DODGERS MIGHT NEVER LOSE AGAIN AFTER WINNING ANOTHER WORLD SERIES
Their financial dominance has turned baseball into a relegation system, especially if Guggenheim throws $700 million at Juan Soto and positions Dave Roberts to keep maneuvering pitchers like mad ants
Ever see something so inevitable that it becomes inescapable? Ever see a product so prodigiously expensive that you want the Los Angeles Dodgers to flatten the baseball industry as a 29-team relegation? They won the World Series by simply outlasting the field, bypassing a staggering number of injuries because they were deeper and more resilient than the rest. If their triumphs continue throughout the 2020s, we might ask if surrender is forthcoming for other franchises.
In a month’s span, I saw the Dodgers win it all with billions and the Chicago White Sox lose 121 games with hundreds. At this point, we should admire the best and ignore the worst. A team that won a championship during the 2020 pandemic now has two banners in five years. How many more flagpoles will be erected at Dodger Stadium?
One every season?
The “golden era” is upon us, as executives love to say. This ballclub does not intend to lose again. Wednesday night in New York, Mookie Betts hit a sacrifice fly that buried the Yankees in five games and embarrassed two bozos who pried the ball from his glove. Freddie Freeman disregarded a bad ankle and a rude exit from Atlanta to win the MVP award, tying the Series record with 12 RBIs after a Grand Slam that won’t be forgotten. Walker Buehler, after two Tommy John surgeries, closed the finale in relief.
And Dave Roberts, managing his ravaged pitching staff like so many mad ants, can keep his job — for a long time — with two titles, four pennants and the highest winning percentage (.627) of all time. He donated his cap to the Hall of Fame, which realized he protected a big lead after overcoming an 0-3 deficit against the Yankees in a Boston uniform. “We had to rewrite history,” he said, “and I didn’t want history to be rewritten again in the World Series.”
Whatever they did, however they navigated, the puzzle finally was finished. A five-run deficit was toppled when the Yankees pummeled themselves with errors. Uncommon as it seems in a clubhouse loaded with wealthy players, the Dodgers spoke of their glory as a matter involving deep affection. Can an operation teeming with money truly adore the culture?
“We’re obviously resilient, but there’s so much love in the clubhouse,” Betts said. “That’s what it was. It was love, it was grit. I mean, it was just a beautiful thing. I’m just proud of us and I’m happy for us.”
“There’s just a lot of ways we can win baseball games,” Buehler said. “Obviously the superstars we have on our team and the discipline, it just kind of all adds up.”
Notice how Shohei Ohtani isn’t mentioned for several paragraphs. He dislocated his shoulder in Game 2, after stealing second base via his own decision, and gripped his arm to make sure he wouldn’t hurt it again. The Dodgers won the Series without him — he went 2 for 19 with no RBIs since the injury — just as they won this season when almost everyone else was injured. It’s what Andrew Friedman had in mind when he spoke of massive ambitions.
“My ultimate, big-picture goal is that, when we are done, that we’re able to look back and say, ‘That was the golden era of Dodger baseball,’ ’’ said the president of baseball operations. “And that is an incredibly high bar to even say that.”
Of Ohtani, Friedman heard him say during the post-game party: “Let’s do this nine more times.” They might.
The downtown parade finally will happen between City Hall and 5th Street, followed by a celebration at Dodger Stadium with no apparent concern about social distancing or natural disasters. And before fans roar on the hills by Vin Scully Avenue, they’ve already heard about the next potential winter acquisition. It’s to make sure one celebration, the first over a full season since 1988, also will occur next year and the following year and the year after.
You’ve heard of Juan Soto. Raid the Yankees, of course. First, the Dodgers rout them and laugh at how baseball’s other money behemoth required much more help. Never mind how owner Hal Steinbrenner has spent more than $3 billion in salaries over 15 years of failure. So what if the 2024 Fall Classic was a $650 million clash in current-season payrolls.
Entice and sign Soto for the cash machine, which ponders expenditures that turn players into the wolves of Wall Street while other teams are blinded by opulence. He’ll want close to Ohtani money at $700 million, if not more, thanks to bloodthirsty agent Scott Boras. The Dodgers want to gang-heap Soto with Ohtani, Betts at $365 million, Yoshinobu Yamamoto at $325 million, Freeman at $162 million, Tyler Glasnow at $136 million, Will (I did not slap Chris Rock) Smith, Teoscar ($23 million) and Kike ($4 million) Hernandez and whatever Buehler demands after two postseason starts and a save that dropped New York to its knees.
