Rob Bradford

man, we can't keep up with the Dodgers.

The reality of baseball is that once the season starts, any team in any market can keep up.

I bet you right now, 10 bucks, the Dodgers don't win the World Series next year for the simple reason that it is highly unlikely for a team to three-peat.

It could happen, but it's not a sport where these things are...

Easily guaranteed.

It's easier in football, right?

The difference between the haves and the have-nots feels greater in the other sport.

The Dodgers, I think the amount of money and attention they bring in for baseball, it's hard to kind of

say they're ruining baseball single-handedly um and the union would say there there are ways to incentivize teams to behave differently to spend more without a cap right the the player argument is you can have some of the benefits of a cap floor system without moving to it um and it's all money at the end of the day right owners have wanted a cap

for decades why do they want a cap it is good for their economics it could bring some benefits to the sport um but it it's all you can't really divorce the money from all this when you go through this season is it going to be i know that you love the great game of baseball every time a lineup comes out but this like you must be digging in a little bit like are you what are you doing you go to spring training what are you doing

Well, there's a Rob Manfred press conference I'm going to go to after the owners' meetings.

That's coming up in February.

So what I'm saying is everything you're doing is basically like for this year, you're just like, oh, yeah, just tell me when the World Series is over.

like pretty much well but but there's but there's so like every here's the thing when you ask me these questions of the dodgers there's so much to get to right it's trying to make sure i get through my checklist of the different no i i'm saying like i'm i'm telling you so this year the thing to do is to try to dig in yeah don't don't get defensive about it i'm not saying like you don't love baseball sort of

Look, when the commissioner's office stands there and says, when Rob Manfred says, this is a perception problem that fans have, that's a very interesting phrasing, right?

He's not saying it is definitively a problem that teams can't compete.

It is a perception issue that fans have that teams can't compete.

What an interesting phrasing.

He's kind of avoiding the merit of the underlying argument there.

And so there's just, yeah, there's a lot to sort through coming up.