The 2024 World Series featured two of the most successful and storied franchises in baseball history. The Dodgers, perennial contenders with a roster loaded with talent, faced off against the New York Yankees, a team that, despite recent years of postseason struggles, still carried the weight of 27 championships and a proud tradition of winning.
The Yankees’ lineup, powered by Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and Gerrit Cole, was feared for its offensive firepower. The Dodgers, who are no stranger to success either, were led by Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, and, of course, Shohei Ohtani, combined with a deep pitching staff, were equally formidable. The stage was set for a thrilling showdown that would captivate fans from both coasts.
Most experts predicted the matchup to go to a game seven, winner-take-all game, but instead, the series didn’t necessarily live up to the hype. The Dodgers won game one of the series off of Freddie Freeman’s walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the ninth and then proceeded to win game two in a dominant fashion. Game three, played in New York, was won once again by the Dodgers after a slow and flat start for the Yankees. In game four, the Yankees finally started to show their talented roster and got going offensively to take home the win. The Yankees started off game five with a 5-0 lead, and the Dodgers completed the comeback to win game five and win the World Series. The victory gave the Dodgers their eighth World Series pennant, the fifth most in the league.
Shohei Ohtani, a pitcher and designated hitter for the Dodgers, was recently brought onto the team in 2023 and signed for a 10-year, $700 million contract. Now, you may be asking how the heck an organization has $700 million to pay one single player. There’s a simple answer to this: MLB teams do not have a salary cap, unlike other professional sports leagues.
Now, the Yankees are no strangers to paying humongous amounts of money to get the players they want. Aaron Judge, for the Yankees, the contract is worth $360 million over nine years. Now, you may be thinking, the more money an MLB team has to spend on players, the more they win, right? Well, not necessarily.
An article published by “The Official Blog of the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective” explains that “Despite teams with higher payrolls having a greater ability to acquire top talent, there is no guaranteed correlation between payroll size and regular-season success or playoff advancement.” This is because of the MLB’s long regular season of 162 games spanning over six months. The long season allows for more opportunities for underpaid talent to outperform expectations, and teams with larger payrolls might suffer from underperforming contracts.
This next MLB season will have its favorites to win the World Series, but anyone can make a title push no matter what franchise has spent the most money. We have seen an underdog win the World Series in past years, like in 2019 with the Washington Nationals and in 2011 with the St. Louis Cardinals. The big bucks will bring in the big players, but it won’t always bring in the big wins.
