LAS VEGAS – To make a point about why a salary cap was not only unnecessary but also detrimental to baseball, the sport’s most influential agent offered the example of a team that went “from the outhouse of bankruptcy to the penthouse of world championships.”
The Dodgers have often been cited as a reason there should be restrictions on how much franchises should be able to spend on players, but Scott Boras claimed the opposite was true.
In Boras’ view, they are a credit to baseball’s current free-market system.
The Dodgers were taken into bankruptcy in 2011 by their owner at the time, Frank McCourt. The following year, they were sold to Guggenheim Baseball Management for a then-record $2.15 billion.
Fueled by record spending, the Dodgers quickly reclaimed their place as one of the league’s signature franchises.
Under their current owners, they have acquired a number of the sport’s most popular players, including Shohei Ohtani.
They have reached the playoffs in each of the last 14 years.
They have won the World Series three times in the last seven seasons.
“The revenues of this system and their ownership from bankruptcy to near billion in revenues should be a model for what freedoms do to allow a process, capital, intellect, hiring of executives, all of that culminates in something that has been dramatically beneficial to the league,” Boras said.
In what has become a General Managers’ Meetings tradition, Boras addresses reporters in large part to drum up interest in his clients who are free agents. He did some of that on Wednesday, as he represents the market’s No. 1 player in Tarik Skubal.
However, Boras also devoted plenty of time addressing the push by franchise owners to implement a salary cap. Fervent opposition by the players’ union is expected to result in a prolonged work stoppage that should start on Dec. 1, when the current collective-bargaining agreement expires.
The Dodgers were mentioned several times.
“Fans are telling you they love competitiveness and they love owner genius,” Boras said. “When you’re in a market where your franchise is bankrupt, and you attract owners that have the wherewithal to come in and correct what’s going on to make their franchise competitive, to have new ideas, to do all those things, this is why we want to keep our doors open, so that the next idea, the next generation of owners, has the freedom to come here.”
In other words, the Dodgers couldn’t have done what they’ve done if a salary cap were in place.
Of course, that’s also the argument made by salary-cap advocates, who say the Dodgers’ market size provides them with an unfair advantage because they can generate more revenue than the majority of other teams.
Which was why Boras also mentioned the San Diego Padres, who were purchased by a group that included the late Peter Seidler for $800 million in 2012.
“We’ve seen what Peter Seidler did in San Diego, a market that is wholly held by everyone to be a small market,” Boras said.
Seidler invested heavily in the team’s roster. They have reached the playoffs in five of the last seven years, and the market has responded. The Padres, who drew 2.2 million fans in 2021, have drawn more than three million fans in each of the last four seasons.
The Padres were sold for a record $3.9 billion this year.
Boras posited that a system without a salary cap results in a greater variety of team-building philosophies throughout the game.
“These are the things that fans enjoy, that everyone enjoys, that the mystery of the game is so complete, where we have a diverse approach to championship play,” he said.
