The Los Angeles Dodgers are a complete mess right now, from top to bottom.
Frank and Jamie McCourt's battle over the ownership of the team has been well documented, with recent news that further hints a potential sale of the club in the near future.
And even with the tumultuous ownership situation, the Dodgers continue to spend money. LA ranked 11th in the majors in 2010 with a $94.9 million payroll, and has made a flurry of moves so far this offseason.
Unfortunately, a few of those moves have been lauded by several analysts as some of the worst moves of the month — and the winter meetings are not even over. Juan Uribe's three-year, $21 million deal is bad enough, but giving $3.25 million to 35-year-old, overweight catcher Rod Barajas is downright laughable.
The Dodgers need a change at the top, and with the sale of the team pending, there's only one person that comes to mind right away as the man for the job.
Mark Cuban has been vying for the ownership of a baseball team for several years now, and the Dodgers would be the perfect fit.
Cuban, the owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, has everything you'd want in the proprietor of a Los Angeles franchise. He's brash, cocky, friends with dozens of celebrities and, most importantly, willing to spend money. Put it this way: if the NBA didn't have a salary cap, Cuban probably would have gotten LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh to join Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd in Dallas — and he wouldn't have broken a sweat doing it.
Even though the Dodgers are supposedly loaded with talent — Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier are (or were, at least) two of the hottest young players in the league – they simply haven't been able to get it done. After two straight NLCS losses to the Phillies in 2008 and 2009, Los Angeles collapsed in 2010, winning just 80 games and falling out of the race by late August.
With Cuban, they'd have an owner who holds his players and staff accountable. His track record with the Mavericks speaks for itself. Dallas has made the playoffs in each of Cuban's 10 seasons owning the team, and has won a whopping 69 percent of its regular season games. Granted, the Mavs haven't won a championship in that time, but much of that has to do with a guy they like to call Kobe Bryant.
When Cuban took over the Mavericks, the team had a 40 percent winning percentage in its 20 prior years of existence. Imagine the kind of growth he could produce for an MLB franchise, one that is not hampered by salary restrictions.
Do you think Mark Cuban should buy the Dodgers when the McCourts are inevitably foced to sell? Leave your thoughts below.
