Jack Flaherty just won a World Series with the Los Angeles Dodgers and he wants to make it clear that the team's spending spree is not “ruining baseball,” as some have said.
“A certain team is not ruining baseball,” he wrote on Tuesday via X. “A lot of other teams are just doing very little.”
Flaherty, who is currently a free agent, doubled down on his take as fans flooded his mentions, including one who agreed, saying any team could have signed Kirby Yates, the Dodgers' latest addition.
“One team feels like they want everything and like 27 teams are just chilling until they can go to spring training,” the fan wrote, to which Flaherty replied “fact.”
When another fan pushed back, suggesting Flaherty would be proven wrong in December 2026, when the current collective bargaining agreement expires, Flaherty fired back.
“You mean when the owners choose to lock the players out and then somehow the players get blamed,” he wrote.
While the masses continue to complain, Houston Mitchell of the Los Angeles Times summed up the issue — and it's not with the Dodgers.
“The Dodgers also have to pay major financial penalties each year because they are above the payroll threshold,” he wrote on Tuesday. “That money gets redistributed to the other teams. And do you know what some of the owners of those small-market teams do with that cash? Pocket it. They don’t use it to invest and make their teams better. The ones that do invest it, such as Tampa Bay, usually find themselves in the postseason often.”
The Dodgers' 2025 payroll will top $375 million

The Dodgers' offseason spending spree has been something to behold. In addition to bringing back Blake Treinen and Teoscar Hernandez, Los Angeles has also signed Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki, two-time Cy Young winner Blake Snell, Michael Conforto, Tanner Scott and Hyeseong Kim.
On Tuesday, the Dodgers added even more to their bullpen by signing the two-time All-Star Yates.
And that's after an offseason that saw the Dodgers sign Shohei Ohtani to a mammoth contract and Yoshinobu Yamamoto to a 12-year, $325 million pact.
Even before the Yates deal, the Dodgers' winter shopping ran their total 2025 payroll to over $375 million, according to ESPN's Jeff Passan. Passan added that it's $70 million more than the next highest-spending team, the Philadelphia Phillies.
The offseason isn't over, either. Flaherty is still on the board. So are Alex Bregman and Pete Alonso. While it's not likely the Dodgers would go for any of them — and they certainly don't have any glaring holes on their roster — it'd be foolish to count them out of anything.