They also will shoot banknotes at Roki Sasaki, another Japanese pitcher to join Ohtani and Yamamoto in the rotation. Do you gather Soto and Sasaki would rather join the ultimate 21st-century dynasty, when the sport hasn’t had a repeat champion since 2000? And enjoy marvelous weather and gorgeous facilities in a town where more than four million show up at the ballpark? Owner Mark Walter grew up in Iowa and went to college in Nebraska. He made his billions in Chicago. One day, when Frank McCourt was divorced by his wife and retained the stadium parking lots, Walter and his partners bought the Dodgers for $2.15 billion.
He started Guggenheim Partners and purchased the Dodgers via Guggenheim Baseball Management. He pays top players and could put them in the Guggenheim Museum. Why wouldn’t he? The Dodgers blew out the Yankees after overcoming a number that can’t be stated enough — 2,342 days of players on the injured list — and saw Ohtani swarmed by a gambling scandal and an injured shoulder while Betts, Yamamoto, Glasnow, Gavin Stone and Clayton Kershaw were lost for periods. Why not add Soto, who is 26 and would give Roberts a top-of-the-order lineup of Ohtani, Betts, Freeman and Soto? They beat down everything in their way, including San Diego, the Mets and the Yankees.
During the season, Soto inspected his lineup in the Bronx and said, “You look around at what we have. We have everything we need.” No, the Yankees did not.
We shouldn’t be stunned. The Dodgers spent more than $1 billion, on Ohtani and Yamamoto, outbidding the Yankees on the latter. In the past, general manager Brian Cashman outlasted the Dodgers for Gerrit Cole and traded for Giancarlo Stanton. This time, he was one-upped by Friedman, who landed Jack Flaherty and Tommy Edman when Cashman examined both and assumed Flaherty had back problems. And most importantly, the Dodgers pounced on Freeman when he was available in 2022. Why not the Yankees? He conversed with Cashman, who didn’t make an offer. This year, the GM signed Marcus Stroman, who struggled and hasn’t pitched in the postseason. See how a 4-1 crusher happens? The Dodgers battled through pitching scarcity that forced Roberts and pitching coach Mark Prior to battle-test relievers, even during bad bullpen games.
Know what’s funny? Cashman loved the Dodgers when he was growing up. He has won four crowns as the GM but hasn’t won since 2009. Steinbrenner may lose patience with management and manager Aaron Boone. Losing Soto in free agency might prompt maneuvers.
“This is going to sting forever,” Boone said. “I’m heartbroken.”
Think back to last December, when the media welcomed a new guest at Dodger Stadium — Roberts. He should have been on stage with his bosses, introducing Ohtani as an otherworldly beast, but Walter and Friedman reduced him to a third party. They weren’t pleased when Roberts spoke about the club’s pre-signing meetings with Ohtani and said, “They went well.” Friedman said he had “a good conversation” with Roberts, but the manager was an outlier. Ohtani went so far to say his 10-year contract would be voided if Walter or Friedman left the team. Would Roberts be fired?
“Everybody has to be on the same page in order to have a winning organization,” Ohtani said of Walter and Friedman. “I feel like those two are on top of it and they’re in control of everything. … I feel almost like I’m having a contract with those two guys and I feel like if one of them were gone and we’ll not be the same page, things might get a little out of control. … I just wanted like, a safety net.”
Roberts looked like a goner when the Padres assumed a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five divisional series. He reached the Series for the fourth time in the last eight years, but Dodgers fans were tired of his big-moment lapses. Days ago, Walter forgot about Ohtani’s first ceremony. “The only ones who question him, I think, are you guys,” he said. “He’s won four pennants. Anyone who thinks they can do better than that …” In truth, the manager’s optimism and human skills conquered all doubts. He is due for a major extension that should pass Craig Counsell’s contract with the Cubs — $40 million, five years — but will not. He isn’t concerned.
“I’ve learned to have thicker skin,” Roberts said. “I try to appreciate the fact that there’s always going to be criticism. Maybe more jaded at times. But it is a results business. And I get that. I understand the job.”
Said Betts: “It’s been amazing. It’s more than I could even ask for. I love Doc since the day I’ve gotten here. My love for him has gotten anything but stronger and deeper. I think he loves every player that puts on a Dodger uniform, no matter how long they’re here. I don’t have enough good words to say about him.”
From the top, ownership mandated a championship. Walter told Ohtani he considered the last decade a failure. “We’ve only done it once,” president Stan Kasten said last month. “And we need to do it more often than that.”
Twice won’t be nearly enough, either.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.