This past offseason, discussion and speculation around Major League Baseball was that the Los Angeles Dodgers would be responsible for destroying the sport and the 2027 season.
The Dodgers, relative to other organizations, are aggressive in trying to improve the team, spending money on key free agents even after winning back-to-back World Series championships. This spending led to widespread anger and frustration from other fans and media members.
And most importantly, concerns that other organizations would use their spending to push for a salary tax in upcoming labor negotiations. A push that could jeopardize the 2027 regular season if both sides dig their heels in.
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Well, this week in Los Angeles, the richest team and the “poorest” team in Major League Baseball played a three-game series. A chance, albeit in a small sample size, to test the theory that teams with small payrolls are hopeless against the big, bad, fearsome Dodgers.
Marlins beat Dodgers, shut down expensive LA offense
This series seemed to line up perfectly for the Dodgers. At home in LA, with their current three best starting pitchers set to pitch against the lowly Marlins.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, reigning World Series MVP and Cy Young candidate, started on Monday. Shohei Ohtani, chasing a Cy Young himself, entered his scheduled start on Tuesday with a 0.38 ERA. And Tyler Glasnow on Wednesday, who’s been one of the best pitchers in baseball to start the season.
Against Chris Paddack, 30-year-old journeyman Janson Junk and Sandy Alcantara, who had a 5.36 ERA in 2025.
Sounds like a recipe for a Dodgers sweep, right? And yet, LA’s high-powered lineup, with Kyle Tucker, Freddie Freeman, Ohtani, Max Muncy, Teoscar Hernandez and Will Smith, scored a grand total of 8 runs in the three-game series. They scored just four runs against those three starting pitchers.
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And while they came from behind in the ninth inning to win 5-4 on Monday, the Marlins won the next two games 2-1 and 3-2 to secure the series win. Wednesday’s game, in particular, ended in extremely bizarre fashion with Xavier Edwards turning an unusual unassisted double play with the bases loaded and Freddie Freeman at the plate.
After the game, Freeman addressed the offensive struggles, saying they’re just “going through it” as a team.
“I mean, we’ve kind of been going through it, I would say, as a group. Luckily, we have really, really good pitching, and that’s kind of where we’re at right now. I mean, we were good at the beginning of the season offensively, just kind of going through it right now,” Freeman said.
“And our pitching has been amazing. I don’t want to not give them praise, cuz they’re the reasons why we have a chance to win every single game. But as an offense, the last few games haven’t been where we want it to be. So hopefully with the off day, we’ll get back at it.”
So the Marlins win a series, on the road, against the Dodgers. The Marlins, whose estimated payroll this season is $73 million, won a series against the Dodgers, who have Shohei Ohtani on a 10-year, $700 million contract, Kyle Tucker on a 4-year, $240 million contract and over $500 million in financial commitments this year between payroll and luxury taxes.
If there’s ever a sign that baseball doesn’t need fixing, that’s it.
This is just one series. It’s the epitome of a small sample, and obviously doesn’t mean that the Marlins are a better team or will have a better regular-season record than the Dodgers. But it’s indicative of the structural reason baseball doesn’t need a salary cap to have competitive balance.
The gaps between teams and players in small samples are simply not that large. A bounce here or there, a pitcher or hitter getting hot at the right time, any variable can impact an outing. On Wednesday, the Marlins’ expected batting average was .145. The Dodgers’ expected batting average was .246. Yet the Marlins got six hits and three runs, the Dodgers had seven hits and two runs. That’s baseball.
It’s also why the postseason is so unpredictable. Playoff series are the epitome of small sample sizes, which is why making sport-changing decisions based on those outcomes makes little sense. Any team can beat any other. We just saw that this week. Hopefully owners remember it when it comes time to decide whether to blow up the sport or not.
