The Dodgers are in the NLCS again, and nobody watching was surprised. That's the problem with October right now. Los Angeles beat the Braves 4-1 in Game 4 of the NLDS at Truist Park on Wednesday. Andy Pages punched a two-run single through in the seventh, Max Muncy added his 19th career postseason homer, and Edwin Díaz closed it out in the ninth. The result felt written in advance. This is L.A.'s third straight trip to the pennant round, on the heels of back-to-back World Series titles and a sweep of the Brewers in last year's NLCS. You can set your calendar to it.
The Dodgers have built a financial structure no other franchise can match, and the sport is fine with it. Their total tax payroll sits above $430 million for 2026, first in MLB. The Yankees are the only club besides the Mets within $100 million of them. The Phillies, fourth in the sport at $312.7 million, trail Los Angeles by more than $100 million. Against an Atlanta team nowhere near that number, the margin for error only ran one way.
The players aren't pretending otherwise, either. Manny Machado, who has to game-plan against this roster, said of the Dodgers' spending: "I f---ing love it... I think every team should be doing it. They've figured out a way to do it, and it's f---ing great for the game." That's a rival throwing up his hands at an arms race he can't enter.
The league deserves the anger here. The Dodgers are playing the rules exactly as written, and the rules let an owner with Guggenheim's money build a roster nobody else can touch. The luxury tax works like a toll, and Mark Walter is happy to pay it on his way past everyone else. The blame belongs to the league office that bargained a structure with no real ceiling and then acts shocked when one team lives in the penthouse. MLB built this predictability and keeps it on the shelf.
Money doesn't win short series by itself. The Diamondbacks swept these same Dodgers out of the 2023 NLDS, and that's still the last time anyone ended a Dodgers season. This NLDS went four games, with a Game 2 loss and stretches where the offense stalled. Shohei Ohtani dropped to fifth in the order by Game 3 after a miserable run at the plate. Opponents keep getting chances to knock Los Angeles out, and they keep failing.
But look at how the Dodgers still advanced. Their biggest star spent most of the series in a slump, and it barely mattered. Ohtani drew a walk and stole a base in Game 4, scored the first run, and let the depth behind him do the rest, with Freddie Freeman and Kiké Hernández supplying the pop in Game 3. When your superstar goes quiet for a week and you still win three of four, it comes down to a bench and a bullpen other teams would start outright.
Dave Roberts now sits alone in second on the all-time list for manager postseason wins, trailing only Joe Torre, and over the last three Octobers his team has been nearly impossible to beat on the road. The Dodgers will host the Padres or travel to the Brewers starting Sunday. Either way, you already have a hunch how it goes.
That hunch is the whole indictment. Baseball sold the postseason as the one place money gets humbled, then handed one team enough of it to make the humbling optional.
