For this year's Dodgers, it's championship or bust
When the Los Angeles Dodgers signed Shohei Ohtani back in December, I wrote that he couldn’t be the only big splash of their offseason; they needed to get greedy.
They’ve done just that.
Since landing Ohtani, the Dodgers have also signed Yoshinobu Yamamoto (widely believed to be the best pitcher in this year’s free agent class despite not throwing a single pitch in the MLB yet) to a 12-year, $325 million contract, traded for Tyler Glasnow and Manuel Margot (immediately signing a five-year, $136.5 million extension with the former), added former silver slugger and All Star Teoscar Hernandez for a year($23.5 million), and recently signed and resigned pitchers James Paxton and Ryan Brasier.
And oh yeah, Clayton Kershaw is coming back sometime this season too.
There is no question that Dodgers President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman and the Guggenheim Baseball Management group mean business this season.
Yet the only guarantee is that there are no guarantees, and money doesn’t necessarily buy you the Commissioner's Trophy when everything is said and done (just ask the New York Mets and San Diego Padres last season).
At Dodger Fest this past weekend, Dodger second baseman and 2023 MVP runner up Mookie Betts said that “every game is going to be the other teams’ World Series,” and he’s absolutely right; every team is going to want to beat the team to beat.
The Dodgers have all the tools to bring a championship back to Los Angeles. But with every new signing, rumor and article, the 29 other targets on the Dodgers names and numbers become that much more laser focused.
Despite their renewed wealth of talent, it’s going to take extreme patience, diligence, focus and commitment to bring it all home.
First of all, there needs to be less emphasis on the regular season.
I’m reminded of a quote from one of my favorite movies, Moneyball: “If we don’t win the last game of the series, they’ll dismiss us.”
The Dodgers have won an astonishing 10 National League West Division titles during their 11 consecutive postseason appearances. The one they didn’t win? It took a miraculous, herculean 107-win effort by the San Francisco Giants to unseat them (the 106-win Dodgers would come back as a wild card team to send their rival home in the divisional series regardless).
The regular season is not the issue.
Where the Dodgers falter is where it counts –under the brightest lights.
Despite a decade of post season ball, the Dodgers have only managed to bring home one World Series championship (and critics will wrongfully say it doesn’t count).
Especially in the last couple of years, the Dodgers seem to charge through from late-March through September, only to lose steam and make unexpected early exits in October.
They have to find a way to keep the momentum going, even if it means potentially pumping the breaks a bit as the post season approaches.
The Dodgers will go through rough patches. Players will get injured. Some will slump. Others may even not perform to expectations.
That’s baseball.
Part of the Dodgers strength lies in their incredible talent pool and seemingly endless depth; get past Betts, Ohtani, and Freddie Freeman, you’re still looking down the barrel of Will Smith, Teoscar Hernandez, Max Muncy, Jason Heyward, James Outman, and Gavin Lux (not to mention all the rookies and prospects chomping at the bit to make their mark).
As sure as the sun rises, you can almost assuredly bet that the Dodgers will take care of business during the regular season and punch their ticket to October. They just need to be ready when they get there.
Speaking of being ready for October, let's talk about the Trade Deadline.
You probably think I’m a bit nuts to be thinking about the trade deadline before Spring Training, but I have reasoning for it.
I knew the season was lost last year when the Dodgers whiffed at the Trade Deadline.
With pitching already on shaky legs, the Dodgers biggest accomplishment at last year’s deadline was grabbing Joe Kelly, and even that, admittedly, was more of a sentimental, morale win more than anything. Friedman and manager Dave Roberts understandably tried to play it off, confident in what the organization saw as talent they had coming back from injury.
Shortly thereafter, pitching crumbled, reinforcements never arrived, and the Dodgers found themselves with only a shell of a rotation heading into an eventual sweep by the division rival Arizona Diamondbacks.
Naturally, we don’t currently have any clue what teams will be thinking by then; who’s selling, who's buying, there still is a lot of ball that needs to be played before we figure that out.
Still, come the deadline this year, the Dodgers need to approach it with the same hunger and aggressiveness that they had this offseason. Roll with the punches that the season brings you, yes, but don’t be afraid to actively address an issue as well; no prospect or player should be safe.
Despite where they may be in the standings, the Dodgers can not afford to sit in a state of comfort and whiff when the teams around them will be playing catchup and pushing to improve.
Ultimately though, it comes to the players on the field, and despite all the success up to this point, something has to give.
Every player needs to play like they have something to prove, because they do.
The Dodgers are a should-be dynasty; the fact that they’ve only won one World Series (and in a shortened season, no less) is nothing more than a head scratcher.
While the flurry of roster activity is exciting for fans, the Dodgers have effectively painted themselves into a corner.
They are “those guys,” so now they have to be “those guys.”
The chips are all on the table; Los Angeles, its ownership, its team, and its fans are all all-in, and they need to cash out sooner rather than later.
Anything short of blackjack, of a royal flush, of a World Series Championship, is a total bust.