Why do these front offices continue to make such costly mistakes with their payrolls? It was one thing offering baseball’s most complete 2-way player in the history of baseball. I can understand paying above expectations for Shohei Ohtani because the world has never seen a talent like him before. You do not know where to start negotiating with a player like him. I guess you kind of just need to let him make the terms and the Los Angeles Dodgers did just that by ruining the future of their franchise by paying him $680 million after the length of his current contract. It was throwing away their chances at World Series beyond the next ten years because they got frivolous with their television money. So if Ohtani is paid $70 million AAV, what is the value of the next tier of baseball players.

Well, it was followed by Steven Cohen’s Mets signing the worst contract in the history of baseball. Juan Soto signed for 15 years at $765 million. That’s an AAV of a staggering $51 million. This is not a 2-way player. One player costs the team’s payroll $51 million. Imagine if the Tampa Bay Rays or Oakland Athletics had money like that. No one can live up to those expectations. It is early in the contract to see if he’s worthy of a MVP-caliber season which he cannot possibly win with Ohtani playing in the same National League. It is not too early to tell he will not play well enough to earn that much money; especially in his years of the contract where he would be in his upper 30s. Baseball is a young man’s game. In the past, players’ top years usually were between their age 27 to 30-years-old. The MVPs and runners-up of the most recent seasons have been 27 and under.

Soto cannot live up to his contract. No player could. And the Blue Jays still gave Vladimir Guerrero Jr $500 million over 14 years. What are they thinking? You see smaller baseball organizations like the Rays compete nearly every year with a payroll that dwarfs in comparison to these big market teams. It is time to pay up to improve the analytics’ departments. That is where the money should be going. Acquire players while they are young. Invest in coaching where they can build up the young arms and bats to be ready when they are called up. Then you use your expensive analytical teams to fill the gaps whether it is through Free Agency or Trade. This may not build Championships but it creates consistency. It may be difficult to purchase a Championship the Dodgers have already bought for the next 10 years anyways.

Here was a tweet from the MLB Network today: “No team has ever recorded a higher average fastball velocity than this 2025 @RaysBaseball staff!”

The Rays did not spend boatloads of money on these pitchers. They just know to how and where to spend their money. Seven of nine of those players were traded for the other 2 were home-grown arms. It is like they are blaring the bat signal showing how to run an organization and inviting every team to see the way they are playing this game.

When David faced Goliath, he knew he would not beat him by brute strength. Brute strength is money in this comparison. So David grabbed a stone and knocked the mammoth down. You do not need to acquire the best players in the game to win a Championship. Eventually these enormous contracts will wind down and teams will see the errors in their ways.