Dodgers centerfielder Justin Dean signals to umpires that the ball in Game 6 of the World Series got stuck in the fence.
Photo: AP PHOTO
***
A big, hearty congratulations to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In a blink of an eye, they have leaped ahead of Russia and China as the new Evil Empire.
After the recent signing of free agent Kyle Tucker for a reported four-year, $240 million deal, arguably the biggest free-agent move of the offseason, the Dodgers total guaranteed payroll now exceeds $2 billion.
Yes, you read it right, $2 billion.
The average annual value (AAV) of Tucker’s contract (calculated by Major League Baseball) will be a record $57.1 million, surpassing the previous highs set by the Mets’ Juan Soto ($51 million) and the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani ($46.06 million) the last two off-season’s.
In their quest for a third consecutive World Series championship, the Boys in Blue may have signed, sealed, and almost delivered yet another championship for 2026 even before the first pitch of the season.
The Dodgers, with a considerable and bottomless war chest, are absorbing high priced free agents as easily as Donald Trump devoured Venezuela and is on the verge of adding Greenland to his trophy cabinet.
L.A. Times’ columnist Bill Plaschke weighed in with this observation: “This team could win 120 games. Check that. This team should win 120 games. Check that again. This team will probably win 97 games while they spend the regular season resting up for the playoffs.”
As previously reported, The Dodgers’ estimated competitive tax payroll of $402.5 million is more than the combined spending of the A’s, Tampa Bay Rays, Cleveland Guardians and Miami Marlins.
Such payroll inequality, among the 30 teams, in MLB is detonating hoots and hollers, especially on social media, that the Dodgers have taken a wrecking ball to America’s National Pastime.
As ESPN’s Jeff Passan was quick to say, “Fans feel like this game is unfair,” while another ESPN analyst, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo told Dan Patrick, “This is getting to be a joke.”
In the irony of ironies, aside from the herculean efforts turned in by Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto (3 remarkable wins), a big reason the Dodgers were able to repeat as World Series champions in 2025 wasn’t so much due to their highest paid players or the big boppers in the lineup, but to two utility players, and a center fielder who couldn’t hit worth a lick.
The Dodgers left L.A. down 3-games-to-2 to the Toronto Blue Jays in the World Series.
In the bottom of the 9th inning of Game 6, and the Dodgers clinging to a 3-1 lead, the Jays’ Alejandro Kirk was plunked by a pitch. The next batter, Addison Barger, drilled a ball into no-man’s land in left-center field, where it stuck in the padding of the outfield wall.
Dodger part-time outfielder, Justin Dean, who had been inserted in the 9th for defense purposes, alertly raised his hands to let the umpires know-it was a dead ball. The umps agreed. Instead of Myles Straw (pinch runner) being able to score, to slice the Dodger lead to 3-2, runners were held at second and third with one out.
If it wasn’t for Justin Dean’s keen knowledge of the game, he may have saved the game, if not the Series, for the Dodgers.
If Dean didn’t raise his arms, the Blue Jays would be down only a run in the 9th, 3-2, and a runner on third with only one out. A sac fly would have, at the very least, tied the game.
Kiki Hernandez and Miguel Rojas complete a spectacular double-play to end the game and win Game 6, sending the Series to a decisive Game 7.
Photo Credit: FOX Sports
***
Enter Miguel Rojas, a.k.a., “Miggy!”
Dodger skipper, Dave Roberts, operating on nothing more than a hunch–decided to pencil in Venezuelan infielder, Miguel Rojas, age 36, and nearing the end of his career into the lineup in Game 6 and 7 at second base.
Such a move, as it turned out, was a stroke of genius.
Thanks to Rojas, in the bottom of the 9th, following the “ball stuck in the padding” incident in Game 6– Andrés Giménez sliced a flair to shallow left field, which was caught on the fly by Kiki Hernandez, who then fired a missile into the glove of Rojas at second, (doubling up Barger), which somehow Miggy was able to hang on to-since it short-hopped him.
Such nimble fielding completed the double play and a Dodger win to send the Series to a decisive Game 7 and into November.
The reason there was a Game 7 was due largely to the stellar defense of Justin Dean and Miguel Rojas, not to the mighty bats of Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernández, Mookie Betts, or Freddie Freeman.
