom of the money table with a guaranteed salary of just $70.74m. That leaves them $6m adrift of the next lowest team, the Miami Marlins.
The disparity has sparked outrage among some baseball fans, with one declaring the sport 'dead' and another branding it 'broken.'
'Please start a [salary] cap in MLB or it will destroy the fairness of competition,' one user wrote on social media. 'What's the point of this sport?' added another, while a third wrote: 'What a f***ed up league.'
Baseball has the only major American sports league without a salary cap but there are fears of another lockout amid accusations that 'the league and owners... appear to be dead-set on trying to force players into [a salary cap] system.'
'The last time they proposed it, [it] led to the most missed games ever and a cancelled World Series,' the the MLB Players Association told The Athletic this week.
