When It Comes To The Marlins And Dodgers, The Gap Is So Much More Than Payroll
An IBWAA member compares and contrasts the organizational states of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Miami Marlins
IBWAA members love to write about baseball. So much so, we've decided to create our own newsletter about it! Subscribe to Here's the Pitch to expand your love of baseball, discover new voices, and support independent writing. Original content six days a week, straight to your inbox and straight from the hearts of baseball fans.
Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
. . . The 2025 Los Angeles Dodgers have four team members who have won an MVP award. Incredibly, this is the fourth time in the last five seasons that the Dodgers’ roster contained four MVPs. No major league squad has contained more, but the current Dodgers run constitutes half of the eight occurrences in MLB history with four MVPs on the same roster.
. . . The 1978 Cincinnati Reds with George Foster, Joe Morgan, Pete Rose, and Johnny Bench were the first recorded team with four MVPs. This season includes two of the eight occurrences, with the Dodgers and Yankees both rostering four former MVPs, and the trend to have multiple MVPs on one roster has become a trend in modern baseball. Five of the eight times a team had four MVPs on the roster have been since 2021.
Leading Off
When It Comes To The Marlins And Dodgers, The Gap Is So Much More Than Payroll
By Sean Millerick
Just this past Monday, I had the chance to check off another stadium in my quest to see all thirty MLB ballparks by taking in a clash between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Miami Marlins. And as I sat there soaking in my twenty-sixth ballpark, two thoughts occurred to me. The first was obviously when will I check off the twenty-seventh? The other? Simply this:
The Marlins have a long, long way to go to be the Dodgers.
Stop the presses, right? Not exactly the kind of hard-hitting analysis you were looking for?
Completely fair takes if the goal of this piece was going to be bringing about a salary cap in baseball, or some kind of serious payroll reform. It’s a cause the Marlins are doing themselves no favors in bringing about, as I wrote last month in this very newsletter. Just this past week, The Athletic ran an article spelling out the absurd $476 million to $69 million gap in payroll between the two clubs. While that is a problem that needs addressing, it’s only part of the problem the Marlins face on their uphill climb to being regularly relevant in the standings.
Certainly, it is part of it. My wife does not care much for baseball, and she still managed to recognize more names on the Dodgers than the Marlins. Having three future first-ballot Hall of Famers at the top of the lineup, with one of the most popular athletes in the world leading off, will tend to do that. While the talent gap is impossible to miss, the current MLB talent gap is only part of the problem, though.
No, what kept jumping out to me was how nearly every single other aspect of the game experience was just as much of a polar opposite as the team’s respective playoff chances.
Dodger Stadium is one of the game’s great gems, built into a hillside and imbued with a deep, successful history. The Marlins’ home, loanDepot Park? Admittedly, there isn’t much the Marlins can do about unique topography, and loanDepot does have a pretty nice view in its own right. But a storied history? While that was true of the football stadium the Marlins knocked down to build it, it hasn’t really been the case for the home of Marlins baseball these past thirteen years. It’s a fine park, but it’s unlikely to ever be a must-see destination on its own merits.
Putting curb appeal aside, though, let’s just dive into the in-game atmosphere.
Food, drink, etc.? All elite, top five that I’ve encountered. Yet it goes beyond that.
This past Monday night, albeit with a very popular Japanese Heritage Night promotion helping to bring people in, the Dodgers drew an announced crowd of over 48,000. On a weeknight, while kids are still in school, against a below .500 team that wasn’t even a division rival, and wasn’t fielding a superstar. I can think of very few regular season games I’ve attended, be they at loanDepot, at Joe Robbie*, or any of the other ballparks I have been to that matched the energy I saw from those Dodgers fans. Heck, my wife and I were clapping and dancing along…and were very much rooting for the visitors.
Meanwhile, the Marlins have only had four weeknight crowds clear 10,000. Four, and those games are entirely comprised of an Opening Day showdown between Sandy Alcantara and Paul Skenes that Miami’s front office promoted more heavily then cable sports networks currently promote sports betting, and then a series against the Mets where the New York expats traditionally outnumber Marlins fans.
Put another way, heading into Wednesday afternoon, the Dodgers had fewer games with under 50,000 fans in attendance than Miami had over 15,000.
Again, the bulk of this crowd was there to watch the game too. At the very least, to passionately support their home team and the stars on it. Chants and cheers and intros specially tailored to multiple players. Immaculate work from their organist too, who was so good that I actually looked up their name (Dieter Ruehle).
To some, this could come off as unfair. After all, these are the defending champs we’re talking about, and I’m comparing them to a team that lost 100 games last year. Yet I went to similarly lopsided home matchups for the Marlins in 1998 and 2004, and have been to plenty of important division showdowns featuring elite pitcher duels throughout the years for contending Marlins teams. Rarely, if ever, have they matched the energy I saw Monday night outside of late October contests.
That’s not just about the money. It’s about years of goodwill and trust. Years if not decades of belief that winning is the primary business of the home nine, and not just the bottom line.
The Dodgers have that and then some.
The Marlins? It’s gonna be a steeper climb than Chavez Ravine to get to that place.
Sean Millerick is a diehard Miami Marlins fan but still finds cause for hope every Spring Training. He currently writes for @MarlinManiac. You can find him on Twitter, or whatever Elon wants to call it, @miasportsminute.
Extra Innings
The Marlins open their second series in two weeks with the Dodgers. From April 28-30, the Dodgers outscored Miami 34-15. The Marlins led MLB heading into Sunday’s action with 6.19 runs allowed per game. Without the series against the Dodgers, Miami’s runs allowed drops by half a run per game. The Marlins do lead MLB with 145 team walks and have the lowest strikeout-to-walk ratio in the league at 1.71.
Max Meyer has been a positive part of the rotation this season in his first full season in the majors:
I was unimpressed with Dodger Stadium. When you look beyond the left field wall it has the appeal of a strip mine. It was nothing special for me. Fans don’t turn out in Miami for the same reason as Pittsburgh, I would imagine. If ownership is not going to invest in talent, then why go? I can understand and frankly, when I watch Pittsburgh games, it seems like there are more visiting fans. Why not? Good seats are available. As long as baseball declines a salary cap, this will continue and/or ownership will change. They can always divide the league into Division 1 and 2, similar to college athletics.
Seems it’s time to move the Marlins out of Florida. Bad team, crappy payroll, poor attendance, too bad they redid the stadium.