Jeff Passan gives the rest of baseball a dressing down amidst Dodgers deferral drama

Los Angeles Dodgers World Series Celebration
Los Angeles Dodgers World Series Celebration | Ronald Martinez/GettyImages

Of this year's additions or re-additions to the Los Angeles Dodgers roster, Blake Snell, Teoscar Hernández, and Tanner Scott all agreed to delay payments on portions of their contracts, which sent the Dodgers' total deferred money over the last five years above the $1 billion mark.

That's just how the Dodgers do business now, and they proved that they were willing to do it even with one-year deals last season when Hernández agreed to put off $8.5 million of the first deal that brought him to LA.

The team's recent deferrals have sent the rest of baseball into a tizzy. Again. Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman's contracts both included deferrals when they were signed in 2020 and 2022, respectively, but it was the $680 million that Shohei Ohtani put off in 2023 that really got peoples' attention and stoked all of the anger that's only compounded with every signing since.

However, Jeff Passan has been a loud supporter of the deferral strategy — or, at least, a supporter of the Dodgers' right to use them.

"The Los Angeles Dodgers are a machine. Not only do they print cash, their willingness to spend it in pursuit of winning is unmatched. They put their money where their mouth is. Others could benefit greatly from the same approach. They choose not to," he tweeted in support of Los Angeles.

Passan doubled down on this argument with a recent column for ESPN, dispelling multiple misconceptions that make opposing fans angriest about the Dodgers' way of doing business.

Insider Jeff Passan defended Dodgers' right to use deferrals in new ESPN column

"For all of the Dodgers' advantages, it's worth acknowledging the most overblown element of their approach," Passan wrote. "The deep misunderstanding of deferred money has painted it as a tool to avoid paying salaries for long periods of time and lessen a team's luxury tax payroll. Neither of these is true."

He goes on to expand on the way the Dodgers' deferred money will actually affect the luxury tax, with the bottom line being that, "they're paying more in luxury tax this year."

Passan does acknowledge, however, that the scrutiny around deferrals will only increase if the Dodgers go two-for-two in World Series titles in 2025. This doesn't, however, change the point that he made elegantly on Twitter: everyone can do this. Every owner in baseball is a multimillionaire. The rest of the league shouldn't be asking the Dodgers to come back down to their level. Instead, they should be rising to the challenge

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