Rojas’s salary for 2025 hovered around the $5 million mark; Justin Dean’s annual salary for 2025 was $760,000.
Game 7 of the 2025 Series was an epic Fall Classic, considered by many–the most dramatic in the history of the game.
On two occasions in Game 7, the Blue Jays were on the brink of winning their third World Series in front of their home crowd, no less.
But they ran into two obstacles: Miguel Rojas and Andy Pages.
Miguel Rojas (72) belts a home run against the Toronto Blue Jays in the ninth inning during game seven of the 2025 MLB World Series at Rogers Centre.
Photo Credit: Kevin Sousa-Imagn Images
***
In the top of the 9th, the Dodgers down, 4-3, and Toronto just two outs away from winning a championship, the no. 9 hitter stepped to the plate, Miguel Rojas, who hadn’t mustered a hit in a month.
Miggy managed to work the count full to Jays closer, Jeff Hoffman. On the next offering, Rojas, sitting on a slider, deposited the pitch to deep left field to tie the game at four in one of the most theatrical home runs in World Series history. It was as if Miggy sucked the oxygen out of the Rogers Centre; there was nothing but a hush of silence permeating the stadium.
Miggy worked his magic again in the bottom of the 9th with the bases loaded, and only one out, the Jays championship was a mere 90 feet away before Daulton Varsho slashed a hard grounder to second. Rojas, at first, lost his footing before slinging a bullet to catcher Will Smith at home plate, forcing out Kiner-Falefa for the second out, and saving the Series, momentarily, for the Dodgers.
Los Angeles Dodgers infielder Miguel Rojas throws out the Toronto Blue Jays potential World Series winning run at home plate in the bottom of the ninth in Game 7 of the World Series.
Photo Credit: SPORTSNET
***
The hot hitting Ernie Clement stepped to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded and belted a long fly ball to left field.
All television viewers saw was Kiki Hernandez running for his life and staring into the blue sky, looking for the ball; many thought the game was over and Clement would have certainly been crowned with the MVP.
But in one of the most astonishing, mesmerizing moments in World Series history, center fielder, Andy Pages, suddenly appeared out of nowhere, bulldozed Hernandez and somehow caught the ball on the warning track to send the game into extra innings.
Fans at the Rogers Centre were speechless, distraught at being denied a World Series championship in the bottom of the 9th.
In a tie game with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth of Game 7, Dodger outfielder, Andy Pages, made a miraculous catch off the bat of Ernie Clement to save the Series for the Dodgers and send the game into extra innings.
Photo Credit: Sporting News
The game went to the 11th when catcher Will Smith walloped an offering, a solo shot, from Shane Bieber to put the Dodgers up for good, 5-4, and clinch their ninth World Series title.
The hero of the game, Andy Pages salary for 2025 was a paltry $770,000. Despite all the globs of money paid out to the Dodger starters, it took an outfielder, making less than a million to help win the Series for the Dodgers.
Remarkable!
If the Dodgers do three-peat this year in 2026, it won’t be because of three platoon players.
Rather, it will be because they went out and bought the highest price players money could buy, productive hitters, that, sadly, most of the rest of the 30 MLB teams simply couldn’t afford.
All the October magic and yeomen’s service of players like Rojas, Justin Dean, and Andy Pages will be overshadowed in 2026, most likely, by the Murders’ Row of gifted and highly priced players, including Shohei Ohtani (DH), Mookie Betts (SS), Freddie Freeman (1B), and now newcomer Kyle Tucker (RF).
If such a scenario plays out, the have nots can only watch the Dodgers hoist their third consecutive trophy in 2026 and lament how they wish they could be obscenely rich like the mighty Dodgers.
The playing field never looked as uneven as it does now after the Tucker mammoth deal the Dodgers cleverly executed.
Then again, maybe we can thank the Dodgers.
For the 2026 season, the Dodgers’ luxury-tax payroll is a monstrous $413.6 million, $96 million more than any other team.
If ever there was a case to be made for a salary cap when the MLB Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) expires on December 1, 2026, the Dodgers have made the strongest case yet.
For the best interests of baseball, this Plutocracy administered by the Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, Phillies, and others, needs to come to a screeching halt.
-Bill Lucey
WPLucey@gmail.com
January 18, 2026
Leave a Reply