🚨 JUST IN: Kyle Tucker Took the Money, the Dodgers Took the Heat—and A-Rod Isn’t Buying the Outrage ⚡ .NL

There’s criticism.
And then there’s credibility.

As the Los Angeles Dodgers continue to operate at a payroll level baseball has never truly seen before, the noise around their spending has grown louder.

Record contracts. Deferred money. A roster north of $400 million. For many fans and analysts, it’s become an easy target.

Alex Rodriguez isn’t joining them.

And that restraint may matter more than any headline.

When Kyle Tucker signed a four-year, $240 million deal with the Dodgers—setting a modern AAV record even after deferrals—the reaction was predictable.

Questions about competitive balance. Complaints about “buying titles.” Frustration that Los Angeles keeps finding soft markets and exploiting them.

Rodriguez understands the frustration. He just doesn’t share it.

Speaking to Sportico, the former Yankees superstar refused to criticize either Tucker or the Dodgers, calling such criticism hypocritical—especially coming from anyone who lived through the Yankees’ own spending eras.

He would know.

Rodriguez wasn’t just a beneficiary of big money. He was the standard-bearer.

In December 2000, his 10-year, $252 million deal with the Texas Rangers shattered records and redefined athlete compensation.

Seven years later, he reset the market again with a $275 million contract from the Yankees. At the time, those numbers felt destabilizing. Excessive. Unfair.

History didn’t agree.

A-Rod knows what it’s like to sign a contract so large it becomes a referendum on your character. He knows what it’s like when expectations turn into pressure, and pressure turns into resentment.

That’s why his response to Tucker wasn’t defensive—it was empathetic.

Players have short windows. They don’t control markets. They respond to them.

Rodriguez also understands the other side of this equation: ownership.

The Dodgers’ structure—deferrals included—has drawn scrutiny, but it’s entirely legal within the CBA. Other teams can do it. Many choose not to. That distinction matters.

Blaming the Dodgers for using tools everyone has access to says more about the league than the team.

Rodriguez didn’t just defend the Dodgers’ approach—he praised it.

He pointed to owners Mark Walter and Todd Boehly as models of how modern franchises should be run: invest heavily, build trust with fans, and let winning justify the cost.

That’s not ideology. That’s experience talking.

Rodriguez has lived every version of this story.

The Rangers couldn’t sustain his deal and traded him. The Yankees absorbed it and doubled down. The backlash came either way. The money was always the headline. The nuance never was.

Now, the Dodgers are living that reality.

They didn’t hide their ambition. They didn’t apologize for it. They saw a market inefficiency, acted decisively, and built a roster designed to win immediately.

Kyle Tucker didn’t break the system. He followed it.

The discomfort surrounding the Dodgers’ payroll isn’t about rules—it’s about outcomes. When spending aligns with winning, the criticism intensifies. When it fails, it fades.

Rodriguez won’t pretend otherwise.

Because if anyone understands that the loudest outrage usually comes from outside the arena, it’s someone who stood in the middle of it for two decades.

The Dodgers will keep spending.
The league will keep watching.
And Alex Rodriguez will keep doing the one thing critics won’t:

Admitting that success, not money, is what really bothers people.