Target on Rangers expands

As the Dodgers made splashy signings with Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto this offseason, other teams focused on modern baseball’s stark reality: pricey payrolls often don’t translate into titles.

Baseball’s biggest spender has won the World Series just three times in the last 23 seasons: the 2009 Yankees, 2018 Red Sox and 2020 Dodgers. Going back to the start of the wild-card era in 1995, the highest roller has just six championships, with the Yankees also winning in 1996, 1999 and 2000.

“Clearly having a very high payroll is correlated with winning more games in the

regular season,” baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said last week. “The saving grace for us has been that our playoffs are unpredictable enough that the 110-win team doesn’t automatically march through the playoffs.”

Just 12 of the last 29 World Series winners had the top regular season record in their league. Steve Cohen’s Mets became the most expensive failure in baseball history last year, boosting payroll to a record $355 million on opening day, then finishing fourth in the NL East at 75-87 and incurring a record luxury tax of nearly $101 million.

“Some of the best teams in baseball that we’ve seen over the last 10 years have a hard time winning the World Series,” Cohen said.

Since the Rangers won their first title after finishing second in the AL West at 90-72, the Dodgers made the most ostentatious additions by reaching a record 10-year, $700 million contract with two-way star Ohtani and a 12-year, $325 million deal with right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto. They also acquired right-hander Tyler Glasnow from the Rays and gave him a five-year, $136.5 million agreement.

The Dodgers and Padres opened the season last week with a two-game series in Seoul, South Korea. Other teams begin Thursday and Friday in hopes of preventing the Rangers from becoming the first repeat champion since the 1998-2000 Yankees. Bruce Bochy, who turns 69 next month, will try to join Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel and Connie Mack as the only managers with five Series titles.

Changing places: Other free agents who wound up with new teams included Giants lefthander Blake Snell, who won his second career Cy Young Award last season with the NL West-rival Padres, Cardinals right-hander Sonny Gray, Giants third baseman Matt Chapman and Astros closer Josh Hader.

The Giants also brought in an Asian star, giving South Korean outfielder Jung Hoo Lee a six-year, $113 million contract.