For the primary of what’s sure to be many instances, following a blockbuster offseason of seemingly limitless roster spending, Dodgers gamers have been requested about the identical hot-button matter final weekend.
Had been they stunned how the remainder of the game recoiled within the face of the crew’s freewheeling winter, by which the Dodgers made half a dozen vital signings and blew previous each different crew’s payroll?
Did they agree with the argument that has emerged in some corners of the trade, that the defending champions’ stop-at-no-cost angle is perhaps dangerous for baseball and doubtlessly dangerous to the game’s already fragile scale of aggressive steadiness?
And most of all, did they really feel like MLB’s new evil empire — big-money villains with targets on their backs earlier than they’ve even reported for the beginning of spring coaching?
Unsurprisingly, the Dodgers noticed issues in another way. And of their first public look as a crew throughout Saturday’s DodgersFest fan occasion, they responded with solutions that painted a distinct image of what has develop into the league’s largest offseason story.
“I don’t take a look at us as villains,” mentioned beginning pitcher Blake Snell, a poster boy for the spending spree after signing a $182-million deal. “I take a look at us as a crew that desires to win. If every other groups or fan bases need to get upset, you realize what to do. Comply with what the Dodgers do. As a result of they need to win, and so they’re spending cash.”
“That is going to be one other stripe for the tiger,” veteran shortstop Miguel Rojas echoed. “The Dodgers are at all times going to be in that hate form of mode from different groups. Everyone knows that. Everyone knows we’re the Dodgers, and we’re able to form of embrace all the things that’s coming our means.”
“Who wouldn’t need to be the main target and do what our group is doing for the town, the followers?” supervisor Dave Roberts added. “To be fairly frank, we draw greater than anybody so far as any sports activities, any venue on this planet. So if you’re drawing 4 million followers a 12 months, the best way you reciprocate is by investing in gamers. And that’s what we’ve finished.”
Contemplate these the primary of many such quotes that doubtless will trickle out of the Dodgers clubhouse this season — the beginning of a story arc destined to underline each step of their World Collection title protection.
With a luxury-tax payroll pushing $400 million and a litany of former most useful gamers, Cy Younger Award winners and All-Stars dotting their lineup, the Dodgers have emerged as baseball’s latest big-market antihero. They’ve raised alarms in a sport with no wage cap and huge disparities in participant spending. They’ve constructed a crew some worry may dominate the game for the foreseeable future.
“It’s tough for many of us homeowners to have the ability to do the form of issues that they’re doing,” New York Yankees chairman Hal Steinbrenner insisted to YES Community. “We’ll see if it pays off.”
For now, although, the Dodgers aren’t apologizing for the methods they’ve reloaded. Or how they’ve capitalized upon their standing as a celebrity vacation spot.
Positive, as first baseman Freddie Freeman put it, “I perceive folks could be mad at us.”
However, as teammate Mookie Betts countered, “What are we speculated to do? As a participant, in fact you need to play with the most effective gamers on this planet.”
Granted, no Dodger was anticipating the crew to be this aggressive this winter. They watched in collective amazement because the crew added Snell (one of many high starters on the free-agent market), Roki Sasaki (a coveted 23-year-old Japanese phenom), Tanner Scott (the highest free-agent reliever obtainable) and a number of other different names to what already was arguably probably the most proficient crew within the majors.
“My household and my mates, all of them requested, ‘Are the Dodgers loopy?’<TH>” joked outfielder Teoscar Hernández, whose $66-million re-signing represented one other main transfer.
“The loopy half is, you suppose it’s like, OK, when you signal somebody, like, that’s it,” Snell mentioned. “Then we signal one other man, and also you’re like, that’s it. After which it simply retains going.”
“It’s unimaginable,” fellow starter Tyler Glasnow concurred. “It’s just like the Avengers. It’s just like the Monstars. It’s the most effective crew I’ve ever been on.”
None of this, nevertheless, guarantees something. Even after the Dodgers’ memorable march to the World Collection, it may take the crew time to get all the brand new items to suit.
“I actually don’t suppose you possibly can take something from final 12 months and anticipate it to hold over to the beginning of the season,” veteran utility man Chris Taylor mentioned. “We have now new faces. It’s a brand new crew. It’s gonna be a brand new id.”
The crapshoot of a 162-game season and unpredictable playoff format nonetheless looms too, particularly for a crew that ceaselessly faltered within the postseason earlier than lastly prevailing final October.
“Everyone knows that [all these moves] aren’t gonna assure us the World Collection,” Rojas mentioned. “We gotta go on the market and do our half.”
What the spending has produced, although, is a renewed supply of motivation amongst gamers — serving as a possible elixir for any World Collection hangover.
“I imply as a participant, all you need is profitable, proper?” Hernández mentioned. “And if you see the entrance workplace supplying you with the most effective probability, it simply places you in a greater place, and in your thoughts, as a participant, you go on the sector and attempt to give the 200%, simply to present it again what the entrance workplace is giving us.”
In spite of everything, whereas the Dodgers won’t contemplate themselves villains, they know the way excessive expectations have been set coming into one other season. As soon as once more it is going to be World Collection or bust. And this time, amid all the opposite scrutiny this offseason has kicked up, the possibility to cement a dynasty hangs within the steadiness too.
“There’s a buzz round right here,” Freeman mentioned. “There was a buzz final 12 months once we received Shohei [Ohtani]. And there’s a significant buzz right here. That’s a testomony to our group, our followers, our entrance workplace and gamers need to come right here.”
“We’re form of speaking about legacy territory,” Roberts added. “In order that’s what we’re centered on proper now.”