One of my mates, let’s call him Martin, is on holiday in California and intends to take in a Los Angeles Dodgers game.
Previously, he was an exceptional cricketer and is a knowledgeable sports fan, so it should be easy enough for me to give him a few pointers to aid his enjoyment. Shouldn’t it?
Although, once you start, you realise it is not easy to describe a baseball franchise in 2,000 words.
The Franchise: Los Angeles Dodgers
They are the complete outfit. They don’t suffer the idiosyncracies of a single billionaire owner. They value their brand in more than monetary terms, or maybe they value their brand in purely monetary terms, so they are unwaivering in the protection of their reputation. And they value their players; you seldom hear of a disgruntled Dodger or ex-Dodger.
They represent the city of Los Angeles, but also the wider environs, and it certainly looks like they are overtaking the Boston Red Sox as the second-most popular team across the globe. This is not a fluke; it is a strategy that has been 10+ years in the making. Obviously, it will be many years before they overtake the cap-sellers of New York, but one day, the Dodgers could be the most valuable sports franchise in the world.
I don’t live in the US, and I don’t follow any particular team, so I can’t quite put myself in the mindset of a typical baseball fan, but I sense that the Dodgers are not hated in the way that the Yankees or Astros were in previous years. They do not have a divisive owner, nor do they have players whom opposition fans vehemently dislike, and of course, they did embark on a concerted cheating system to secure the World Series.
Bad apples – obviously, a different phrase is in my head, but legally, I am not allowed to type – like Trevor Bauer and Julio Urias are no longer part of the franchise. You can’t imagine a scenario in which either would be welcomed back into Dodger Blue.
In football terms, who are the Los Angeles Dodgers?
Liverpool comes to mind. The Dodgers are undoubtedly the best team at the moment, but their history only places them as the fifth-best in terms of World Series wins. And that is only thanks to their recent success in October.
Manchester City is another option, as a team that has invested heavily in youth and community, or perhaps big-spending Chelsea, but both have rather unsavoury off-field issues.
So, I’m going for Barcelona. The globally-known team famously has UNICEF emblazoned across their chest. They play dynamic football, have some of the most exciting players in the world, and if you’re not Spanish, they can easily be your favourite team.
Anyone who has watched ESPN’s 30-for-30 Four Days in October knows that Dave Roberts was involved in one of the most exhilarating plays in postseason history. The Red Sox looked down and out. With only the faintest glimmer of hope, Roberts was brought on as a pinch runner and as he says, “everyone in the stadium knew I was going to try to steal second.”
Mariano Rivera – the only 100% Hall of Famer – was on the mound. Roberts took an ambitious lead and was so nearly caught diving back to first. On his third attempt, he sprinted and slid safely into second. A base hit allowed him to race home to tie the game. If that is not a Hall of Fame-worthy 10 minutes of baseball, then I don’t know what is.
It’s not hard to root for a guy like Roberts, especially when you appreciate that he is breaking barriers for non-white managers, and even more so when you hear him talk. He is a genuinely top bloke.
My choice of comparison is Pep Guardiola. I used to love watching him boss the midfield in an understated but determined way. Extinguishing danger before it became a serious threat, and acting as the catalyst to start some of the greatest attacks. He wasn’t the best, but he was eminently watchable. And as a manager, he has taken City to unknown heights.
Personally, I hate the label of “unicorn” that has become common parlance when describing the Japanese phenom. Unicorns don’t exist, but we are living in a golden age of baseball and can categorically state that Shohei Ohtani does exist.
Cliche alert: The guy is simply too good for words.
A million lines have been written about Ohtani, but no one has ever been able to satisfactorily transpose his talents into a non-baseball comparison. Here is my latest attempt…
According to Wiki, six goalkeepers have scored goals in the EPL. It’s just something that isn’t done. Strikers score goals, and goalkeepers prevent them; no one does both.
It’s the same in baseball. Batters hit, and pitchers throw. No one does both. It’s just too difficult.
From a young age, players specialise in one or other disciplines. So when a young Japanese player was able to do both, there was scepticism that he would be able to bring those skills to the US, and an assumption that as soon as either his pitching or hitting slumped, he would be “encouraged” to drop the lesser discipline. It’s safe to say that the scepticism has vanished.
Ohtani was voted MVP three times in the last four seasons and was second in the year he didn’t win.
The 30-year-old is simply one of the best hitters in the game (think best goal scorers), and when he pitches, he is one of the best pitchers in the game (think goalkeeper), and sometimes, he does both in the same game. Yes, it’s mind-blowing!
Oh, and he is also one of the most prolific base stealers – I dunno, think, er, best tackler.
I wasn’t wrong when I said it was impossible to describe his talents.
As you can see, the football analogy just doesn’t work. It is almost incomprehensible for someone to be elite at two such different disciplines.
Cricket is a far better example. All-rounders are some of the best players the game has ever seen, yet this doesn’t capture the unique situation that Ohtani has developed. There are plenty of cricket all-rounders.
