When Stan Kasten was president of the Atlanta Braves – during 12 of their unparalleled run of 14 consecutive division championships – he was among the hardest of hard-line owners and executives. Along with such owners as Bud Selig and Jerry Reinsdorf, Kasten fought hard for a payroll cap, the issue that triggered the players’ 234-day strike and led to the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
Today Kasten presides over the costliest collection of baseball talent ever assembled in a major league clubhouse. According to Ron Blum of the Associated Press, who has established credibility with his years of reporting salaries, the Los Angeles Dodgers opened the season with a payroll of $272.8 million. George Steinbrenner, whom other owners often accused of singlehandedly inflating salaries, would never have dreamed of a number like that.
The amount is also more than Kasten’s chief baseball executive, Andrew Friedman, spent in his last four years combined as the Tampa Bay Rays’ general manager.
I would like to have talked with the 38-year-old Friedman about the change in his spending style, but Joe Jareck, the Dodgers’ public relations director, said in an e-mail that Friedman was not available Friday. That’s a well-worn euphemism meaning he wouldn’t be talking to me.
Kasten, on the other hand, overcame laryngitis in time to talk about what he has done in three years as the Dodgers’ president. What he declined to talk about was his role in the 1994 labor talks and why he has a decidedly different economic outlook today.
“I can’t tell you,” he said on the telephone. “There is a difference, but you’re asking me about collective bargaining and we can’t talk about collective bargaining.”
Kasten was alluding to the commissioner’s ban on public comments by owners and other management officials during negotiations, but I’m not aware of any prohibition on talk 20 years later.
In 1994, owners were determined to get a cap on payrolls and were willing to accept a strike to attain their goal. They completely underestimated the players’ resolve to resist a cap, tried to change the work rules and saw their questionable tactics rejected first by the National Labor Relations Board and then by a Federal judge, Sonia Sotomayor.
My favorite moment of the March 30, 1995 hearing before Judge Sotomayor was her remark as she took the bench. “The only thing I know about this case,” she said, “is what I’ve read in The New York Times.”
She quickly learned a lot more from the union’s excellent lawyer, George Cohen, enough to issue an injunction blocking the owners from changing the rules, and the players went back to work, allowing the 1995 season to begin. Sotomayor subsequently went on to the United States Supreme Court, where she sits today 20 years after her pivotal decision.
Kasten left the Braves after the 2003 season, served nearly five years as president of the Washington Nationals after they moved from Montreal, then joined the Guggenheim group in the $2 billion purchase of the Dodgers, who had been mismanaged by Frank McCourt.
Besides the eye-opening price Guggenheim was willing to pay for the Dodgers, including an additional $150 million for the Dodger Stadium parking lots, the prospective buyers had an extra advantage – Kasten’s long-time close relationship with Selig, who had to approve the new owners. Extended time in the labor trenches can create friendly fellows.
Selig, who has been commissioner emeritus since he retired Jan. 25, did not respond directly to a request to talk about Kasten, his involvement in the 1994 labor war and his emergence as the wild-spending president of the Dodgers. A spokesman said Selig couldn’t talk to me in time for this column.
However, a lawyer who has known Kasten since his entry into baseball in the 1980s, said of his expensive economic exploits in Los Angeles, “It’s not Stan’s money; it never has been. Stan isn’t spending his money. He never has.”
It seems obvious that Kasten has changed his financial philosophy because his Guggeheim Capital boss, Mark Walter, has told him to do what he has to do for the Dodgers to win.
When Kasten and friends assumed control of the Dodgers April 30, 2012, the team’s payroll was $95 million. At the end of the season, the payroll was $129 million, primarily the result of a nine-player trade with Boston that brought the Dodgers Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett.
The payroll kept escalating. It was $217 million on opening day 2013 and rose to $237 million at the end of the season. The Dodgers, of course, kept on signing free agents. Before that season they signed Zack Greinke to a 6-year, $147 million contract.
They began the 2014 season with a $235 million payroll and ended it at $257 million. Then came this season’s all-time major league high $273 million. Who knows where the Dodgers’ payroll will end this season?
