Trust the Game

A message of hope at the MLB trade deadline, no matter what the Dodgers do.

Hi Everybody!

So we have a few things to catch up on before we talk a bit about that minor trade that happened over the weekend.

First off, to preview The Joy of Baseball, Molly Knight and I will be doing a two-hour live video chat today, leading up to the end of the trade deadline. So we’ll be starting that at 4 p.m. Eastern. I’m not fully sure how that will work — Molly is our resident expert on live video chats — but you will get an alert when we go live and how to join.

This will be a lot of fun, and we’ll preview The Joy of Baseball podcast, which will be launching next Tuesday, August 11, with our first special guest. The idea will be for us to have a super cool new guest each time and just talk about what makes baseball so awesome. We’ve already recorded some of these, and we have some incredible guests coming so … stay tuned.

Second, here on JoeBlogs this month, I’ll be counting down the greatest (and, perhaps, a few not-so-great) baseball movies leading up to August 20, when Mike Schur and I will be at the Aero Theater in Los Angeles to introduce “A League of Their Own” at the American Cinematheque podcast film festival. I have asked a whole bunch of my friends to send me their favorite baseball movies, and dozens of them already have, and let’s just say that this will be an absolute blast. I can’t wait to share with you Richard Kind’s favorite-ever baseball movie!

It’s been a little while since we’ve done an old-fashioned countdown here on JoeBlogs! Of course, I’ll ask you to join The Clubhouse so you don’t miss any of it, but plenty will be free for everyone!

Third, a whole bunch of you have already preordered FIFTY SEASONS, my countdown of the fifty individual seasons that echo through the years, which makes my heart sing. Heck, we’ve already gotten a mention at Ron Kaplan’s marvelous Baseball Bookshelf, and the book doesn’t come out until February! I just want to say:

1. We are still working on the signed preorder campaign — summers are notoriously slow when it comes to book stuff — but I promise I’ll post all the details as soon as we have them. I really want this campaign to be special and personal; I imagine there will be something to announce by the end of the month.

2. But there will be something special for everyone who preorders. Our brilliant marketing guru Caroline is working on a sign-up form for anyone who preorders the book (including digital and audio preorders). All you’ll have to do is enter your email address and send along a receipt, and at pub date you will get a director’s cut PDF of chapters that I edited out of the book for space and narrative reasons. I cut more out of this book than any other book I’ve ever written, so there is a LOT of fun stuff in there; the bonus material is like its own book.

All right. Let’s talk a little Tarik Skubal (though I’ll have to save some thoughts for the live chat later today):

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I saw a very strange complaint on social media over the weekend. Well, there are LOTS of complaints after the Dodgers got Tarik Skubal — complaints about the Dodgers, naturally, but also complaints about the Tigers for punting when they’re right in the pennant race, and also complaints about Atlanta and New York and Philadelphia and the Cubbies for not outbidding the Dodgers and so on.

But this complaint really had me spinning:

The reason this had me spinning is … I’m not sure the fact that the Dodgers are so committed to winning that they’re willing to put $180 million into baseball’s giant pool of money that goes right back to the owners suggests that baseball has an economic problem. And I’m not sure that the fact that the billionaires who own the other teams are unwilling to spend more — EVEN AS THEY DIVVY UP THE DODGERS’ LARGESSE — suggests that baseball has an economic problem either.

I also don’t think the fact that the San Diego Padres just sold for $4 billion suggests that baseball has an economic problem.

I also don’t think the fact that MLB in 2025 exceeded $2 billion just in sponsorships — only the NFL among North American teams has done that — suggests that baseball has an economic problem.

I also don’t think the fact that MLB is now generating more than a billion — and probably closer to $2 billion — in gambling revenues suggests that baseball has an economic problem.

I also don’t think the fact that the average net worth of baseball owners is more than $4 billion, and that if you make a million dollars a year and save every penny of it, it would take you FOUR THOUSAND YEARS to make that much money, suggests that baseball has an economic problem.

So what’s the complaint here?

It isn’t that baseball has an economic problem. Baseball is fine. Communities build ballparks for some of the richest people on earth. Fans pay exceedingly high ticket prices and somehow find the games on whatever streaming service paid the highest price and generally tolerate the grotesque gambling talk that invades the game. We do all of it because we love this crazy game. The owners know we can’t quit baseball.

So the complaint cannot be that baseball is somehow in financial straits. The complaint is that the Dodgers make more and try harder and work smarter and care more. The complaint is that the Lerner family, worth $6.4 billion, sold off their Washington World Series team part by part and now spends less on payroll than the Dodgers spend on the payroll tax, even though the District built them a baseball stadium almost entirely on taxpayer money.

The complaint is that we have been conditioned as Americans for sports socialism, where teams are compelled to spend the same amount of money.

Boy oh boy, do we love socialism in sports.

The owners will surely go to the mattresses to get their salary cap this offseason; that way, they can control player costs and keep more of the money for themselves. They’ll cloak this with lots of talk about competitive balance and fairness and the game’s economic future. It’s a tale as old as three strikes, you’re out. Sure, I get how, from another fan’s perspective, it’s frustrating to see the Dodgers deal a couple of prospects they picked up in minor trades and get TARIK SKUBAL. We got this from Brilliant Reader Eleah:

Hi Joe,

Can you please make a case for me to keep watching baseball? As a Brewers fan, seeing the inevitable news that Tarik Skubal is going to the Dodgers is so disheartening. What’s the point of watching when I know it doesn’t matter how good my team is in the regular season because we’re never going to beat the Dodgers in the playoffs? Every year feels like Lucy with the football. I love baseball, I watch the Brewers most evenings and go to multiple games. But right now I don’t even want to watch the rest of the season because I’ve already seen how this plays out. Multiple times.

Sincerely,

Eleah, the currently sad and disheartened Brewers fan

What I would tell you, Eleah, is, well, two things. One, I totally get what you’re saying, but the Brewers are so much fun to watch. Enjoy the heck out of this team. I know that we tend to pin everything on winning it all — and I’m sure that’s doubly true for Brewers fans who have never won it all — but that does make me just a little bit sad. A baseball season is 162 games for a reason. It’s a journey. It’s an odyssey. Maybe I’m alone, but I still treasure Cleveland’s 1986 season, when Brett Butler led the league in triples, and Joe Carter led the league in RBI, and Cory Snyder came on the scene, and Tom Candiotti’s knuckleball danced. Sure, they only went 84-78, and they didn’t sniff the playoffs, but it was a joy. This Brewers season is a wonderful party.

And two, and you’re a great fan, so you know this: The Brewers can beat the Dodgers. No, they’re not as good as the Dodgers; nobody is, but in a short series, with Jacob Misiorowski pitching a couple of times, you betcha the Brewers can beat the Dodgers. It’s so easy to forget that, as good as the Dodgers have been the last couple of years, they needed to win a bullpen game in San Diego to escape that series in 2024, and they needed a ninth-inning home run from Miguel Rojas in the ninth to escape Game against the Blue Jays last year.

As a Clevelander, I certainly understand that feeling of hopelessness, and I cannot tell you that it will turn out OK. The Dodgers were the best team in baseball before they got Skubal. They’re better now. But are they invincible? Heck no! The Boston Red Sox just swept them in LA. The Dodgers led off with Shohei Ohtani in each game. The Red Sox led off with Nick Sogard and Anthony Siegler. Trust the game. It’s too good for money or owners to destroy.