The idea sprung from a common malady that vexes your average salesperson from Sheboygan: travel delays. While flying 49,141 miles in 2024, second most in baseball, the Dodgers reached a breaking point of spending too many hours on the ground, whether it was waiting for equipment to be loaded, mechanical delays, crews timing out or the like. They did something about it.
For the 2024 postseason they booked a second team plane. The first plane would carry only the players. It would leave as quickly as possible after games. The second plane would ferry staff, support personnel and equipment. The main motivators were to give the players up to an hour head start on rest and recovery and to build more camaraderie. It worked so well the Dodgers decided to use the two-plane system for all of 2025.
“Playing in Los Angeles has a ton of perks and advantages,” says team president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman. “We don’t even know where our tarp is. Our games are never affected by weather. We have 50,000 people every night. But the travel is more challenging.”
There also was a hidden agenda behind the perk, which Friedman shared with first baseman Freddie Freeman at its 2025 rollout: make other players envious of how the Dodgers treat their players. Late in the season, Freeman circled back to Friedman with a report on that mission.
“Hey, you know how you said you hoped this kind of spread and got around the league?” Freeman told Friedman.
“Yeah. That was our hope.”
“Well, I cannot tell you the number of guys who get to first base and they’re all like, ‘Hey Freddie, is it true you guys have a players-only plane?’ ”
Says Friedman, “I was like, ‘All right. Great!’ ”
Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated
The Dodgers are the Rich Uncle Pennybags of baseball. It may seem they throw around Monopoly money. Their projected 2026 outlay in player salaries and luxury tax is $527 million, or more than the White Sox, Rays, Nationals, Guardians and Marlins combined. Last year they paid more in taxes ($169.4 million) than a dozen teams paid their players to actually play baseball. This year free-agent signee Kyle Tucker will cost them more in salary and taxes ($119.9 million) than eight teams will pay their entire roster. They have close to $1.1 billion in deferred player salary they fund.
It’s this kind of spreadsheet auditing with a neon highlighter that leads to narratives that the Dodgers are “ruining” baseball and that they are the canary in the coal mine that signals a coming labor war over the game’s economic system. Meanwhile, the Mets have outspent Los Angeles in payroll and taxes the past four years, $1.69 billion to $1.66 billion, but don’t get nearly as much grief as a threat to the system because they haven’t finished in first place in a decade. Nobody threw shade at Rich Uncle Pennybags when the Padres and Diamondbacks sent the Dodgers home quickly from the playoffs in 2022 and ’23.
The rhetoric that the Dodgers are too big and too good for baseball has grown because they won the last two World Series—but only after surviving two 2024 NLDS elimination games against San Diego and a 2025 World Series Game 7 deficit when down to their final two outs with their No. 9 hitter at bat. It gained steam this winter when the team addressed its biggest needs, outfield and closer, by signing Tucker and Edwin Díaz to record-setting contracts. They are favored to join the 1998–2000 Yankees as the only teams in the free agency era to win three straight titles, as well as become the first National League team to three-peat. The Dodgers don’t hide from such historic expectations. They welcome them.
“This is the most talented roster we’ve ever had coming into camp,” Friedman says. “Obviously, there are no guarantees in this sport, but we feel as good as we can about the position player group and it’s the most pitching depth I’ve ever been around.”
There is no denying money allows L.A. a fat margin of error. It can pivot from the mistake of free-agent closer Tanner Scott (signed for four years, $72 million in January 2025), at least as last year is concerned, to Díaz (three years, $69 million). It can re-sign reliever Evan Phillips, who had Tommy John surgery last June, at a salary and tax outlay of $13.7 million on the hope that he throws about 30 innings in the second half of the season.
To win back-to-back titles and three of the past six, however, requires more than a checkbook. Under Guggenheim Baseball Management, which bought the Dodgers in 2012 as the franchise emerged from bankruptcy, and Friedman, who arrived from Tampa Bay two years later, the Dodgers have built a culture that is the envy of baseball.
“We’ve gotten calls from agents over the last couple years of guys that we hadn’t even expressed interest in,” Friedman says, “and they said, ‘Hey, my player’s getting close to making a decision. He’s begged me to just call you. Before he says yes somewhere else, he wants to know if you would have any interest.’ To me it speaks volumes to the culture that’s been created.
