Pulling out the receipts on Jeff Passan’s ‘Dodgers are good/bad for baseball’ stance

At some point this winter, Jeff Passan became the league’s most convenient and reliable human screenshot.

If you’re furious about the Dodgers, you clip the Pat McAfee segment where Passan says the outrage is “understandable” and “warranted,” and you let that do the talking. 

If you’re defending the Dodgers, you point to Passan’s own long ESPN deep-dive that basically screams: this is what happens when a smart, rich team operates aggressively inside a rulebook everyone agreed to. 

So which is it Mr. Passan? Are the Dodgers “good for baseball” or “bad for baseball”?

Jeff Passan tried to split the Dodgers debate but the receipts won’t let him

The receipts say Passan’s stance hasn’t actually flipped. People just keep reading the part that helps their argument and ignoring the part that makes it complicated.

On McAfee, Passan didn’t sugarcoat it: fans are ticked off, and he understands why. In the wake of the Dodgers’ reported Kyle Tucker deal (four years, $240 million), Passan framed the anger as a symptom of something bigger — that a lot of fans don’t feel like their team has a real shot when the talent keeps funneling to the same handful of superpowers. 

That part is real. If you’re a fan of a team whose “plan” is to finish third and call it “building,” the Dodgers are basically a weekly reminder that your owner is choosing comfort over ambition.

And yes, the Dodgers signing a star for a number that makes everyone’s jaw hit the floor is going to hit differently when it’s stacked on top of Ohtani/Yamamoto/Snell/etc. (Passan called the Dodgers a “stress test for the game itself” in that ESPN piece for a reason.) 

Here’s the part that gets conveniently lost in the rage cycle: Passan’s ESPN story goes out of its way to argue the Dodgers aren’t the cause of MLB’s imbalance — they’re just the clearest example of it.

MLB has no salary cap or floor, there’s a massive payroll gap, and the Dodgers are simply the team pushing the system to its limit. Then he drops the line everyone tries to dodge: “The Dodgers are the symptom, not the cause.” 

That’s not a defense of competitive imbalance. It’s a reminder that blaming the Dodgers is literally blaming a team for trying to win. He also notes that big-revenue teams can’t hide behind poverty cosplay, and that reputations form fast when clubs refuse to spend, even when they could. 

However, if you want to start a fight at a bar, just say “Dodgers deferrals” and wait five seconds. 

Passan anticipated this, too. In the ESPN piece, he calls the public understanding of deferrals “overblown” and explains that teams still have to fund those future obligations (and that deferrals aren’t some magic wand that makes money disappear). 

Passan’s actual stance on the Dodgers is basically this:

• Good for the Dodgers? Obviously. The Dodgers are doing what every serious franchise claims it wants to do: weaponize resources, build a destination, and win relentlessly.

• Potentially bad for baseball’s vibe? Yes. If enough fans stop believing their team has a path, you risk turning half the league into background noise. That’s the emotional reality Passan was talking about on McAfee. 

If MLB wants fewer “Dodgers are ruining baseball” meltdowns, it’s not on Los Angeles to voluntarily get worse. It’s on the sport to build a system where more teams are rewarded (or forced) to act like they actually want to win. Right now, the Dodgers are just playing the game that everyone else keeps refusing to play with the same urgency.