Jeff Passan Somehow Claims Dodgers-Brewers Series Could Determine Future Of Baseball

The Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers are playing in this year's National League Championship Series. In theory, that creates high enough stakes for both teams. The Dodgers are trying to become the first repeat World Series winners since the New York Yankees from 1998-2000. For the Brewers, they're trying to reach their first World Series since 1982, and ultimately win the organization's first ever title.

But according to a new report from ESPN's Jeff Passan, the two teams aren't just playing for a National League pennant and the right to play in the World Series, they're also playing for the very future of the sport itself. Seriously.

"The winner of the National League Championship Series could determine whether Major League Baseball is played in 2027," Passan wrote to start his article. 

"This might sound far-fetched. It is not," he continues. "What looks like a best-of-seven baseball series, which starts Monday as the Milwaukee Brewers host the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1, will play out as a proxy of the coming labor war between MLB and the MLB Players Association."

What now? 

MILWAUKEE - Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Blake Snell walks back to the dugout after the sixth inning against the Milwaukee Brewers during game one of the NLCS round for the 2025 MLB playoffs at American Family Field on Oct. 13, 2025. Photo: Benny Sieu-Imagn Images

MLB Lockout Shouldn't Be Based Off Dodgers-Brewers Outcome

Passan's argument is essentially that if the Dodgers, with their high payroll, beat the Brewers, who consistently run lower-tier payrolls, the league office and owners will argue that the sport needs a salary cap.

"Owners across the game want a salary cap -- and if the Dodgers, with their record $500 million-plus payroll, win back-to-back World Series, it will only embolden the league's push to regulate salaries," he wrote. "The Brewers, consistently a bottom-third payroll team, emerging triumphant would serve as the latest evidence that winners can germinate even in the game's smallest markets and that the failures of other low-revenue teams have less to do with spending than execution."

First, it's important to note that the Dodgers do not have a $500 million-plus payroll. That's factually inaccurate. The Dodgers total payroll for 2025, per Sportrac, is $350 million. So how did Passan get to $500 million? Because the Dodgers are spending an estimated $150 million on luxury tax penalties. That's obviously a benefit afforded to them because of their market size, revenues and having the game's most marketable player, Shohei Ohtani, on their roster. 

But luxury tax penalties are not payroll. It's money that's sent to the league office, which is then used partially for player benefits and retirement accounts. The vast majority of it though, is redistributed to smaller market, lower revenue teams. One of the reasons for the wide disparity in payrolls is that those smaller-market teams, particularly the Brewers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Athletics, and Miami Marlins, do not reinvest those distributions into signing more players. They pocket the money, then tell their fans that they simply can't afford to add even mid-tier free agents.

Regardless, there are several other issues with Passan's argument.

If the league is going to tell the MLB Players Association that the outcome of a single series is the determining factor in whether they push for a game-changing salary cap, they're going to lose that battle. Players aren't stupid. They saw the outcome of the regular season, in which the Humble Average Joe Midwestern Farmer Brewers won four more games than the high-priced Dodgers. They know how revenue sharing works. They know that while fans love hearing excuses from cheap billionaire owners, there's plenty of money available for small- market teams to sign at least one middle-tier free agent to a bigger deal.

Heck, the Padres, who play in one of baseball's smallest markets, had a top-10 payroll this year, per Sportrac. They were ahead of big market teams like the Chicago Cubs, Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Angels, and just $2 million behind the Atlanta Braves and $10 million behind the Texas Rangers. San Diego's ownership has spent money, had success, and as a result, built a loyal fanbase that sells out most games. What a surprise.

Beyond those issues, focusing on Brewers-Dodgers ignores that three of the four remaining teams in this year's MLB Playoffs do not come from the list of traditional big market powerhouses. 

On the AL side, you have the Toronto Blue Jays and Seattle Mariners. No Yankees, No Red Sox. Toronto and Seattle. On the NL side, the Brewers are one of baseball's cheapest teams. To the point where former closer Josh Hader refused to pitch multiple innings in appearances after hearing his team use his weaker performance in those outings against him in arbitration in order to save money. They're in the NLCS for the second time since 2018, after securing the best record in baseball, a number one seed, and home field advantage throughout the playoffs. They did this after trading Devin Williams, and letting star shortstop Willy Adames sign with the big market San Francisco Giants. Who then promptly missed the playoffs. 

So, because one of the four teams left is a big market, big-spending team, the entire construction of Major League Baseball needs to change? We're all just going to forget that the New York Mets missed the postseason after signing Juan Soto to a $765 million contract? Or that they also missed the playoffs in 2023 after spending $350 million on payroll, nearly $70 million more than the next highest team? That just gets ignored because the Dodgers are better at spending money wisely and supplanting it with cheaper talent? 

This isn't even really Passan's fault. But it's indicative of how the league, its owners and some fans have turned to inaccurate arguments designed to solve a problem that doesn't exist. The NFL has a salary cap, and the Chiefs have played in five of the last six Super Bowls. There's been just three different organizations to even reach the Super Bowl from the AFC since 2017, the Patriots, Chiefs and Bengals. The one-year Bengals aberration is the only outlier in that time frame, as the Patriots or Chiefs have appeared in eight of the last nine Super Bowls.

Meanwhile, 30 percent of the league's teams have made the World Series since 2018. The Blue Jays or Mariners will make 11 of 30, and if the Brewers come back and beat the Dodgers, which is still a very realistic outcome, that would be 12 of 30 teams, or 40 percent. The Mets have wildly outspent every other team over the last four seasons, and haven't made the World Series once. That's actual competitive balance, not what the NFL's salary cap creates. 

And what happens if the Mariners win the World Series? Do we admit that spending money can't buy championships? That sometimes randomness, variance, and the inherently small gap between teams makes postseason baseball unpredictable? Of course not, we'll just move on to complaining about whoever the Dodgers sign in the offseason, while ignoring that a significant portion of the league's owners don't care if they win or lose.