Perspectives: The Dodgers Are Champs!

by Paul Semendinger

November 2, 2025

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The Dodgers learned from the Yankees. It's time for the Yankees to once again learn the lessons they have forgotten.

Throughout most of baseball history, when the Yankees have been baseball's greatest team, they achieved that status by being one of the game's biggest spenders, if not the biggest spender.

There was a time when the Yankees had a very clear mission - to win. That's what the Yankees were all about. Winning. Period.

There was a time when the Yankees only wished to be great. We know those days are no longer. The Dodgers of today are the team that wishes to be great. The Dodgers of today are the team that is great.

During my lifetime, when the Yankees were winners in the 1970s, they were called "The Best Team That Money Could Buy."

When the Yankees were winning in the 1990s, they were called "The Evil Empire."

The Yankees were unapologetic about their desire to win. And they did win.

I have been saying for years that the Dodgers of today go about building their teams the way the Yankees used to. The Yankees of today, no matter what some contrarians wish to claim, do not go all-in. They haven't gone all-in since 2009. The fact that the Yankees haven't won a championship since then is no coincidence. The Yankees failure to win is a result of the way they run their operation.

Yes, clearly, winning teams go about winning without apology. Yes, the idea is to win championships. Yes, failing to win a championship is failing.

The last claim to greatness the Yankees of today had was that they were the last back-to-back champions. That is now no longer. The Dodgers are.

Some people have claimed, for years, that the way the Major Leagues are structured is so that the biggest spending teams cannot win. The Dodgers just proved that theory wrong. The Dodgers have proved that theory wrong time and time again.

Even with the playoffs supposedly being a "up for grabs" every year, somehow the Dodgers keep winning. They have three World Championships in the 2020s. They have been to the World Series five times since 2017. Building the best team has a way of being more important than the random chance that the playoffs supposedly are.

The luxury tax, the draft pick penalties, and all the other reasons and excuses people give for the Yankees own failure to win don't seem to impact the Dodgers. There is a simple reason why this is true. The Yankees operate with the idea that they want to be just good enough. The Dodgers operate (as the Yankees used to) with the desire to be great. The Yankees live for excuses, the Dodgers exist to win.

I have written for years that winning creates even more wealth for the teams. The Dodgers, who spend the most, are also baseball's biggest revenue stream today. This is obvious on its face. When they Yankees won, that used to be them. I have made this argument time and again after the Yankees failed to sign Bryce Harper (and others). Success generates wealth. The Dodgers spend and continue to get richer and richer.

Some will say that the Dodgers win because they have cornered the market on Japanese talent. That might be a big reason for the winning, but it didn't have to be that way. There was a time when the Yankees were the number one destination for players from other countries including Japan. There was a time when the great Japanese players wanted to play for the Yankees. The thing that changed isn't that Los Angeles got closer to Japan. It's that the Dodgers have proven to be winners. International talent wants to come to the USA to win. That's what the Dodgers do. They don't want to come to America to be part of the team that always falls short.

The best free agents, as well, want to play for the Dodgers. I have also said this for years. Players want to win. That's why they want to go to Los Angeles. That is why they used to want to come to the Yankees.

I ran a series many years ago that demonstrated, clearly, that the when the Yankees won throughout their history, they won because they were the team that brought in the best talent, that the team won because they had the deepest pockets, and they were willing to spend from that wealth. (I also argued, correctly, that the wealth that comes from winning only makes teams wealthier and stronger.)

I might need to try to find those articles again and rerun them. They were all correct back then. And the Dodgers have been proving them correct every year since.

As so many fans and "experts" write their plans for the 2026 Yankees, take note that every article that is written begins with one premise - one that the Yankees have convinced their fans is the biggest obstacle to winning - payroll. Every writer, every fan, writes about the luxury tax and team's payroll concerns. The Yankees have convinced their fans to care about the team's profits over winning. The Yankees have convinced their fans, through years of complaining about so much, that the fans need to care about the team's own profits. They do this as the Yankees raise costs on everything. And yet the fans follow along...

The Dodgers don't operate this way, they just go out to get the talent they need to win.

Yankees fans make arguments that if the Yankees spend too much money they'll lose draft picks - as if any of those draft picks help the Yankees in the end anyway. If the Yankees drafted and developed players well, that argument might make some sense (it really doesn't because the Yankees would still have the ability to get the players they need) but the Yankees don't draft or develop players well anyway.

The Yankees make excuses. They have convinced their fans to parrot those excuses. They have a fan base ready and willing to make excuses for them. Meanwhile the Dodgers win and win and win the exact way the Yankees used to when the team's number one and only mission was to be the best.

As the Yankees proudly state that they haven't had a losing season since 1993, a great string of .500 or better seasons, the Dodgers have an even more impressive streak. They have been the first place team in their division in 12 of the last 13 years. Over those years, the only time the Dodgers didn't win their division was 2021 when they finished one game out. Across the Yankees tremendous history, they have never had a streak like that. Ever. Money does help to guarantee success.

The Dodgers took the model the Yankees established, and have perfected it. The Yankees have tried to figure out a different way. The Dodgers way works. The Yankees new way does not.

The Yankees have one super power. They are still baseball's richest team. The Yankees don't use that power, they have given up that power, and the result is that they no longer win championships.

Again, some of the die-hard fans of the Yankees will make all sorts of excuses, but as Los Angeles celebrates again, every Yankees fan knows, at their core, that with better leadership, with an owner that didn't complain about (and hold down) costs, this glory could be the Yankees again.

But, until the Yankees go back to their old ways, they won't win like the Dodgers do. It did not have to be this way.