Dodgers’ ‘World Series or bust’ has richer meaning — and consequences
JACK HARRIS • MARCH 24, 2024
They have three former most valuable players at the top of their lineup.
They’ve spent more than $500 million to reconstruct a new-look pitching staff.
They’re the odds-on favorites to win a championship this year, if not several more in the seasons that follow.
They know what the expectations are — and, just as important, the consequences that come with falling short.
“If the Dodgers don’t win the World Series,” manager Dave Roberts said, “I think we’d all feel we’ve failed accomplishing our goal.”
This is nothing new to Roberts and his team. In almost every season of the last decade, World Series or bust has been their default setting.
On one occasion they delivered, in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season that loses more luster (and, to some in the sport, legitimacy) the longer it remains their only recent triumph.
But after every other October disappointment, they’ve found ways to regroup, reload their roster and remain consistently competitive — becoming the kind of destination top free agents like, say, Shohei Ohtani have wanted to come experience.
What’s different now, however, in the wake of the Dodgers’ $1.2-billion outlay
this offseason, and with a superstar core of Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts all in their prime: The Dodgers have the largest championship window they’ve had in recent memory.
The urgency to win remains unchanged.
But the ramifications of coming up empty — of not realizing the “golden era” of Dodgers baseball that president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and others in the organization have long dreamed of — could exponentially escalate.
Consider this: Four years from now, Ohtani will be 33, Tyler Glasnow will be 34, Betts will be 35 and Freeman will be a 38-year-old free agent. Between just the three under contract — plus Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who will be 29 — the Dodgers will have a luxury tax hit of $130 million. If any of those core pieces significantly regress, as many players do in their mid-30s and beyond, the team could have dead financial weight even a Guggenheim-sized payroll could have trouble navigating.
To truly achieve a so-called golden era of franchise history, multiple parades (plural, just as Ohtani targeted in a statement upon signing his $700-million contract in December) probably will need to be staged. In a way they never have before, the
Dodgers have pushed their chips to the middle of the table. Now, they’ll anxiously await what cards they are dealt.
“I wouldn’t define it as like going all-in,” general manager Brandon Gomes said. “Because I think we still have maintained plenty of optionality to continue to add players, and bring along guys through the development system to contribute at different levels, and have everything time out.
“The goal is to not do a bunch of stuff and then fall off a cliff, right? Like what happens with a lot of big-market teams.”
At the same time, Gomes acknowledged, the level of spending and star power the Dodgers took on this offseason brings a new level of pressure. A new kind of perspective.
“Obviously,” he said, “everything gets magnified.”
Even while holding what appears to be the best hand in baseball, unexpected trouble always threatens to abound. And it took only two games for the Dodgers to be reminded, as they split a season-opening series against the San Diego Padres in South Korea.
Yamamoto, the 25-year-old Japanese acquisition who signed the biggest contract by any pitcher outside of Ohtani, was walloped in a one-inning, five-run debut, amplifying questions about his ability to thrive in the majors.
OPPOSITE: The Dodgers sure pushed their chips to the center of the table by signing Shohei Ohtani along with previous signings of Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. The window for success is somewhere in the four-year range.
ROBERT GAUTHIER / LOS ANGELES TIMES
Betts’ comeback from a broken hand is almost done, where does he play?
DYLAN HERNÁNDEZ • AUG. 1, 2024
SAN DIEGO — His versatility reflects his selflessness as much as it does his athletic gifts.
One of the greatest defensive right fielders in baseball history, Mookie Betts moved to second base last year because the Dodgers needed him to. He moved from second base to shortstop this year because, once again, the Dodgers needed him to.
Most superstars wouldn’t be as understanding. Most superstars wouldn’t be able to play as wide a variety of positions if they wanted to.
“He’s one of the best people and teammates I’ve ever been around,” manager Dave Roberts said.
Now, as Betts nears his comeback from a broken hand, the Dodgers could be making another request that tests his capacity for self-sacrifice.
They could be asking him to return to right field.
Roberts didn’t say they would. General manager Brandon Gomes didn’t, either. But look at the players the Dodgers picked up before the trade deadline, examine their roster, and it’s clear Betts could help them more in his old position than at shortstop or second base.
Will Betts return as the team’s shortstop?
“That’s his intent,” Roberts said. However, Roberts cautioned, “As we get to
the middle of August when we’re expecting him back, I don’t know if that’s going to change.”
Gomes was also cryptic.
“He’s continuing to take ground balls in the infield,” Gomes said, “and we have so much open right now with guys in the infield, it allows us to take some time to see where we’re at by the time he gets back. But he’s ready to go wherever we need him.”
