For the Dodgers, Money Bought Leeway
For the Dodgers, Money Bought Leeway
It bought the brightest of stars, and the backfill not to need them
Let’s get this out of the way first. The LA Dodgers are the closest thing to the Evil Empire Yankees in today’s game. They have been in on seemingly every high-profile free agent of the last decade, signing some of the best players in recent memory to gigantic deals. If you hate them, I can’t blame you. They make it easy.
They’ve had more major stars come and go — guys like Manny Machado, Yu Darvish, Trea Turner, and Max Scherzer come to mind — than most teams ever have in the first place. And that doesn’t even count some of the guys they drafted and let walk, like Corey Seager and Cody Bellinger, who’ve continued to rack up MVP votes away from LA.
The Dodgers have been home to more baseball star power than any franchise in the league going back a decade, and I would argue it hasn’t been that close.1 Shohei Ohtani and his $700M deal is just the latest entry in that dominance.
So it was funny to watch Ohtani barely contribute as the Dodgers pulled off a gentleman’s sweep in the World Series. They didn’t need him to hit, and they didn’t need him to pitch, which he hasn’t all year.
That’s a comfortable spot for the Dodgers though, who also didn’t need starting pitchers Dustin May, Bobby Miller, Tyler Glasnow, River Ryan, Gavin Stone, Tony Gonsolin, or Clayton Kershaw. They had 1.5 full rotations on the injured list this year, which is again far more arm talent than most teams start with.
That is what being the richest team in baseball gets you. A wider margin for error. A contingency plan so thorough that you’re still somehow the best team in the sport down that many guys. This was the season from hell, especially for the pitching staff, and you could tell in Wednesday’s closing game that it would be an issue if the Dodgers’ worn-out bullpen had to go even one more game in this series.
The staff was down to three starters, one of whom brought a 5.39 ERA into the playoffs. I know the game has changed, but even by today’s standards, they were paper thin. If Walker Buehler hadn’t remembered how to finish 0-2 counts by the end of October, they wouldn’t have made it. As always, it takes a little luck too.
What the many people who are appropriately bothered by the Dodgers’ exorbitance might not like to admit is that this has also been a highly competent organization. The 2010s Dodgers were elite choke artists on the field, but the roster was pretty much always well-constructed. They drafted well. They hit more trades than they missed. They’ve won at least 90 games every year since 2013.
And, from an organizational standpoint, what was very noticeable in this particular series against the Yankees was the glaring gap in all the little things: the finer points of defense and base-running and small ball that make a difference when they add up.
The Dodgers didn’t beat themselves. At times, none worse than that fateful 5th inning, the Yankees looked utterly incapable on the fundamentals. There was the Aaron Judge drop and the Anthony Volpe error and Gerrit Cole not covering first, which was a tough one for a guy who’d thrown a no-hitter to that point, but it was wider than that.
Stuff like Mookie Betts time and again holding runners at first when Juan Soto, a brilliant player in every other respect, was letting doubles become triples.
For all their big spending, the Dodgers were, as the saying goes, playing the game the right way. Tommy Edman, close to my heart as a beloved Cardinal, slotted in as the perfect utility guy, one of several key acquisitions at the deadline who the Dodgers absolutely needed in order to climb the mountain.
Jack Flaherty was inconsistent, which I also recognize from his Cardinals days, but he gave them enough throughout the playoffs to be worth the trouble. This team badly needed outs, and Michael Kopech gave them 9 innings’ worth across the last three series.
So the front office pressed the right buttons. How about the manager? I’d say Dave Roberts earned a lot of the blame he’d shouldered as the Dodgers fell short with far more loaded staffs in years past. But something about being down to such tight margins clearly brought out the best in him as a game manager.
It was Aaron Boone making the bonehead decisions that we’ve associated with Roberts in years past, the least forgivable of which was bringing in an ice-cold Nestor Cortes to throw exactly two pitches in the Game 1 loss that set the tone for the series.
Which brings us to Freddie Freeman, he of the immediately legendary walkoff grand slam. He, more than anyone on the roster, summates the level of fuck-you loaded that the Dodgers truly are. He’s firmly in the conversation for the best 1B of his era and a surefire Hall of Famer, probably first ballot when it’s all said and done. In our three-true-outcomes era of baseball, he’s one of precious few players left with a career .300 batting average. He’s won one MVP and finished in the top 10 another seven times.
Freeman is not a guy who has any business being the third best hitter in a lineup, but that’s what he’s been this year.2 Coming in, the expectations for his output were even lower, owing to a badly injured ankle. He could barely move in the first few rounds. Then he went deep in every World Series game but the last one. So — so much for that.
No one would’ve shed a tear for the almighty Dodgers had they lost this. No matter how bad their luck got, and theirs got pretty bad, a team with this many advantages can never be a true blue underdog.
But I’ll say this. It’s really easy to screw it up. Even with all that money, you still need to know how to spend it. Most teams don’t. You also still need to be able to piece it together when a lot of that money isn’t on the field. They did that.
They were tougher and better coached than past iterations of this core group. I would’ve loved to see this go to seven, not least of all for my doomed Yankees pick, but the best team won.
So I’ll tip my hat to the Dodgers and, more importantly, to October baseball. Here’s to another year.
That all said, let’s not get carried away here. I gave them their due. And I’ll go back to being mad at them when they make their Godfather offer for Juan Soto.
Also, This
is back as of this week, and I’m glad to be joining those roundups once again this season. Go check those out!🪄 I absolutely love an NBA star leap, and I absolutely hate when one gets taken off course. That looks to be the bummer in Orlando, where Paolo Banchero had been looking ascendant for the Magic. At least it’s not an achilles or something, but a torn oblique is no fun. Hope he’s back sooner than later.
🏈 Meanwhile, I think it’s safe to say that the NFL is plumbing new depths in terms of young QB development. Anthony Richardson’s the latest new guy to get benched, and don’t get me wrong, it’s not like he wasn’t deserving. He’s been awful. But the found success of a guy like Jayden Daniels, who played five years and four full seasons of college football, has me agreeing with Mel Kiper, Jr. here: if you’re still raw in college, and especially with the emergence of NIL, then you might be better off sticking around. Some of these bottom-feeding NFL teams don’t seem well-positioned for fixer-uppers.
🏫 And on that subject, great piece in Front Office Sports this week with an inside look at how the hottest new job in college sports — NIL Director — well, kinda sucks. It’s a mess, and the core of that piece has to do with these commiserative Zoom calls borne of the chaos. Sounds depresso.
🏎️ Even NASCAR’s getting in on the Saudi Arabia business these days. Sounds like they’re planning a race there by the end of the decade, confirming — allegedly maybe purportedly — that even the most American of sports is willing to listen when money talks.
The Padres have a case, but their zealousness (I think the noun should be zealousy, by the way) hasn’t been as long-running.
Alright, arguably second, but just let me have this one. I think most of us would agree that Betts’ star burns a little brighter, so the point I’m making is: you’re doing great if your third banana is Freddie friggin’ Freeman.