The Dodgers are exactly who we thought they'd be, again
The Dodgers haven't dropped a game in their first 8 of this MLB season.
The Los Angeles Dodgers have built an absolute powerhouse team for the 2025 season. Their pitching rotation consists of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Roki Sasaki. Pretty good when the fifth pitcher in your lineup has been in conversation to be the best pitching prospect ever.
It doesn’t stop with pitching. Four players in last year’s top-20 for NL MVP voting play in Dodger Blue, including the World Series MVP Freddie Freeman, who delivered a towering blast in game one of the World Series to walk-off a home run and gain the momentum upper hand that helped them win it all.
LA made 11 moves in the offseason, including signing Roki Sasaki, Blake Snell for five years, Tanner Scott for four years, Hyeseong Kim for three years, Kirby Yates for a year, Michael Conforto for a year, re-signing Blake Treinan for two years, Kike Hernandez for a year, Teoscar Herandez for three years and Clayton Kershaw for a year.
That’s a ton of additions. And, they lost just three players in Walker Buehler, Jack Flaherty and Gavin Lux.
A ton of money is being thrown around by the team, but they’ve found a way to make it work, by deferring contract money until the player’s career is over.
For example, Shohei Ohtani’s contract is worth $700 million, but $680 million of it is deferred. Same with $50 million of Will Smith $140 million contact, $57 million of Freddie Freeman’s $162 million, and so on.
It’s the same case for the Mets when they signed Bobby Bonilla in 2000, and are still paying the 61-year-old $1.19 million on July 1st, and will until 2035. Granted, this wasn’t the Mets plan, since they thought they’d be able to pay him quicker because of the profit they belived they’d make with investments with Bernie Madoff. That’s neither here nor there.
Ken Griffey Jr. also notably was receiving payments of $3.5 million on this past July 1st from the Cincinnati Reds.
So, fresh off of a five-game World Series win, and 11 added players, it was only fair for much of baseball to call the Dodgers the new villains of the game, dethrowning the Houston Astros. The Astros cheated their way to the 2017 against the Dodgers, and perhaps even more than just that season. Many sympathized with the Dodgers, because they had the materials to lift the Comissioner’s Trophy that season, but now that symapthy from baseball fans has turned into a resentment from their domination.
And domination is the right word.
LA started their season with 4-1 and 6-3 wins on March 18 and 19 against the Cubs in a back-to-back played in Tokyo, Japan before every other team.
Ohtani, Tommy Edman, and Kike Hernandez hit home runs in the second of the back-to-back, and LA began the season outscoring Chicago, 10-4.
Then, the real season began in the states with a three-game sweep of the Detroit Tigers last week at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers also handled the Braves in three straight games still in ‘Cali.
The Dodgers’ start certainly isn’t to the level of 1884 St. Louis Maroons, who started 20-0, but it’s a start, and one of the better starts in recent history.
But, the road ahead is not quite as easy, as the ballclub will hit a road trip from this Friday until Wednesday, April 9, playing three games in Philadelphia and Washington D.C. Roki Sasaki and Phillies ace Aaron Nola are set to face each other on Saturday afternoon.
LA is set to pitch Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Sasaki, and Tyler Glasnow in Philly, their first, fourth and fifth options against a powerful Philly offense. If the Dodgers can get by with three wins in Philly, then it even further proves what everyone already knows: this team is by far the World Series favorite, and any other team winning would be a surprise.
Not sure anyone expected to ever hear something along those lines in April.