“We’ve talked about this for 10-plus years now, how the real guiding light principle for us is trying to become a destination spot—where our own players don’t want to leave and players from other organizations want to come. Obviously, it’s easy to set our goals to win a championship. But we feel like creating that culture not only attracts and retains star-level players but also helps get the most out of their ability. I feel like we’ve really gotten to a point where it is incredibly strong.”
The players-only plane is the can’t-miss, 125-ton symbol of such a culture. (Friedman wouldn’t confirm the cost, which is said to be about $7 million a year. He says it’s “worth it.”) The rest of what makes the Dodgers the Dodgers is not so visible.
Non-cash perks like a players-only plane help the Dodgers land stars for less than market value. | Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers
On Dec. 1, 2023, Friedman, GM Brandon Gomes and manager Dave Roberts met with then free agent Shohei Ohtani and his agent, Nez Balelo, at Dodger Stadium. Friedman told Ohtani, “However differently people define our success over the last 10 years, I feel very confident that with where we are right now, our next 10 will be better. And if you join us, then I feel exponentially better about it.”
Friedman then talked Ohtani through the depth of the Dodgers’ farm system.
“[Baseball] is designed for us to be at the bottom in terms of farm system rankings,” Friedman said. “Picking at the end of the draft … having less international money … always being competitive and so therefore not really being able to trade off players as they’re nearing free agency. … And yet, we’re in the top three, top five, every year.”
Ohtani suddenly stopped him.
“How?” Ohtani asked.
It is the existential question to the Dodgers’ success. Not “how much?” But “how?”
Team
2023–25 Total Payroll
2023–25 Wins (Regular Season and Playoffs)
Dollars Spent per Win
Mets
$1,096,288,112
254
$4,316,094
Yankees
$957,326,126
281
$3,406,854
Rockies
$530,629,702
163
$3,255,396
Angels
$686,879,434
208
$3,206,151
Dodgers
$965,803,224
315
$3,066,041
Red Sox
$719,584,198
249
$2,889,896
Friedman answered Ohtani by talking about “cohesiveness and collaboration” and “the stability and the continuity of our group,” principles that apply to more than the player development system.
How did the Dodgers build themselves into a destination team, a franchise so attractive that players like Tucker take less money to join? How did they avoid the corrosive elements of satiety and individualism that typically follow one championship? How did they conquer the minefield that is postseason baseball? According to Friedman and key insiders with the team, these are the main architectural building blocks of the modern dynasty.
The Catalyst
Betts instantly changed the Dodgers’ culture when he arrived in 2020 with his work ethic and selflessness. | Robert Gauthier/Getty Images
In consecutive Decembers, 2017 and 2018, Friedman pulled off two salary-dump trades, one with the Braves and one with the Reds, to limbo underneath the first luxury tax threshold. By resetting the Dodgers’ tax rate on overages from 50% to 20%, Friedman saved $36.2 million in the 2021 and 2022 seasons. More importantly, the Dodgers were stashing payroll for a major purchase.
“We knew [in 2018] in the next 24 months that three impact players were going to be on the market and at a young age,” says a veteran baseball operations executive. “Bryce Harper, Manny Machado and Mookie Betts. We always felt Mookie was the right guy, largely because of everything we knew about him as a person.”
The Dodgers did make a run at Harper, but with a four-year, $180 million offer that did not address his desire for a long-term home. When negotiations on an extension between the Red Sox and Betts went nowhere, Los Angeles swooped in and traded for him in February 2020. They signed him five months later to a 12-year, $365 million deal with $115 million deferred, bringing the present day average annual value down to $25.6 million. Betts helped deliver a world championship in his first year with the team. He volunteered to switch between the outfield and infield.
“We’ve had a lot of really talented, impactful players in our clubhouse leading up to that,” Friedman says, “but Mookie was really the catalyst that helped push it over the edge in terms of how we prepare, how we compete and how every detail matters. You know, talking about baserunning and talking about defense is one thing, but showing the work that is required behind it is what matters. I feel like he was a real catalyst as far as pushing us over the edge to help create the environment we have today.”
The Hail Mary
The Dodgers prefer contracts with terms of three to five years to allow roster flexibility and to avoid paying premium money for declining players.
“We have been very selective about the guys that we are willing to go long term with,” Friedman says. “And for us it is way easier if we’ve had a guy than if we’re getting them from another team. There are just very few guys out there that we would feel comfortable making those types of bets with. Mookie was definitely at the top of the list. Freddie was not—only because we didn’t expect him to really be available.”
