Dodgers offseason spending has officially broken Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner

Los Angeles Dodgers owner Mark Walter is a behind-the-scenes guy. He usually lets President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman or GM Brandon Gomes do the talking, but his and the Guggenheim Partners' financial power is what enables the Dodgers to spend the kind of money they've spent since 2012, when Walter and Guggenheim bought the team.

The Dodgers will be the highest spenders of the 2025 season, with a projected payroll at $319.3 million according to Cot's Contracts. And that's not to mention all of the money they've deferred, which amounts to over $1 billion after the additions they've made this offseason.

Deferrals have never really been a problem for the league, but everyone's taking exception now that the Dodgers are using them so often and to put off so much money. It didn't start with Shohei Ohtani deferring over 97% of his total contract in 2023, but the enormity of that number, paired the fact that almost every major signing or extension the Dodgers have doled out since has included deferrals, has invited a new kind of scrutiny.

And the rest of the league is struggling to keep up. Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner, whose individual net worth is $1.5 billion, admitted that even the Yankees, by far the most successful franchise in baseball, can't keep up.

"It’s difficult for most of us owners to be able to do the kinds of things they’re doing," Steinbrenner said.

Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner admitted that New York can't hope to keep up with Dodgers' spending

The Yankees and Dodgers have comfortably sat atop the league as the biggest spenders for the last decade and a half, with a few intermittent interruptions from the Red Sox, Phillies, and Mets (the Giants and Cubs have also elbowed their ways in there on a few occasions). This year, while the Dodgers stand alone over the $300 million threshold so far, the Mets and Yankees aren't actually that far behind at $289.1 and $283.4 million.

If anyone were to be able to match the Dodgers' spending power, surely it'd have to be the Yankees, who were the fourth most valuable sports franchise in the world in 2024, according to Forbes. Steinbrenner trying to put himself in the same league as, say, the expansion Marlins, whose owner Bruce Sherman had the smallest individual fortune of any of MLB's owners as of 2024, is completely disingenous.

The Yankees, like any other team, could use deferrals to their advantage and do have the franchise capital to spend exorbitantly. Steinbrenner could keep up, he just chooses not to.