Los Angeles Payroll

The Dodgers owe it to their fans to have a high payroll in 2009 to accommodate the addition of star players (by projected performance, not reputation) through free agency. Last season LA donated a large chunk of their supply of quality up-and-coming players to franchises willing to pay the salaries of the players they were giving up. This was an effort to make a playoff run with a team in no particular position to think it would be successful in the playoffs (which is not to say they were in a particular position to be unsuccessful in the playoffs). The move amounted to a coalition of a win-now-or-likely-get-fired GM with a make-more-money-in-the-immediate-future ownership, neither caring particularly about how to account for the future value being given up. I hated the moves, although of course they looked much worse because of the myriad of failed Colletti-McCourt moves that they followed.

The Dodgers simply must fund a top-caliber team. McCourt is trading the franchise's capital for gains in the balance sheet (in essence, gains for his personal supply of capital); the burden is on him to return what has been taken from the fans by emptying those coffers.