The Dodgers got more than an elite bat and glove in Freeman; his focus and preparation set a standard that players at every level follow. | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
Like most people, Friedman assumed Freeman would return to the Braves when was a free agent after the 2021 season. Just minutes before the start of the lockout that December, Friedman, Roberts and infielder Justin Turner stepped away from Betts’s wedding reception to place a call to Freeman.
“Hey, we’re not going to be able to talk for a little while, so just keep us in mind,” Friedman told the first baseman. “Just don’t forget about us.”
Says Friedman, “But the feeling was that was just a Hail Mary.”
The Braves traded for Matt Olson to replace Freeman when the lockout ended in March 2022. The Hail Mary landed. L.A. signed Freeman to a six-year, $162 million contract that with $57 million deferred drops to an AAV of $24.7 million. In Betts and Freeman, the Dodgers’ two best players were now also their two hardest workers.
“We are very attracted to players who make it a priority to prepare themselves to go win a baseball game that night,” Friedman says. “It sounds simple, but I understand it’s not. It’s not universal. I really enjoy looking out at three o’clock on the field and seeing our superstar players doing early work. And then you look across the field toward the other dugout and it’s usually the 12th and 13th position players for that team who are out doing early work. I love that sight every time I see it.”
Asked to identify an unseen key part of the Dodgers, one of the team’s baseball operations analysts said, “The culture of early work Freddie, [infielder] Miggy [Rojas] and Mookie have created. They are out before batting practice every day talking ground balls and doing their glove work. That has trickled down to Triple A, as well as guys who go up and down. It’s an attention to detail and routine that our coaches have mentioned they don’t really see any other teams doing throughout the year.
“It comes down to the culture that has been built. Not the rah-rah culture but a combination of preparation and expectation from the players to coaches to scouts to the front office. The players hold themselves accountable because they know the ultimate goal is winning championships. Personally, I think that’s a big part of what Andrew is looking for makeup-wise in free agency and trades—if we give this guy money, is he going to care less or be unchanged in his desire to win?”
Astatine
This is how agent Scott Boras refers to Ohtani. At less than 30 grams in the Earth’s crust, astatine is the rarest naturally occurring element on the planet. The rarity of Ohtani is not just that he is a two-way player of unprecedented volume and skill. It is also that Ohtani volunteered to defer all but $2 million in annual salary from his 10-year, $700 million contract, an unheard-of gesture driven by his desire to allow the Dodgers to spend more around him and made easier by his enormous endorsement income as an international icon. Last year Ohtani earned more than $100 million off the field.
Says Friedman of the deferrals built into Ohtani’s Dodgers contract, “It was to a level I definitely would not have had the guts to propose.”
The deferrals turned Ohtani into a $46 million a year player for luxury tax calculations, allowing the Dodgers to sign pitchers such as elite righthanders Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow and two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell. All four starters, pulling down $1.34 billion in combined contracts, pitched in Game 7 of the World Series last year.
“Shohei,” says one Dodgers executive, “changed everything economically. The size and the scale of the business exploded.”
The executive estimates Ohtani generates $200 million in annual income for the Dodgers. Boras puts the estimate at $275 million. “We had Ohtani’s [market] value at $1.3 billion when he signed,” Boras says. “The fact is the signings of Mookie, Freddie and Ohtani are all greatly discounted. Freddie’s contract is half of what he’s worth.”
Ohtani offered the Angels a similar deal to remain with them. They passed, in part because they rejected the idea of deferred money. In Betts, Freeman and Ohtani, the Dodgers wound up with three future Hall of Famers and the core to back-to-back World Series champions because their original teams allowed them to leave.
Shohei Ohtani—and the deferred money in his contract—have enabled the Dodgers to win championships in both of his years with the team. | Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
The Dodgers had been scouting Ohtani since high school. They knew just about everything about him, including how at age 15 he was so well-mannered and focused that he drew a diagram with 81 boxes in a nine-by-nine grid filled with training goals and ideals to help him reach the center, where he wrote, “Get Drafted 1st Overall.” The path to the center included reminders to “Pick Up Trash” and “Keep Room Clean” (he’s such a neatnik he will pick up errant gum wrappers on the dugout floor), “Calm Mind, Burning Heart,” “Be Someone People Want to Support” and “Read Books.”