Superstars are usually the ones who are accommodated by role players, and not the other way around. In this case, Betts could be asked to move to right field to unclog an infield depth chart that includes Miguel Rojas, Gavin Lux, Tommy Edman, Amed Rosario and Nick Ahmed. A return to his former position would bolster the Dodgers’ underwhelming corner outfield production as well.
About a month ago, Betts was asked by reporters about the possibility of a switch back to right field.
“If they want to go out there, I can go out there too,” he said. “Like I said, at this point, I feel like I can do pretty much anything out there, especially if I can get some work at it. Whatever it takes to have the best team out there.”
Whatever Betts has said on record, he would be entirely justified in refusing an outfield assignment.
He wasn’t responsible for the injuries that
were the impetus for his move to second base. He certainly wasn’t responsible for the misguided assumption that Lux could be an adequate shortstop, which inspired his latest position switch.
If Betts has come to prefer the infield, the Dodgers can only blame themselves for constructing rosters that required him to switch positions. Betts has earned the right to do what makes him most comfortable. He has to do whatever he feels is necessary to produce offensively.
Roberts didn’t think that would be a problem, however.
“When he did play different positions, last year, for example, he had one of his best years,” Roberts said. “So I don’t think … playing two different positions affects Mookie because, using his words, when he plays defense, he plays defense, and when he’s in the box, he’s focused on hitting.”
Provided it wouldn’t adversely affect Betts as a hitter, returning to right field could allow the Dodgers to best maximize their roster.
Before his injury, Betts was a below-average shortstop, which was understandable considering the last time he played there regularly was in high school. The six weeks he’s missed figures to have set him back. Ahmed, the team’s current fill-in, has won two Gold Gloves at the position. Sidelined Rojas is also a premium defensive shortstop.
OPPOSITE: Mookie Betts is one of the greatest right fielders in baseball history, so why did the Dodgers move him to the infield? Well, that’s where the need was and Betts was more than willing to oblige. As things shook out and players were added, Betts moved back to the outfield where his presence was more than felt at the end of the season. WALLY SKALIJ / LOS ANGELES TIMES
Much of the production has come from the long ball, including a leadoff shot from Shohei Ohtani two pitches into the game and a two-run drive from Mookie Betts that put things away in the sixth.
In between that, however, the Dodgers built a couple of big innings, sticking to their patient plan against Mets left-hander José Quintana.
Entering Game 4, Quintana had been on a late-season tear fueled mostly by making hitters chase pitches. In the regular season, he threw only 44% of his pitches in the strike zone, the lowest rate among qualified starters. On Thursday, the Dodgers wanted to turn that game plan against him.
“Tonight was a battle of who was going to give in first,” Muncy said. “He wanted to get us to chase. We wanted to get him to throw strikes. And it was just who was going to be more stubborn. And I feel like we were able to outlast him.”
Indeed, Quintana was forced to throw 83 pitches in just 3⅓ innings, giving up five runs. In 20 of their first 30 at-bats, the Dodgers managed to work at least two balls in the count. They waited for mistakes. Then pounced when they arrived.
The Dodgers scored twice in a third inning that featured two walks, setting up Edman for an RBI double and Kiké Hernández for an RBI single.
More runs came in the fourth, when Betts roped a two-run double to left — part of his postseason career-high four RBIs — following a full-count single from Chris Taylor and full-count walk by Ohtani.
“Guys are just competing every pitch,” Taylor said. “One through nine, everybody is putting up good ABs.”
The night added to a string of staggering Dodgers statistics, from the 44 walks they have drawn this postseason — including 31 in this series, the most by any team over a four-game postseason stretch in history — to their 18 two-out RBIs and a .329 batting average with runners in scoring position.
“When you have plans and you stick to them,” Freeman said, “most of the time they’re going to work out.”
Fittingly, it is Muncy who has best embodied the Dodgers’ meticulous approach of late.
He entered Thursday having reached safely in eight consecutive trips to the plate, then set a postseason record by running the streak to 12 with three walks in the first five innings and a single in the seventh.
“The most important thing is, that means I’m getting on base, giving my teammates a chance to drive me in, creating havoc, doing anything I can,” Muncy said, unaware of the record until after the game.
Ohtani has followed suit.
This week Roberts noted that the slugger had been expanding the zone too often early in the playoffs, having struck out more times (12) than he had reached safely (11) in his first seven postseason games. Since then, Ohtani has gotten aboard in six of his 11 trips to the plate, including three walks Thursday after his first-inning home run.
Then there’s Edman, quietly making a case for the NLCS most valuable player award.
Batting cleanup, he followed his third-inning double with a two-run two-bagger in the eighth. His seven hits in the series lead the team, while his seven RBIs are tied with Betts for most.
“I felt like I kind of just did my job today,” Edman said. “Tried to have good at-bats, and had a couple opportunities to get some runners in and was able to cash in.”