Oh, and if anyone mentions that Babe Ruth pitched and hit, just roll your eyes and ignore them. There are way too many reasons why that comparison does not warrant further discussion. Ohtani is literally forcing baseball to change its rules, yet the number of two-way players in MLB is still exactly one.
There was an exciting two-way player in last year’s draft. Jac Caglianone was a first baseman and left-handed pitcher at the University of Florida. Yet, I will put money on the Kansas City Royals never letting him develop as a pitcher and instead focusing his attention solely on hitting.
Side track: Baseball owes the Los Angeles Angels a debt of gratitude for allowing Ohtani to pursue his dream as a two-way player when he reached MLB. I realise this was one of the main reasons he picked the Angels, but it would have been a safer play for them to force him to specialise after a few months stateside.
If you need a financial comparison to prove the point of Ohtani’s unique qualities, when his contract with the Angels expired, the Los Angeles Dodgers signed him to a 10-year, $700 million deal. It obliterated their previous free-agent contract record of six years and $162 million for former MVP Freddie Freeman.
The basics
MLB comprises six divisions of five teams. Each division is equal, so there is no first division, second division, etc. And as there are only five teams in each, the lowest position a team can ever finish is fifth.
Over the last 12 years, the Dodgers have won their division 11 times.
Each of the six division winners and the six of the next best teams progress to the playoffs in October, on the road to the World Series. It is more complicated than this, but it gives you an idea.
The Dodgers won the World Series last year and also in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, but you have to go right back to 1988 for their last success before that.
So, yes, they are one of the most dominant teams of this generation, but that doesn’t mean they will lift the trophy every year. We haven’t seen back-to-back World Series champions since the Yankees in 1999-2000.
It will be interesting to see how the season unfolds. The default reaction for most fans is to dislike the dominant team, but the Dodgers have some of the most likeable characters in the game. I mean, how can you dislike a team that features Freddie Freeman or Mookie Betts?
The rest of the roster
Players can join a team by three different ways – the draft (college/high school/international), via a trade, or signing as an out-of-contract free agent.
Only three of the 26-player roster were drafted by the Dodgers, and only one of those, catcher Will Smith, was taken with a first-round pick.
Two of their superstars, former MVP outfielder Mookie Betts and ace-strikeout starting pitcher Tyler Glasnow, joined via high-profile trades from the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays, respectively.
All of the other – and how can I say this politely – “roster-fillers” like Austin Barnes, Miguel Rojas, Kiké Hernández, Chris Taylor, and we can even throw Tommy Edman into this group, arrived via far lower-profile trades. In a throwback to Moneyball, the Dodgers had identified and targeted undervalued players – in this case, those whose versatility was among their greatest assets.
Although not superstars, these are the players who help power the Dodgers juggernaut, and without them, the trophy cabinet would be less crammed.
Another area where the Dodgers are out-performing the other 29 franchises is in the free-agent market. Basically, an out-of-contract player can entertain offers from all of the clubs and choose accordingly. Since November, the Dodgers have secured the services of…
- Michael Conforto: an undervalued outfielder who excels against right-handed pitchers
- Blake Snell: two-time Cy Young award winner coming off a productive, yet injury-shortened season
- Roki Sasaki: one of the most exciting pitchers in the world, and he is only 23 years old
- Tanner Scott: arguably the best relief pitcher over the last two seasons
- Kirby Yates: another relief pitcher who enjoyed a dominant 2024 with the Texas Rangers
This might seem like the Dodgers buying up all of the best players, but 29 other teams had the same opportunity to sign these guys. All of the other teams are multi-billion-dollar franchises. They all have the money available if they want to spend it, and wow, some of them have so much money available. The Atlanta Braves are owned by Liberty Media (who own F1), and the New York Mets are owned by Steve Cohen, who makes Bobby Axelrod look like a pauper.
The point is that the Dodgers were ambitious and proactive, while so many of the other teams were lackadaisical and bargain-hunting.
I am very envious of the guy we are calling Martin, as he is due to watch the blockbuster clash between the Dodgers and the Braves. If the Bat Flips & Nerds’ prediction pod is anything to go by, these are the best two teams in the NL.
There might be little to choose between the two franchises on the field, but their modus operandi is worlds apart. The Braves are infamous for securing club-friendly deals. It is widely acknowledged that two of their superstars, Ronald Acuna Jr. and Ozzie Albies, are the most underpaid players in the game, having signed long-term deals in their early 20s.
And Atlanta’s desire to make every dollar count isn’t restricted to exploiting young Latin players; the Braves also declined to extend their talismanic first baseman, Freddie Freeman, as it was deemed the 32-year-old would not provide value for money as he aged. The Canadian, who had spent 15 years with Atlanta, signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers and has continued to be one of the best hitters in the world.
Unfortunately, this article has only scratched the surface of explaining the Los Angeles Dodgers, but the brief was 2,000 words, not 20,000.
Photos by Harry How/Getty Images and Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP via Getty Images
Article by Gav. Want to write for Bat Flips & Nerds? Get in touch.
