The Los Angeles Dodgers have emerged as the most aggressive spenders in baseball in recent years.
The team broke a Major League Baseball record when it signed two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani to a $700 million deal, and followed that up with big moves for Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell, Tanner Scott and others. The team also pays for two planes to get their players and staff to away games and countless other amenities.
The driving force behind that spending has been Mark Walter, the team’s owner and chairman who became a billionaire after founding Guggenheim Partners in the late 1990s. After news broke that Walter was in line to purchase majority ownership of the Los Angeles Lakers, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts opened up about what it’s like to work for him.
“Sports is something that he’s very passionate about, and certainly Los Angeles sports,” Roberts said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “And I think speaking from (the perspective of) a Dodger employee, he’s very competitive.”
Roberts underscored Walter’s competitiveness as being a definitive characteristic. And he added that Walter isn’t afraid to challenge his employees when he sees an opportunity for the team to perform better.
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“It’s more challenging us always to, how do we become better and not complacent or stagnant to continue to stay current with the market and the competition to win not only now but for as far as we can see out,” Roberts added.
Given the success the Dodgers have had under Walter’s ownership, it seems that challenging nature pays off in the wins column.
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