Dodgers taking must-win to unprecedented levels
With every new Major League Baseball season comes the promise of potential.
Potential for records to be broken, historic firsts, stunning upsets, and glorious triumphs.
The 2024 season is only different insofar as such potential has been kicked up several notches, thanks to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ enormous offseason.
Expectations are above the earth’s atmosphere for the team that gave the modern-day Babe Ruth a $700 million contract and then kept on spending. In addition to Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers landed Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and traded for and extended Tyler Glasnow.
As if that didn’t make for an interesting enough offseason, they also moved Mookie Betts to shortstop, after already moving him from right-field to second base. Shortstop will be a significant change for Betts, who didn’t make a single appearance at the position for the first nine seasons in the Majors. He spent more time in the infield last season than the rest of his bigleague career combined, but only made 16 appearances at short, compared to 70 at second. It’s an intriguing challenge, even for one of the most versatile athletes in the world.
So the spotlight and pressure are indubitably on the Dodgers, but what of the rest of the league?
The cellar-dwellers
Let’s start at the bottom, so there’s nowhere to go but up. The Oakland A’s, Colorado Rockies, Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Angels, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Washington Nationals are all teams with at least a few promising players, but nowhere near enough to make a go of it. It’s a crying shame to say that about a team that has Mike Trout, but it’s the truth.
The dark horses
A few teams have the potential to take significant steps forward this year. The Kansas City Royals, led by the newly-extended Bobby Witt Jr., and Detroit Tigers both appear to be turning a corner in their rebuilds, so the AL Central should be more interesting than it was last year. The Minnesota Twins only needed 87 wins to take home the AL Central last year; that would’ve been the fourth-best record in the AL East.
Will the Seattle Mariners ever have enough to go the distance? Julio Rodriguez is one of the game’s most exciting talents, and it would be a shame to waste his prime.
Even after a quiet offseason and losing Lucas Giolito for the entire year, the Red Sox feel like a team that will surprise people. (In a good way, this time.) Their farm system is growing stronger by the day, and they have a talented young core just itching to defy expectations. They also dramatically overhauled their pitching development, and though that doesn’t qualify as a big offseason splash, the ripple effect could be enormous.
The powerhouses
Last year’s MLB preview highlighted the New York Mets and San Diego Padres spending big to construct super-teams, which the Dodgers took to new levels this year. It’s better than not spending at all, but it’s no guarantee of a trophy, either. Just ask the 2004 Yankees.
The path to victory in the National League West won’t be easy, even for the Dodgers. Other than the also-ran Rockies, the rest of the division is fairly stacked. The San Francisco Giants will have an uphill battle trying to topple the Dodgers and Padres, but they’re certainly making the effort. On Monday, they agreed to a twoyear, $62 million deal with Blake Snell; the reigning NL Cy Young can opt-out after the first year. He’ll join a Giants rotation that already boasts last year’s Cy Young runner-up, Logan Webb.
Other than the Juan Soto trade, the Padres had a fairly quiet offseason before acquiring Dylan Cease from the White Sox last week. They did, however, manage to convince Xander Bogaerts to do something the Red Sox never could: move from shortstop to second base.
The Padres will also be playing with higher purpose this year. Winning their first-ever World Series would be a heartwarming story and fitting way to honor their beloved longtime owner, Peter Seidler, who passed away last November.
It’s not often that the reigning pennant-winners seem like an afterthought, but that’s how strong the NL West division looks. Don’t sleep on the Diamondbacks, though; they may not have had the flashiest offseason, but Mike Hazen made some savvy moves to improve an already-talented roster, including adding Eduardo Rodriguez to the rotation. Rodriguez, however, was shut down with a lat strain late last week.
Over in the American League West, the two teams from Texas will be duking it out for top spot. The Rangers spent themselves into something of a corner to win their first-ever World Series, but the areas of weakness are beginning to show. Jordan Montgomery became a free agent, and Max Scherzer, Jacob degrom, and Tyler Mahle are all working their way back from various surgeries. The lineup looks stacked, but Corey Seager and Josh Jung may not be ready for Opening Day, and Nathaniel Lowe will miss at least the first two weeks of the season due to an oblique strain.
