TORONTO — The 2025 World Series has been billed as a David-versus-Goliath matchup, but truth-be-told, the Toronto Blue Jays ranked 5th in Opening Day payroll. Okay, the Dodgers spent $87-$95 million more (depending on your math) which was as much as five teams spent on their entire team payrolls per USA Today.
And the real winner in all of this is FOX as the TV outlet for the World Series. This World Series will span the globe given the superstar presence of Japanese players on the Dodgers, the Canadian entry of the Blue Jays, the multiple Latin American connections on both teams, and the Dodgers original roots in New York City (Brooklyn) to their current address in Los Angeles.
So no, this isn’t a David-versus-Goliath matchup. This is more like Drake versus Kendrick Lamar. The real David-versus-Goliath series was the Brewers and Dodgers in the NLCS where the Dodgers payroll was more than double what Milwaukee spent.
In fact, 4-of-the-5 largest payroll teams made the postseason with only the New York Mets not in October baseball this year. That is a major fail by the Mets. However, the three teams below the Blue Jays in payroll had all failed to make the playoffs making it that only 4-of-the-8 largest payrolls made the postseason. Then you have the Reds, Brewers, and Guardians from the bottom-9 in payroll in the postseason. While spending more helps, building a good roster will always be the key.
And while some want to say the Dodgers are buying themselves championships, that might only be partially true. They waste a lot of money when you look at really where their money was spent. They didn’t need to sign Clayton Kershaw, and they did it anyway. His comp package was $16 million that included bonuses. They cut Chris Taylor and his $15 million. They paid Michael Conforto $17 million. Where is he? They cut Austin Barnes and his $3.5 million. The Dodgers had more corporate waste than some government agencies. But give credit to the Dodgers for drafting and developing talent.
None of this means that the Blue Jays have no chance of winning. But the Dodgers got hot at the right time. Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched a complete game gem for them in the NLCS, and Shohei Ohtani turned in perhaps the singular greatest game in MLB postseason history going 3-for-3 with three homers while being the starting pitcher and going 6.0 innings of shutout baseball. And by the way, Roki Sasaki, a rookie in the MLB, closed out Ohtani’s game. With Yamamoto, Ohtani, and Sasaki, the Dodgers have the Japanese “three-headed monster” 三大怪獣 (San Daikaijū) and the title of the famous Godzilla movie featuring King Ghidorah キングギドラ (Kingu Gidora).
The Blue Jays are led by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and for this first game of the World Series, they will have Trey Yesavage as their starting pitcher. You might remember him from the 2024 draft. He was available for the Washington Nationals to pick at No. 10, but the Nats chose Seaver King. We will see how that works out. Yesavage hasn’t even reached rookie status yet as he is still a top prospect with only three games and 14.0 innings in his regular season career. He already has more postseason innings before he takes the mound tonight with 15.0 innings in the books.
When we talk about payroll and all of that, it really begins with drafting and developing players. Interesting to point out that on July 1, 2024, TalkNats wrote on Twitter that they would draft Nick Kurtz, if available, or Trey Yesavage. Well Kurtz was taken earlier in the draft by the Athletics, and by the way, he just won the Sporting News Rookie of the Year award. And Yesavage will be eligible for the 2026 Rookie of the Year award. Yes, most of the Nats issues are not about money — they were about drafting and player development. If they did that well, they’d be winning and spending to be even better just like they did over a dozen years ago.
While fans might hate the Dodgers for spending, they drafted Will Smith at catcher when the Nats could have had him, but instead former GM Mike Rizzo chose Carter Kieboom and Dane Dunning. The TalkNats picks in that 2016 draft were Anthony Kay and Smith since the Nats had two first rounders. Oh, and the Seattle Mariners started George Kirby throughout the postseason and he pitched to a 2.70 ERA in the ALDS. The Nats drafted Jackson Rutledge over Kirby in the 2019 draft. Kirby was the TalkNats pick.
As Steve Mears wrote, if they used his draft picks for the past 10-years and still did the Juan Soto trade, the Nats could have been a postseason team. The TalkNats draft department has a budget of $0. The picks are always there in writing.
Imagine the TalkNats rotation of:
Yes, there was no Cade Cavalli because TalkNats had Tyler Soderstrom as their draft pick in 2020. If we looked at the starting lineup, maybe this would be it through the draft and Soto trade:
- CJ Abrams SS
- Tyler Soderstrom RF
- James Wood 1B
- Will Smith C
- Luis Garcia Jr. DH
- Brooks Lee 2B
- Dylan Crews CF
- Brady House 3B
- Daylen Lile LF
Maybe you sign Kyle Schwarber as your DH and Dylan Cease for your ace pitcher. That is how you build a winner from the draft and player development. That is what new Nats’ President of Baseball Operations, Paul Toboni, has promised.
“I think it starts with creating a scouting and player development monster. We talk about James Wood, Daylen Lile, Dylan Crews, MacKenzie Gore and CJ Abrams, all these players at the Major League level that are young and talented; the more of those type players that we have matriculating to the big leagues, the better off we’re going to be.”
— Toboni said after he was hired
“If we can just do a really, really good job identifying, acquiring, developing that talent, and then we create really a great culture around development and accountability and hard work and all the things that we hold sacred, Bill Walsh, the famous NFL Coach, says the score will take care of itself.”
That is where it all starts. Keep telling yourself it is all about the money. Having money is not everything, not having it is. Here was your Final-4 of teams with an unofficial payroll count:
For Nats fans, on the Dodgers’ roster is Alex Call, and Max Scherzer is on the Blue Jays roster. This could be real interesting!
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