When the Los Angeles Dodgers open their 2024 regular-season schedule towards the San Diego Padres on Wednesday (6 a.m. ET from South Korea), they’ll be below extra stress to win than any group in baseball.
They’re one of many few groups the place it would really be acceptable to place a World Collection-or-bust label on them initially.
That’s the kind of expectation that comes from the kind of offseason the Dodgers had — particularly after they have disillusioned within the playoffs so many instances over the previous decade.
The Dodgers already had a World Collection-caliber roster full of star energy (particularly Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and now-re-signed Clayton Kershaw) and solely added to it this offseason with the additions of Shohei Ohtani (on a file $700 million contract), Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Teoscar Hernandez and James Paxton.
All of these strikes ballooned the Dodgers’ payroll to over $214 million. However even that quantity is deceiving on account of the entire deferred cash as a part of Ohtani’s contract. He’s making solely $2 million this season. Had the Dodgers not structured it that technique to keep under the luxury-tax threshold, their payroll would have been closing in on $300 million.
Irrespective of how proficient a roster is anytime you place a championship expectation on them you might be in all probability setting your self up for disappointment. Just one group is lifting a trophy on the finish of the yr, and the percentages are overwhelmingly stacked towards even the most effective groups. It takes an unimaginable quantity of expertise, sturdy play, luck and good timing for every thing to all come collectively.
However these Dodgers simply really feel completely different in that regard.
Not just for the payroll and the offseason investments, however for the way in which they’ve constantly underachieved come playoff time.
They’ve been one of many league’s finest groups over the previous 11 years, however their solely championship throughout that point was the 2020 World Collection that got here in a shortened season when every thing was bizarre.
They did lose back-to-back World Collection in 2017 and 2018, however they have not been again since that 2020 championship regardless of a loaded roster and monster payroll. Actually, their playoff success has been trending within the mistaken route. Regardless of profitable 211 regular-season video games the previous two common seasons, they’ve gone simply 1-6 in these two postseasons and had been swept in embarrassing vogue throughout the 2023 playoffs.
That kind of factor cannot occur once more. They must make an prolonged run into the playoffs, and something lower than a World Collection look goes to be an amazing disappointment.
