Then, on the eve of the Winter Meetings, the Dodgers made a surprise acquisition, signing outfielder Michael Conforto on a one-year, $17 million. That same night, it was reported reliever Blake Treinen was returning to Los Angeles on a two-year, $22 million deal.

Yankees chairman Hal Steinbrenner responded to the Dodgers' run of recent signings, which has pushed them up to a projected 2025 payroll upwards of $375 million, in an interview with YES Network's Meredith Marakovits. His answer was something you'd expect to hear from a small-market team, rather than baseball's financial titan of the past century.