Clayton Kershaw sends pointed message to MLB owners about Dodgers' spending

This offseason, the Dodgers' total deferred payments officially surpassed $1 billion. They have a league-leading projected $353 million 2026 payroll (per FanGraphs), almost $60 million more than the second-place Mets. Their projected $328 million payroll for 2027 is already bigger than the Mets' by over $115 million.

The Dodgers are already at the center of spending discourse, but that's only going to come into starker reality the closer MLB gets to an almost inevitable lockout after the 2026 season. Some bottom-feeder teams have actually started spending pretty significantly (anyone been keeping tabs on the Pirates and A's these days?), in a move that some fans are convinced is to get ahead of a looming salary floor, but a long, hard conversation about spending is more likely than not to derail the 2027 season.

Dodgers people have mostly kept themselves out of the conversation, outside of acknowledging that they have a lot of money to spend, but manager Dave Roberts kind of put his foot in it when he publicly sided with owners on the idea of a salary cap, which could've ruffled a few players' feathers.

Clayton Kershaw, now retired and allowed to say whatever he wants on the matter, offered his two cents on the spending discourse on Rob Lowe's podcast.

"I don't understand some of the ownerships' arguments with this stuff. Because there's probably hundreds of multi-billionaires that would love to own a professional baseball team. I bet we could get a list of 100 guys right now that are uber-wealthy, that would love to run a baseball team. [...] It might not make the money you would want it to make, but over time it's just like a stock. It's going to continue to appreciate.

"It's just like anything else. [The Dodgers are now] worth 3x of what it was. [...] I don’t really get that part of it, of the owners pinching pennies."

Clayton Kershaw weighed in on MLB, Dodgers' spending as lockout looms

The Dodgers have never been able to cry poor — at least not during this century — but Kershaw was a part of a handful of pre-Guggenheim teams and knows firsthand what serious spending can do for a team. The lowest they've dropped in payroll since Kershaw's debut was 12th, from 2010-2012, and it's no surprise that those years marked one of their worst stretches in performance since the early 90s. They finished fourth in the NL West in 2010 and third in 2011.

It's pretty obvious why so many owners pinch pennies, though — because they're greedy. The Pirates have gotten shockingly serious this offseason, but it rightfully enraged fans when Bob Nightengale reported in May that they were one of the most profitable teams in baseball because almost none of that money was going back into the team.

Dodgers fans will continue harping on it, but it bears repeating: every MLB owner is independently wealthy and could spend more money on their teams, they just don't want to. They're more interested in the prestige of "MLB team owner" than being actual stewards of their organization.