Money buys success
Indignity Vol. 5, No. 183
SPORTS FINANCE DEP'T.
The Los Angeles Dodgers Ought to Be Good
THINGS CAN AND do change fast in the baseball playoffs, but at the moment it doesn't look as if anyone is likely to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers. Last night, Yoshinobu Yamamoto—in the second year of his 12-year, $325 million contract—pitched a complete game as the Dodgers beat the Milwaukee Brewers 5–1 and took a 2–0 lead in the National League Championship Series. Teoscar Hernandez and Max Muncy, with combined 2025 salaries of $32.17 million, hit home runs.
The day before, Blake Snell—making $28.44 million this year—started for the Dodgers in the series opener and went eight innings, holding the Brewers to only one hit and promptly picking off that baserunner. Freddie Freeman, making $27 million in year four of a six-year contract, hit a gargantuan home run to give the Dodgers a 1–0 lead, and Los Angeles held off a bases-loaded Milwaukee rally in the bottom of the ninth to win 2–1.
I would rather, personally, see the generally plucky Brewers come back and advance to their second-ever World Series, to try to win one for the first time, than watch the Dodgers try to win their second title in a row and third in the last six years. I would rather have seen the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Dodgers in the previous round, too, and the Dodgers put the Phillies away, 3 games to 1. Feelings and opinions have very little to do with the Dodgers.
It's hard for me to be mad at the Dodgers, though. The Dodgers spent more on payroll than any other team this year, more than $300 million. Yet the New York Mets spent nearly as much and didn't even make the playoffs.
The Dodgers win because they are spending their money on the best players and on lots of those players. They are holding two of the four biggest contracts in baseball, $700 million over 10 years for Shohei Ohtani and $365 million over 12 years for Mookie Betts, but in exchange for that money they get Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts: Betts moving around from the outfield to the middle infield like a teenager singlehandedly carrying his high school team; Ohtani slugging home runs in between dominant pitching starts like a Little Leaguer who has outgrown the competition.
I spent decades despising the New York Yankees for hogging top baseball talent, as they overpaid to poach the best players from teams that might challenge their reign. Partly the Dodgers don't bother me because they are not the Yankees, and sports fandom is a monument to motivated reasoning. Mostly, though, in a sport plagued by franchises that deliberately cheap out on their rosters—very much including the team I root for, the Baltimore Orioles—the Dodgers seem to have gathered their hoard of talent through sensible, defensible moves.
Betts isn't with the Dodgers because the Dodgers are financial bullies. He's with the Dodgers because the Boston Red Sox, a fabulously wealthy and successful franchise in their own right, decided to trade him away in the heart of his career rather than giving him an expensive but entirely warranted contract extension. Freddie Freeman is with the Dodgers because the Atlanta Braves, another fabulously wealthy and successful franchise, decided to pick up someone else to replace him at first base rather than offering him a six-year contract. Ohtani is with the Dodgers because Japanese superstars prefer to play in the Pacific Time Zone and because through six years and two MVPs the Los Angeles Angels couldn't find a way to build a winning team around him.
It's true that the Dodgers are using their spending power to do things that many other teams can't do. Not many teams can afford to pay for other top-line pitching while also spending $28 million on Blake Snell while he's injured for four months. But lots of them don't even try to spend $28 million on anybody. This year's Orioles topped out at paying $18 million for Zach Eflin. He spent half the year on the injured list, too.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, October 14, 2025
★★ People were bareheaded and had regular shoes on, but a leftover drizzle still fell on the trash cans. Little by very little, the ground got drier and the light got brighter. The chill inside the apartment seemed to call for a heavier jacket,, but the afternoon outside was milder and coats were slung over arms. The dimness returned even as the damp kept going away. The view of the Park from a cab on the sunken roadway was beginning to look like a proper autumnal jumble of color.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
HERE IS TODAY'S Indignity Morning Podcast!
Tom Scocca
Here is the Indignity Morning Podcast archive!
TOM SCOCCA
ADVICE DEP'T.
HEY! DO YOU like advice columns? They don't happen unless you send in some letters! Surely you have something you want to justify to yourself, or to the world at large. Now is the perfect time to share it with everyone else through The Sophist, the columnist who is not here to correct you, but to tell you why you're right. Direct your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net, and get the answers you want.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of sandwiches selected from Buffalo Cookery: A Collection of Choice Recipes Carefully Selected, by St. Luke's Sunday-School Ladies' Auxiliary, Buffalo, Wyoming in 1916 and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
MINCED SANDWICHES
1/2 pound lean ham
2 chopped pickles
4 ounces butter
1 tablespoon mustard
Yolk of 1 egg
Chop ham very fine, adding chopped pickles and tablespoon of made mustard. Put butter in pan, stir over the fire until it melts, add the ham and beaten yolk of egg. Season, stir all together well. When cool, cut in slices and lay between slices of buttered bread.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net .
SELF-SERVING SELF-PROMOTION DEP'T.
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