The Los Angeles Dodgers: Looking like a whore

As a former writer for the Wall Street Journal and the author of The Extra 2%, Jonah Keri's financial views on the game of baseball are always well worth the read. Keri wrote a great column at Grantland the other day about the financial direction of the Los Angeles Dodgers. With a Gazillion dollar television deal on the horizon Keri wonders, "When you throw every fiscal strategy of the past decade out the window are you crazy . . . or genius?"

It's an interesting read. Ultimately, Keri comes to a conclusion that I don't entirely agree with: that the Dodgers might actually be smart. But it's Keri's Fault! I used the facts he presented to draw my conclusion.


This is the part of Jonah Keri's column where I became giddy:

"The value of this franchise is represented in the price we paid — that doesn't go up or down with one or two players' salaries," said Mark Walter, the Dodgers' principal owner and chairman. Walter was then asked if the Dodgers have a spending ceiling. "Somewhere, I suppose," came his oblique reply. Then, the coup de grace. Someone asked Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten about the possibility of butting up against MLB's very punitive luxury tax. "Mark and Magic don't even ask me about that," he said of his bosses' instructions, or lack thereof.

 At first blush the idea that the Dodgers are now like the free-wheeling Yankees is a scary thought. But fear not. The Dodgers are like a rich housewife whose kids are now off at school. She has little to do with her time so she fills the void by shopping. She adds new shoes to an already filled closet of shoes yet she rarely finds the time to wear these expensive accoutrements. The truth is that none of this really matters because she looks like a whore in most of those shoes anyways.

That's the Los Angeles Dodgers in a nutshell: A rich whore spending money on tons of crap for one reason and one reason only . . . she can.

I say keep doing it. Keep paying arms, legs, and shoes for players over 30 you dirty whore of a baseball team!

Go read the article to see every move the Dodgers have made this summer. It's a list of crazy stupid. Which I endorse.