The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Let’s cut acceptance out of the picture, since nothing can make me come to terms with the New York Yankees’ pitiful 2024 World Series performance.
Out of the four actual stages, I’m approximately in stage three. I hit the denial stage after the Yankees went down 3-0 in the World Series and I stupidly retained some hope that Hanukkah and its miracles would come early.
Anger came when the Yankees officially lost — I grabbed a red Sharpie and drew a jagged “X” over the postseason bracket I had stuck on my wall at the beginning of October. Then, for good measure, I slapped a Post-It note over Aaron Judge’s baseball card.
Depression will come later, probably in early January when the New York Jets’ season ends and the longest playoff drought in major American sports doesn’t end with it. Then, I will have nothing but the rapidly deteriorating New York Rangers to watch until baseball season starts again. See? Depressing.
But currently, I’m bargaining. More specifically, I’m begging the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers to be just a little bit less good. I’m also politely requesting that Dodgers fans be a little bit less annoying, but that’s like asking Santa for a dragon. Or asking Aaron Judge to show up in Oc —
Whatever.
If an Elf on the Shelf were to be watching the Los Angeles Dodgers’ offseason, he would not be happy. Rumor has it that Mariah Carey is a little miffed, too — she says you are not supposed to want a lot for Christmas.
But the Dodgers, once again, have demonstrated nothing but utter disrespect for the fact that baseball is supposed to have some parity. On Nov. 30, they signed two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell to a five-year, $182 million contract.
For those of you keeping track, that means the Dodgers’ starting rotation next year will consist of 3.00 ERA Yoshinobu Yamamoto; veteran starter Tyler Glasnow; future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw; and a trio of solid depth pieces in Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin and Bobby Miller.
Oh, and I forgot to mention their designated hitter also pitches. Three-time Most Valuable Player Shohei Ohtani put up a 3.14 ERA in 132 innings in 2023 and will return to the mound again in 2025.
This is all, by the way, under the assumption that the Dodgers don’t casually go and sign Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki, who will hit the Major League Baseball (MLB) market in January — and they probably will.
Leave some talent for the rest of us, won’t you?
In my first-ever column, I argued in favor of instituting a salary floor to solve this exact problem — the Dodgers hoarding talent in an un-Christmas-like fashion. Given that no one in the MLB has listened, I’ll bargain a little bit.
Can we please, at least, have some limits on how much money a team can hold in deferred contracts?
The Dodgers owe $989 million in deferred money right now. In essence, they have set aside almost one billion dollars in escrow, and it will be given to their shiny new superstars at the time agreed upon in their contracts. The problem? MLB has a seasonal luxury tax threshold — a weak, but mostly effective means of preventing teams from wildly overspending by instituting harsh financial penalties on the teams that do — and deferred compensation provides the Dodgers a handy-dandy little loophole to avoid reaching their limit.
Maybe my preferred solution to this issue would be for the Yankees to take advantage of this loophole, too. Juan Soto, might you be interested in making a fortune in ten to twenty years?
But that wouldn’t be very altruistic of me, and it wouldn’t solve the problem, either. Currently, the problem is that the Dodgers are a pain — but The Problem is that teams are allowed to defer this much money at all.
Loopholes are fun and cute for about five minutes. The fun’s over — it’s time for the MLB to step in.
Dear MLB,
Tell the Dodgers to stop being the Grinch and stealing everybody’s presents. Xoxo, your favorite fed-up Yankees fan.