The Dodgers tried to sign him in 2017, only to lose out to the Angels, prompting Friedman’s brother to text him, “Nice job selling Los Angeles.” Two seasons with Ohtani have broadened Friedman’s appreciation for Ohtani even more.
“Given he has the discipline and the focus to arguably be the greatest player who’s ever played,” Friedman says, “what stands out is just how down-to-earth and normal he is. A lot of guys that are great at what they do have some narcissistic tendencies. He is exactly how you would draw up the ideal personality to match with that ability—how much he cares about winning, how much he embodies that on a daily basis with how he prepares and how he competes. He’s got that killer streak in him.”
The Riddle of the Sphinx
What wins in October? It’s an age-old riddle that has grown increasingly tricky with expanded playoffs. After the Dodgers followed 211 regular season wins in 2022 and 2023 with a 1–6 record in the postseason, the front office launched a deep analytical dive into what went wrong.
“The showing in ’22 and ’23 was so bad it bothered everybody,” says one senior official who worked on the study. “I won’t say what we found, but we looked at everything from the roster, to how we play, to the mindset.”
The remedy came from within the clubhouse.
“What makes this team really special is two years ago we felt like we needed to pay more attention to little successes throughout the year,” says Rojas, who joined the team in a January 2023 trade with the Marlins. “Because this organization was used to dominating the regular season and not getting too excited for little moments within the season that make you ready for what is coming next. So, in ’23 when we got slapped in the face again, the core of the team understood we had to prepare for October.
“We weren’t prepared for the playoffs. How do you prepare for the playoffs? If you can really simulate a playoff game, it’s like taking those games in the middle of the year and celebrating those moments—like you did something, you want something. That’s been the culture change. It happened here a couple years ago.”
A historic Game 7 home run from Miguel Rojas might never have happened if not for another non-financial Dodgers x-factor: Dave Roberts’s managerial instincts. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated
Says Roberts of the evolution, “We didn’t solve the postseason, but I think that we really understood that the postseason is a street fight. The regular season is a conventional boxing match. It’s an old-school, 12-round, stick-and-jab fight with your technique. I’m not trying to bang analytics, but analytics and technique is the long game. The postseason is a UFC cage fight. And you’ve got to get your hands dirty because it’s quick.
“If you don’t have that mentality in a five-game series, you’re going home. And that’s what happened to us. First the Padres. Then the Diamondbacks. There wasn’t any fear. And they came out swinging and we were trying to get into the game, the boxing match. And we went home before we knew it.”
Roberts, too, has been an October difference-maker. A manager’s importance rises in the postseason because of the blink moments, unplanned situations that require urgency, not the data-thick staff planning meetings with a room full of people. “Last postseason Doc gave a master class in managing,” says a rival general manager.
The Dodgers are 24–9 the past two postseasons, including 10 come-from-behind wins, 6–1 in one-run games and 4–0 in extra innings.
The Maestro
While the Dodgers have a robust analytics department, they do not emphasize it above traditional baseball operations development methods. It’s the genius of Friedman that he creates a symphony from among the different perspectives of uniformed staff, medical team, player development and analytics.
“These silos cannot exist separately,” says one front office executive. “[Friedman] is really good in that space. He’s patient. He’s not a reactor. He’s a problem solver by nature. What we do best is more the application of technology and analytics than just spending our way through.”
Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
The Dodgers still remind themselves about DJ Peters, a 6’ 5″ highly athletic outfield prospect who dominated the hitting lab by smashing the ball 115 mph, posting outlier numbers on a machine that measures ground forces and crushing the high-velocity pitching machine. After five years in the Dodgers’ system, Peters hit .197 in 70 major league games in 2021 while striking out more than a third of the time. He’s now out of baseball.
Says Rojas, “I think the organization uses [analytics] a little bit more than the players. We have a really old locker room. I feel like we use it, but we feel like it’s out there for them to know what we’re doing. At the end of the day, we’re not following it too much because we know winning is about what you do every single day to prepare.
“You will see a lot of working on the little stuff. Preparation that way is maybe not as fun as being in a lab and hitting 106 miles per hour off the Trajek machine. We kind of put our preparation more into the little details that we can control, because it’s really hard to control everything that is out there.
“It’s not a lab out there. Analytic labs? We have one, but is that the key to success? I don’t think so. I think that the key to this team is knowing what you need to do every single day to prepare.”
