Maybe the Evil Empire really has relocated to the West Coast.
While the Los Angeles Dodgers continue to outspend every other team in Major League Baseball by a wide margin, New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner didn’t make it sound like his club would be matching them anytime soon.
“It’s difficult for most of us owners to be able to do the kind of things that they’re doing,” Steinbrenner told the YES Network’s Meredith Marakovits on “Yankees Hot Stove,” which aired Tuesday night.
Hal Steinbrenner on the @YESNetwork to @M_Marakovits on the Dodgers’ spending:
“Well, look: It’s difficult for most of us owners to be able to do the kind of things that they’re doing. Now, we’ll see if it pays off. They still have to have a season relatively injury-free for it…
— Brendan Kuty 🧟♂️ (@BrendanKutyNJ) January 29, 2025
The Yankees were valued at $7.55 billion by Forbes last March. They were the fourth-most valuable sports franchise in the world in a list published by Forbes last month. The Dodgers were the second-most valuable MLB franchise and the 24th-most valuable sports franchise with a valuation of $5.45 billion.
After beating the Yankees in the World Series last October, the Dodgers have MLB’s biggest projected luxury tax payroll at $376.4 million, according to Cot’s Contracts. The Philadelphia Phillies sit second at $307.8 million and the Yankees third at $302.9 million.
The Dodgers have committed nearly a half-billion in guaranteed dollars to players this offseason, second only to the New York Mets, who signed Juan Soto to a historic 15-year, $765 million deal.
“Now, we’ll see if it pays off,” Steinbrenner said. “They still have to have a season relatively injury-free for it to work out for them, and it’s a long season, as you know, and once you get to the postseason, anything can happen. We’ve seen that time and time again. We’ll see who’s there at the end.”
This winter, the Dodgers made the following big-money signings: Lefty starting pitcher Blake Snell, five years, $182 million; lefty reliever Tanner Scott, four years, $72 million; outfielder Teoscar Hernández, three years, $66 million; righty reliever Blake Treinen, two years, $22 million; outfielder Michael Conforto, one year, $17 million; and infielder Hyeseong Kim, three years, $12.5 million. They also landed Japanese free-agent starting pitcher Roki Sasaki, the most coveted international prospect of the winter.
The Yankees, however, haven’t been idle. After losing Soto, they signed starting pitcher Max Fried to an eight-year, $218 million deal and gave first baseman Paul Goldschmidt a one-year, $15 million contract. They also made a pair of headline-stealing trades, acquiring outfielder/first baseman Cody Bellinger from the Chicago Cubs and Devin Williams, perhaps the best closer in the game, from the Milwaukee Brewers.
Steinbrenner added that he personally will have a chip on his shoulder heading into the 2025 season after the Yankees’ World Series loss.
“We’re way better than we showed in that last series,” he said. “We’re going to be better defensively this time around, if we make it. I believe, if we make it, we’ll get the job done. But we’ve got to play our best game when you’re playing a team like the Dodgers. It’s like playing the Kansas City Chiefs. You can’t make mistakes. You can’t give them outs. You can’t give them runs. You’ve got to play your best game. We didn’t do that. I think that makes us even more hungry to get there again this year.”
(Photo: Nick Cammett / Getty Images)
