Starting on Monday night, the Los Angeles Dodgers will host the Miami Marlins in a three-game series, and it will be a battle between two teams at opposite ends of the MLB hierarchy.

Yes, there is the obvious factor that the Dodgers are a super team who won the World Series last year. On the other hand, the Marlins are…well, let’s just say that they are a ways off from being an average team, much less a juggernaut like the Dodgers.

That’s the obvious storyline, but there’s another intriguing one that directly correlates to how much success each team is experiencing. 

Los Angeles currently has the third-highest payroll in the MLB, while the Marlins have the lowest. Evidently, this means that this will be a series between two teams that have the highest payroll disparity in modern pro baseball history.

A $406.5 million difference? Any chance I could get a slice of that? By the way, no other sport has come even remotely close to that.

The Dodgers got that high by having a $326 million payroll and a $150 million luxury tax. Miami’s $69 million obviously doesn’t come with a luxury tax.

It’s easy to say that this level of disparity is a sign of a system that allows rich teams to take advantage of and something the MLB needs to address. After all, if any one team could buy all these good players, that makes it unfair for everyone else.

Read: Cheap Miami Marlins Could Face Investigation For Lack Of Spending

I get that, I really do. However, buying good players doesn’t always guarantee titles. Teams can make huge player investments and not get good results (see the 2011 Red Sox). 

Furthermore, there is nothing stopping Miami from expanding their payroll to get some solid players on the roster. Instead, the Marlins’ ownership chooses to be cheap, and as a result, the team flounders in the basement of its division and near the bottom of the MLB as a whole.

Miami will need to swing for the fences to turn its team around. If they don’t, they’ll be easy fodder for teams like the Dodgers.