Latest Dodgers' Mark Walter drama gives Cubs and Tom Ricketts long-desired cover

Baseball fans who've been critical of the Los Angeles Dodgers' status as a financial juggernaut are now circling like sharks in the water. Several businesses affiliated with team owner Mark Walter are the subject of an ongoing investigation - and this spotlight has pulled the curtain back on the billionaire's vast empire.

If you want to really get into the weeds, there's a great piece in The Athletic (subscription required) that goes into great detail. But if you just want the high-level outline, it's this: two of Walter's insurance companies are under federal investigation from the US Attorney's Office and the Security and Exchange Commission. At the heart of it is billions of dollars in undisclosed related-party loans.

In the United States, you have to disclose these types of loans with businesses that are affiliated (in this case, Walter is the thread woven throughout them all). The idea is that, by disclosing them, there's a safeguard against conflicts of interest. The investigation has included the Dodgers organization itself, given there are direct loans between those insurance companies and Dodgers affiliated entities.

Walter is no longer (nor should he ever have been) able to move money from his insurance firms into his sports ventures, including the Dodgers. The team's seemingly unlimited ability to outspend the field could be at a sudden end - or, at the very least, ownership will be under a microscopre for the time being.

Tom Ricketts was right: the Cubs can't operate under the Dodgers' model

All this vindicates owners like Tom Ricketts, who has maintained for years that the Chicago Cubs cannot operate under the Dodgers' model. A large (and vocal) chunk of the fanbase has repeatedly scoffed at Ricketts' comments, believing them to be little more than sticking to a small-market mindset that's seemed to handcuff the team at times in recent years.

Those criticisms quieted after the Alex Bregman signing last winter, but the point remains. Pending the outcome of these investigations, Ricketts was correct: the model the Dodgers operate under is not something that any team can do. And one last piece of this wildly complicated and regularly shifting puzzle? If Walter were to be forced to sell the Dodgers (as he did with his stake in the Los Angeles Lakes and is reportedly considering with his stake in Chelsea FC), Shohei Ohtani's record contract has a clause, allowing him to opt out, no questions asked.

The potential implications of these still-ongoing investigations could be far-reaching. From the Ohtani angle to the Dodgers' ability to outspend the competition into oblivion and the looming CBA negotiations, much of which are based on Los Angeles' high-dollar spending, baseball fans everywhere should be paying close attention to how this plays out.

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