That’s the motto that has transcended the lineup this month; principles forged from past postseason failures helping the Dodgers reach the doorstep of the Fall Classic.
“Up and down the lineup, we’re just staying within ourselves, having a good approach, and not trying to do too much in the box,” Muncy said. “When we have an entire group of guys that are buying into that mindset, then it becomes pretty special.”
Dodgers overcome ‘most trying year’ to defeat Mets, reach World Series
JACK HARRIS • OCT. 20, 2024
The low point came 36 days ago.
During a late-season series in Atlanta, the Dodgers’ division lead was dwindling after a string of frustrating losses. Even worse, they learned Tyler Glasnow would become the latest, and most important, pitcher done for the season because of an injury.
For a brief moment, the team felt that people were “panicking,” as outfielder Teoscar Hernández described it, about their season. For one of the few times in a year full of adversity and unforeseen setbacks, confidence in the clubhouse felt like it was waning.
“The guy who’s supposed to be your ace is dealt a blow and he’s done for the year? That was a kick in the gut,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “Everyone was like, ‘Man, not again. Another injury?’”
So, in an uncharacteristic move for a manager who describes himself as “not a big meeting guy,” Dave Roberts decided to call one, gathering his players before a Sept. 15 game against the Braves to deliver a simple reminder.
“We’re still the Dodgers,” Roberts told the group, as Hernández recalled. “We can do special things.”
Five weeks later, the Dodgers made good on that prediction.
On Sunday night, they returned to the World Series.
With a 10-5 defeat of the New York Mets in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series, the Dodgers won the 25th pennant in their storied franchise history. For the fourth time in the last eight years, they will play for a championship that, this season, few outside the team saw coming.
“There’s just a lot of unforeseen things that can happen in a long baseball season,” Roberts said this week, as the club closed in on the fourth World Series trip of his nineyear tenure.
But, as Roberts reminded the group back in September, “We have a lot of good players.”
And reaching the Fall Classic, he implored them, was still well within reach.
“I just felt we had enough talent in the room to do that,” Roberts said, reflecting on the meeting. “But the most important thing was that those guys responded amongst themselves.”
And respond the Dodgers did.
To the litany of starting pitching absences that left their October rotation thin and unsettled. To an ever-changing cast of characters amid their injury-plagued season.
Even the playoffs have brought setbacks, from Freddie Freeman’s sprained ankle to inconsistent starting pitching to two elimination games in the NL Division Series, plus a squandered chance to clinch the pennant in
Game 5 of the NLCS on Friday.
“We’ve gone through a lot this year,” Muncy said.
Yet, the team managed to forge ahead anyway — riding a wave of internal belief that hasn’t always been present in October disappointments of years past.
“It was just about how we were gonna get here,” outfielder Mookie Betts said. “The question was not if.”
Indeed, the Dodgers always planned to be in this position, trying to win their second championship since 2020 and first in a full season since 1988. But the group mounting this run looks far different than they ever expected.
In Game 6 on Sunday, they had to go with a bullpen game, lacking the rotation depth typically required of a deep postseason run. They didn’t have Freeman in the starting lineup either, electing to rest him amid a one-for-15 slump in which his ankle had hampered his swing and limited his defensive range.
The team had a rookie in center field, Andy Pages. They had two veterans with sub-.230 batting averages in the regular season, Kiké Hernández and Chris Taylor, in the infield. They had a slumping catcher, Will Smith, behind the plate. And, at a critical juncture early on, they even turned to a rookie pitcher, Ben Casparius, with only three career
OPPOSITE: The Dodgers bench rose up in celebration after Tommy Edman hit a two-run home run in the third inning to give the Dodgers a 4-1 lead. Later in the inning, Will Smith hit another two-run home run and the Dodgers were up, 6-1, effectively ending the game.
WALLY SKALIJ / LOS ANGELES TIMES
RIGHT: The obligatory celebration began as soon as the final out was recorded. It was the 25th pennant for the Dodgers and moved them to the World Series for the fourth time in eight years.
ROBERT GAUTHIER / LOS ANGELES TIMES
OPPOSITE: If you look close enough through the spray of celebratory bubbly, you can see a couple players wearing masks based on the artwork of Mister Cartoon, otherwise known as Mark Machado. The work of the 55-year-old San Pedro artist is popping up all over the place and now is being associated with the Dodgers.
ROBERT GAUTHIER / LOS ANGELES TIMES
BELOW RIGHT: Mookie Betts, far right, and Tommy Edman appear to be in the center of the postgame scrum of Dodger players and personnel. The win put the Dodgers against the Yankees for the 12th time in the World Series. WALLY SKALIJ / LOS ANGELES TIMES
