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LOS ANGELES–During the Los Angeles Dodgers\u2019 October rampage to the NL pennant, the defending World Series champions have actually been the dark eminence that many baseball people have long feared they would become.<\/p>\n
The Dodgers are 9-1 in the postseason \u2014 and they\u2019ve looked like a juggernaut while doing it, with near-flawless starting pitching and a deep, resilient lineup producing key hits and electrifying highlights.\u00a0They swept the Milwaukee Brewers\u00a0out of the NL Championship Series with a 5-1 victory Friday night featuring\u00a0an iconic three-homer, 10-strikeout performance\u00a0by Shohei Ohtani, their $700 million superstar.<\/p>\n
The Dodgers beat the Yankees\u00a0to win it all last year, and they\u2019re headed back to the World Series on Friday with a chance to become MLB\u2019s first repeat champions in a quarter-century. They\u2019re in the Fall Classic for the fifth time in nine seasons during a streak of 13 consecutive postseason appearances.<\/p>\n
But naysayers have claimed for years that it\u2019s bad for baseball if one team ever becomes this successful. The Dodgers\u2019 ravenous spending of their extensive resources could irretrievably fracture the majors\u2019 competitive balance, and they could even hurt the Dodgers by providing fuel for some owners\u2019 desire for a salary cap in the next labor negotiations.<\/p>\n
The players and coaches in Dodger Blue \u2014 and the more than 4 million fans who have packed Dodger Stadium all season long \u2014 had absolutely no interest in worrying about what their success means to other people while they celebrated another unforgettable night.<\/p>\n
Manager Dave Roberts said it best when he took the microphone on the field stage after his team steamrolled the 97-win Brewers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll tell you, before this season started, they said the Dodgers are ruining baseball,\u201d Roberts shouted. \u201cLet\u2019s get four more wins and really ruin baseball!\u201d<\/p>\n
The Chavez Ravine crowd roared in appreciation of a team that repeatedly has made the most of its advantages \u2014 for the past two years in particular.<\/p>\n
The Dodgers will spend about $509.5 million on players this season, with their $341.5 million payroll plus $168 million in projected luxury tax. That dwarfs the expenditures of their prospective World Series opponents from Seattle (a $167.2 million payroll) and Toronto (a $252.7 million payroll and a projected $13.4 million in tax).<\/p>\n
But why are the Dodgers enjoying this success instead of the\u00a0Mets, the\u00a0Yankees, the\u00a0Phillies\u00a0and other teams that can spend roughly on the Dodgers\u2019 level?<\/p>\n
At this point, it\u2019s clearly because Los Angeles has a strong top-to-bottom organization, starting with player development and scouting. Baseball boss Andrew Friedman makes the sport\u2019s most judicious choices among the free-agent prizes and veteran trade targets \u2014 and when he gets it wrong, his mistakes don\u2019t sting as much because of his roster\u2019s overall depth.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a very talented group, but it\u2019s (also) a very focused and very hungry group,\u201d said Roberts, the first manager in several decades to win five pennants in his first 10 seasons with a club. \u201cSo I think that when you get those components, it\u2019s tough to beat. And we mind the little things. We\u2019re hungry. We don\u2019t really care what happened before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez, Tommy Edman, Max Muncy, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow all started their major league careers elsewhere, but the Dodgers identified them and gave them what their previous clubs wouldn\u2019t or couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki chose the Dodgers out of Japan over the past two winters precisely because of the culture and the opportunity created by the club\u2019s previous successes.<\/p>\n
Snell faced the Dodgers with Tampa Bay in the 2020 World Series, and he emerged from the loss with admiration for the club. He seized the chance to join LA as a free agent last winter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is why I came here,\u201d said Snell, who has thrown 21 innings of two-run ball with 28 strikeouts in three majestic playoff starts. \u201cNow we\u2019re in the World Series, so I can\u2019t wait to prove myself what I can do there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not even a profoundly leaky bullpen \u2014 stocked with high-priced additions like Blake Treinen and Tanner Scott who simply have not performed \u2014 has stopped the Dodgers from romping through the postseason, outscoring their opponents by a combined 46-28.<\/p>\n
And it doesn\u2019t fit the naysaying narrative to remember that Los Angeles only rounded into dominant form quite late in a tumultuous regular season.<\/p>\n
The Dodgers won 93 games and the NL West title, but they finished with only the ninth-best winning percentage during their 13 straight playoff seasons \u2014 tied for the second-longest streak of postseason appearances in MLB history.<\/p>\n
Los Angeles didn\u2019t run away with its division, trailing San Diego as late as Aug. 23 and beating the Padres by only three games. Thanks to a prolonged midseason stretch of mediocre play, the Dodgers finished third overall in the NL and had to play a wild-card series for the first time since 2021.<\/p>\n
But that might have been a good thing: The Dodgers struggled with rust in recent October division series after sitting out for a week, but they\u2019ve been locked in since\u00a0their postseason opener Sept. 30, a mere 48 hours after the regular season ended.<\/p>\n
After Los Angeles thumped Cincinnati with 18 runs in two Wild Card games, the Dodgers handled NL East champ Philadelphia with impressive ease in four games, winning twice on the road and rebounding from\u00a0a tough Game 3 loss\u00a0to survive\u00a0a crazy 11-inning finale.<\/p>\n
The Dodgers then overwhelmed the Brewers, who had the NL\u2019s best record in the regular season and made the postseason for the seventh time in eight seasons with fans clamoring for their franchise\u2019s first World Series title. The Dodgers\u2019 playoff savvy and top-end talent were too much, even before Ohtani turned in a superhuman Game 4.<\/p>\n
The star-studded Dodgers are not a jaded bunch, however. They jumped and cheered wildly in the dugout along with their fans when each of Ohtani\u2019s three homers soared over the outfield fence, feeling just as much giddy disbelief as the paying customers.<\/p>\n
The Dodgers might be an industry-altering juggernaut, but that industry is still a kids\u2019 game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was special,\u201d said Freeman, last year\u2019s World Series MVP. \u201cWe\u2019ve just been playing really good baseball for a while now, and the inevitable kind of happened today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LOS ANGELES–During the Los Angeles Dodgers\u2019 October rampage to the NL pennant, the defending World Series champions have actually been the dark eminence that many baseball people have long feared they would become.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":109930,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"\n