Have The Los Angeles Dodgers Become The New “Evil Empire” Of Baseball?

Entering the 2024 regular season, the Los Angeles Dodgers were under the most pressure in the Dave Robers era.

Despite being one of the best teams year in and year out, the Dodgers have failed to win a World Series in a 162-game season since 1988.

This is not to discredit the legitimacy of their 2020 World Series title. However, being consistently one of the best teams in baseball year in and year out, yet only winning a World Series in a season where the regular season was of little importance is an anomaly, to say the least.

For context, the Dodgers are the only team in baseball to have over 1,000 wins in the past ten seasons. The next closest franchise, the Houston Astros, won two World Series in that span and are 78 wins behind the Dodgers for the lead.

Outside of this championship, the Dodgers have reached the postseason every year since 2013. In all but one of those seasons, the Dodgers have been a top-five team in terms of total payroll, with 2023 being the outlier.

The reason for this outlier was their preparations of the upcoming options in the 2024 free agency, where the Dodgers committed over a billion dollars between Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

The Dodgers hoped these acquisitions, alongside key pieces like Teoscar Hernandez and the return of key veterans like Clayton Kershaw and Enrique Hernandez, would be enough to overcome the hurdles of a traditional playoff format.

Their hopes became a reality, thus erasing the question marks surrounding the dynasty of this Dodgers core.

While most teams would be content with this result and hope for repeated success from the Dodgers’ $240 million payroll, the Dodgers have instead become the most active team in this year’s offseason.

Since winning the World Series, the Dodgers have made the following acquisitions.

• Signed LHP Blake Snell to a five-year, $182 million contract
• Signed RHP Roki Sasaki as an amateur international free agent deal (*This deal is yet to be confirmed via the Dodgers)
• Re-signed OF Teoscar Hernandez to a three-year, $66 million contract
• Signed LHP Tanner Scott to a four-year, $72 million contract
• Signed OF Michael Conforto to a one-year, $17 million contract
• Signed utility fielder Hyeseong Kim to a three-year, $12.5 million contract
• Tentatively agreed to terms to sign RHP Kirby Yates

To put this into perspective, the Dodgers have agreed to terms with four separate players for over $66 million guaranteed. For context, there have been 11 total signings this entire offseason where $66 million or more was guaranteed to the player.

Simply put, the Dodgers are attempting to make up for the lost time over the past decade and win another World Series sooner rather than later.

They have done so by compiling the second-highest payroll in baseball, which only trails the Philadelphia Phillies for the highest in baseball due to Ohtani’s contract deferments allowing for his average annual value to be a $2 million cap hit.

To go alongside their ability to attract seemingly every premiere free agent they desire, the Dodgers have also maintained a top-five farm system in all of baseball, thus giving themselves their best chance of success now while not impacting their future.

Dodgers General Manager Brandon Gomes has constructed a team top to bottom that is about as good as an MLB GM can do. While this is likely not something Gomes and the rest of his staff should care about, being this deep of a team will not make non-Dodger fans root for your product.

Despite Los Angeles always being at the top of the payroll in each of the last ten years, this active offseason after winning the World Series has made the discourse around the Dodgers louder than in years past.

It has sparked debates whether or not what the Dodgers are doing is “good for the game”, and if harsher regulations should be put in place to prevent a team like LA from compiling a pool of the best available free agents.

It is a conversation that has not been seen around the sports since another major-market team dominated the rest of the league in payroll while rolling to four World Series titles in five years.

In that stretch from 1996 – 2000, the Yankees ranked first every season outside of 1998, when the Baltimore Orioles leaped the Bronx Bombers for a single season.

While the Yankees had more of a return to regular season dominance as opposed to the Dodger’s decade of 90+ win seasons, their first title in 1996 set the precedent for their spending habits over the next five years.

The complete overhaul of their roster allowed them to end an 18-year drought. However, this was not enough for owner George Steinbrenner, who brought in several more big names in the years to follow.

Names like David Wells, Roger Clemens, David Justice, and Chuck Knoblauch all received their pinstripes later in their baseball lives after compiling impressive careers, despite the price tag for their services being above the value they provided to the current team.

The collection of such talent, built around the Core Four of Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, and Jorge Posada allowed the Yankees to be so aggressive in free agency and trade markets, which resulted in one of the most decorated dynasties in baseball history.

The Yankees would continue these spending habits throughout most of the 2000s until other teams began to catch up to their yearly payroll. However, as the big-time signings continued, so did the eye-rolls for the rest of the league.

If it were not for a nine-year hiatus for the Yankees hoisting the World Series trophy, the popularity of the sport may have seen a decline. The fanbase of a sport is never rooting for the team that spends the most money, let alone a lack of parody.

So, if the Dodgers transition from the team that was unable to win it in a 162-game regular season to a dynasty similar to the Yankees dynasty, then the complaints of harsher regulations against the Dodgers may be warranted.

But, with the expanded playoff format in today’s MLB allowing for more upsets and a sense of randomness in October, even if the Dodgers have compiled the best roster the game has ever seen, it can all be washed away by the right team come the end of the season.

This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.