If the Rangers don’t manage to repeat next fall, they can take comfort in knowing that no one ever does anymore; the last club to win back-to-back World Series was the Yankees, who won three straight from 19982000.
Back on the east coast, the Phillies show no sign of slowing down their spending. They extended Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler, ensuring that their elite starting pitching pairing is locked in for the foreseeable future. Baseball’s oldest same-name, same-city franchise is doing everything they can to win that elusive third championship, and they’ve upset some formidable foes over the past two postseasons. Will this finally be the year they make it happen?
They’ll have to get past the Braves, who are so talented and consistent that it’s almost boring by now. (As if a player as electric as Ronald Acuña Jr. could ever be boring.)
But as seems to be the case every year, the Braves are a clear choice to win it all. Their lineup is loaded with young talent, and their pitching is strong. If Chris Sale can stay healthy and finally put together that comeback season he’s been fighting for, they’ll have one of the game’s most fiery competitors in their arsenal, too.
The AL Beast
The AL East could be its usual cutthroat fight to the finish, but several question marks suggest a wider gap between the haves and have-nots than last year. Somehow, the Yankees are almost always projected to come out on top, even when they haven’t won a pennant since 2009 and are dealing with all manner of injuries. This year, a first-place finish seems more far-fetched than usual; even though Gerrit Cole doesn’t need Tommy John surgery, the reigning AL Cy Young will be out until late May, at the earliest. They’ve added Soto and Alex Verdugo, but Aaron Judge may not be ready for Opening Day and DJ Lemahieu is dealing with a serious bone bruise on his right foot.
The Tampa Bay Rays are a perennial threat, and even though they have one of the smallest budgets in baseball and Wander Franco may never play again, somehow they always find a way to make life difficult for opponents. The Blue Jays are talented, but their window may be starting to close as their talent gets older.
The Orioles massively outperformed expectations last year, winning 101 games and the division. Then they added ‘21 NL Cy Young Corbin Burnes to the top of their rotation. They also have Jackson Holliday, son of longtime Rockies and Cardinals slugger Matt Holliday. The younger Holliday is currently MLB’S No. 1 overall prospect, and one of three top prospects named Jackson slated to crack their respective franchise’s Opening Day roster; the Milwaukee Brewers are putting Jackson Chourio on theirs, and Jackson
Merrill won the Padres’ Opening Day centerfield job.
A broader look
Now more than ever, health is a team’s true wealth. Pitching injuries have been everywhere this spring. Rangers team doctor Keith Meister recently spoke to The Athletic about the risks of using a sweeper of power changeup. Several teams will have to make do without top starters for at least the first month of the season, including the Rangers (Max Scherzer, Jacob degrom), Brewers (Devin Williams), Astros (José Urquidy), Yankees (Cole), Blue Jays (Kevin Gausman), and Red Sox (Giolito). The Twins will start the season without starter Anthony Desclafani and closer Jhoan Duran.
Pitchers around the league have also voiced concerns that MLB’S pitch clock is contributing to the problem, and the updated rule — pitchers now have 18 seconds, rather than 20 to deliver the ball with runners on base — could make matters worse. When the change was put to a vote during the offseason, all four players’ union representatives were against, while the six league representatives voted in its favor.
The unrest doesn’t end there. As The Athletic’s Evan Drellich reported late Monday night, there’s also a “mutiny” a-brewing in the player’s association. After years of agent Scott Boras’ allegedly exercising “outsized influence” with union leaders, this offseason’s slow and cheap free agency pushed dozens of players and agents around the league to the breaking point. On Monday evening, several of the 38 major and 34 minor-league player reps made it clear to executive director Tony Clark that they want Harry Marino, a former MLBPA lawyer and champion of minor-leaguers, to replace deputy director Bruce Meyer.
The 2024 season is unwritten, but it’s sure to be quite a story.