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Passan: Why a Dodgers-Brewers NLCS could define MLB's labor battle
The winner of the National League Championship Series could determine whether Major League Baseball is played in 2027.
This might sound far-fetched. It is not. What looks like a best-of-seven baseball series, which starts Monday as the Milwaukee Brewers host the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1, will play out as a proxy of the coming labor war between MLB and the MLB Players Association.
Owners across the game want a salary cap — and if the Dodgers, with their record $500 million-plus payroll, win back-to-back World Series, it will only embolden the league's push to regulate salaries. The Brewers, consistently a bottom-third payroll team, emerging triumphant would serve as the latest evidence that winners can germinate even in the game's smallest markets and that the failures of other low-revenue teams have less to do with spending than execution.
MLB playoffs 2025: Dodgers vs. Brewers lineups, news, live updates for Game 1 of the NLCS
On paper, it's easy to sell the National League Championship Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers. It's David vs. Goliath. It's the "average Joes" vs. the best team money can buy. It's Joey Ortiz vs. Mookie Betts.
But that's not how the regular season played out. Given the Dodgers' spending acumen and superstar players, it's easy to assume they are far and away the better team entering the NLCS. The regular season said otherwise. The Brewers, for all their limitations, won an MLB-high 97 games, earning the No. 1 seed in the National League.
Whether Milwaukee's run of success can continue against a Dodgers team full of superstars remains to be seen. While Milwaukee was a perfect 6-0 against Los Angeles in the regular season, the Dodgers were never really at full strength until the playoffs. Now fully operational, will the Dodgers roll the team with the smaller payroll?
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Brewers announce Ashby to start NLCS Game 1
MILWAUKEE — The Brewers were able to bullpen their way through two of the five games of their NLDS triumph over the Cubs thanks to off-days between Games 1 and 2, 2 and 3 and 4 and 5. Such is the current state of Milwaukee’s pitching, even coming off a first-round bye.
Now the club faces an entirely different challenge against the Dodgers in the NLCS. It’s a best-of-seven series this time, with only two days off. It presents “a huge challenge,” said manager Pat Murphy, and that’s before you even think about the hitters in L.A.’s lineup.
Asked how they would get through it, Brewers starter Quinn Priester simplified things.
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