The Next Wave
The Dodgers are not above making mistakes. They traded Oneil Cruz and Yordan Álvarez for next to nothing. They paid Trevor Bauer $61 million to make 17 starts before releasing him after MLB suspended him for violating its domestic violence and sexual assault policy.
Consulting with key players is a valued source of information for Friedman, who doesn’t stop there. He says, “We try to get as much information as we can from teammates, coaches, clubhouse guys, media, broadcasters … as much information as we can get to make the calculated bet on whether or not they fit well within our ecosystem. And it’s by no means perfect. But I think directionally it’s very helpful in our selection process.”
By adding Díaz and Tucker this winter, Friedman began leveraging the team’s destination status. It’s the next layer to the Mookie-Freddie-Shohei core. “Edwin Díaz obviously was at the top of our list,” he says, “but with a pretty low degree of confidence that we’d be able to get him, just because his team, the incumbent, also has similar resources.”
After the Mets caught Díaz a bit off guard with the signing of Devin Williams, another closer, and after hearing New York was slow to counter a request by Díaz, Los Angeles pounced with an aggressive bid. “It wasn’t until two or three days before we agreed that we felt like we really had a chance,” Friedman says.
Tucker turned down $350 million over 10 years from Toronto to take $110 million less over four years with the Dodgers.
“Our owner’s mindset is for all of us to not be flippant about where we are and to do as much as we [can] to try to maintain this,” says Friedman. “This is a really special group. To be aggressive to enhance and augment it we felt was the prudent play. And the level of partnership and appreciation for our fans who show up 50,000 strong every night and travel on the road … just the passion that our fans have … yeah, we feel immense pressure to pour back into them.”
The additions of Díaz, pictured, and Tucker made other teams grumble—and made another parade in L.A. more likely. | Brandon Sloter/Getty Images)
The argument of whether the Dodgers are too rich and too good for baseball will be decided at a labor negotiating table. There is no argument about what they are on the diamond: a star-studded team defined by its collective will.
“The big part of who we are,” Roberts says, “is that we have our guys believing that it’s bigger than themselves. In this day and age of self-promotion, a lot of sports is individual driven. But I think our guys do as good a job as anyone in sacrificing certain things for the best interest of the ball club each day. Whether it’s playing time, roles, whatever it is. And when you have players like Freddie, Shohei and Mookie, everyone’s going to be following in line. We’re fortunate with those guys.”
The players-only plane grabs your attention, but Rojas, a $5 million utility infielder last year, may be the best way to explain why the Dodgers win. After L.A. lost to Toronto at home in World Series Game 5 to put them on the brink of elimination, Rojas sat alone in the third base dugout for 20 minutes.
“I’m thinking, This might be my last time at Dodger Stadium with a Dodger uniform on. Wow,” Rojas says. “I’m going to be 37 years old next year. I’m a free agent. I don’t know if these guys want me back. I was taking a little bit of extra time to reflect on what an amazing ride it was. I didn’t want to take my whites off because I knew it could be the last time.”
By the time Rojas finally returned to his locker, a text was waiting for him on his phone. It was from Roberts: “You’re in there at second base for Game 6.” Rojas had not started a game in 25 days. Roberts did not consult the data or matchups. He simply decided he could not bear the idea of losing the World Series without giving one of his team leaders a chance to play. Rojas texted back, “I got you, Doc.”
It was Rojas who saved the season twice in the ninth inning of Game 7: first with his two-strike, tying home run in the top of the inning, and again when he threw out Isiah Kiner-Falefa at home in the bottom of the inning.
“When the guys on the team told me, ‘You saved us,’ I said, ‘No, I didn’t save you guys. You guys saved me, saved my career, and gave me an opportunity to play another year.’ ” says Rojas, who is returning this season on a one-year, $5.5 million deal. “I feel like that’s how we all feel. They give me the credit. I give the credit back.
“That’s the reason why this organization is special. We all know that they’re making a lot of money, right? We have guys that can win a Cy Young or an MVP. But from my perspective, I don’t see them chasing that. I’m seeing them doing whatever it takes for this team to win. Everybody who steps into this clubhouse can tell you the same thing.”
A month after Game 7, Rojas was sightseeing around the Trevi Fountain in Rome. A man recognized him.
“Thank you,” the man said. “You are a hero.”
Says Rojas, “We took a picture, but I’ve always thought, I couldn’t do it if I was on the bench, you know? You really feel like if you join this team, it’s for nothing else than winning championships.”
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