Flashing their intention to use all means available to build a World Series winner, the Dodgers have roamed the world seeking talent. They have signed a South Korean pitcher, Hyun-Jin Ryu (6 years, $36 million) and Cubans outfielder Yasiel Puig (7 years $42 million), second baseman Alex Guerrero (4 years, $28 million) and infielder Hector Olivera (6 years, $62.5 million).
The Dodgers haven’t ignored their own. Fifteen months ago Clayton Kershaw received a 7-year, $215 million contract, which included a $1 million bonus if he won the Cy Young award, which he did for the third time. He also won the National League most valuable player award, for which he received no bonus.
Kershaw, however, lost two games to St. Louis with a 7.82 earned run average in the division playoff series, and Kasten’s Dodgers are still seeking a path to the World Series.
“We want to build for the long term,” Kasten said, “but we understood in our market we had to produce a quality product right away. This market provides resources to do both at the same time.”
While the Dodgers have spent more lavishly than any team, even the New York Yankees, has, Kasten said, “We have a great interest in returning to the Dodgers’ roots, to scouting and player development. We have made that our focus. We want to be a younger team. We didn’t want to wait until we were an older team.”
As for the astronomical size of the payroll, Kasten said, “We don’t focus on payroll because I don’t think that determines winning or losing. I don’t focus on payroll as an issue. I focus on the type of team we put together. It depends on the people you have and your decisions.”
With that idea in mind, Kasten has also spent money in bulking up the front office. He lured Friedman from Tampa Bay, enhancing his title from general manager to 
president of baseball operations and giving him a 5-year, $35 million contract. The Dodgers also hired Farhan Zaidi from Oakland to be general manager with a specialty in analytics and added Josh Byrnes, who lost his job as San Diego general manager, to be vice president of baseball operations.
With the huge payroll and the bulked up front office, I suggested to Kasten, it would seem that money is not a consideration.
“I would not say money is not a consideration,” he said.
Although the 63-year-old Kasten wouldn’t talk about his position in the 1994 labor negotiations, he disagreed with the idea that the Braves didn’t spend money when he ran the club.
“I remember busting John,” he said, referring to John Schuerholz, the Atlanta general manager. “We led in payroll at times in the National League. The American League always spent more money than the National.”
According to payroll data from the commissioner’s office that I have accumulated over the years, the Braves had the N.L.’s biggest payroll under Kasten for four consecutive years, from 1995 through ’98. Their payroll continued to climb in Kasten’s final five years as president but not by as much as the payrolls of some other N.L. clubs.
WRONG APPROACH TO A-ROD
The New York Yankees can’t get it right with Alex Rodriguez. When they had a chance to be done with him – before they knew about his steroids use – they re-signed him to an absurd 10-year, $275 million contract. Now, too late, they are stuck with him and the $61 million they owe him for the next three years and possibly an additional $30 million in bonuses based on a home run marketing plan. They deserve everything they have to pay.
In their desperate desire to avoid paying him anything, they approached the season with a ridiculous approach. In spring training general manager Brian Cashman and manager Joe Girardi adopted the approach with reporters that Rodriguez, coming back from a season’s suspension and approaching the age of 40, would have to earn a job. He would have to show them that he could play.
Like him or not, the Yankees are so impotent offensively that they need Rodriguez and should have been speaking positively about the contribution he could make. But instead of seeking the runs he might produce, they wanted him to show he couldn’t play so whatever insurance they have on him would pay his salary.
Here they are through the first week of the season and Rodriguez has been one of their best hitters. Of course, he hasn’t played or batted enough for Girardi to know if he is good for the season, and his 8 strikeouts in his first 18 at-bats could be a bad sign.
But given what the other hitters have shown, the Yankees’ brain trust has to be hoping Rodriguez, with more at-bats, will improve his timing and make contact more frequently. The manager and the coaches might even pat him on the back occasionally and offer an encouraging word or two.
Rodriguez is an athlete, which means he has an ego. No telling what stroking it might do.