It was estimated the Dodgers generated over $100 million ADDITIONAL dollars from the Japanese market in Shohei's first season. They actually profited from signing him to a $70 million deal. And then add Yoshi and Roki, and they completely own that market.
Dodgers are in great shape next year. Only free agents of note are Miggy and Kike, and neither is a key member. Played key roles, but neither was leaned on for much all season. Everyone else is back. Hate to see it, but I think we let Kike walk. His regular season, and even playoff numbers, this year were below average. If we can get him on a reasonable deal, fine. Rojas has said he wants to play one more year, preferably with the Dodgers. Bring him back. And you know Friedman is going to be dealing. Oh, and they have a top 3 farm system. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/46070464/2025-mlb-prospect-rankings-update-farm-systems-30-teams-mets-dodgers-mariners
Do the Dodgers spend big money? Yes. They better the hell spend with how much they make. 4 million fans this season. Almost 600,000 more than the next highest Padres (by comparison, the A's and Rays both had less than 800,000 TOTAL for the season). But they have the best top to bottom organization- front office, ownership, scouting, governance- in baseball and it really isn't close. Usually these things run in cycles, and you'd expect them to be looking at some down years coming up. But no reason to think they can't sustain this for the foreseeable future.
(btw, happy 100 to Mel Brooks!)