Conventional Wisdom

The dollar amounts differ according to source, but the Dodgers rate as having the highest payroll in all of baseball this season. According to the AP back in April, the Yankees and Mets placed second and third, respectively, while the Astros ranked seventh and the Braves fourteenth. Going into the NLCS, the Dodgers had been season-long favorites to return to the World Series; their trade-deadline pickups of Matt Scherzer and Trea Turner only increased a sense of inevitability. If memory serves, MLB.com all but anointed the Dodgers a super team heading into August. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but MLB.com is taking over from the front cover of Sports Illustrated, curse-wise, that is. Anyway, the Braves beat the Dodgers in six to advance to the Fall—and Winter—Classic, and that makes me happy, sort of. This is going to be an all-Confederacy Series where one team is made up of cheaters while the other is backed by fans who love their racist little chop. So, there’s that. And I don’t want to come off as a lapdog for a thrifty front office, not if the payroll savings go straight into the pocket of ownership. But according to a September story in The Athletic, the Braves rank sixteenth in this season’s fan cost index (the Astros are a surprising third behind the Red Sox and Cubs). So, at least some of that money saved was being shared with fans when they went to games, and that’s a good thing. When I first started playing Strat-O-Matic, along with the White Sox I liked the Braves, for all their power up and down the lineup; I had a thing for Mack Jones and Gene Oliver. Those memories together with a fan-friendly ticket structure will have me rooting for the National League, if just this one time.