First, a bit of History. I know that there is a large portion of the baseball community if it hasn't happened within a week ago, it does not matter. But bear with me, First, Ohtani announced He would opt out of his Angel's contract., the Dodgers sat on their wallets for 2 years in 2022 and 2023. Despite the fact they had needs. Dodgers got bounced from the first round both years in the playoffs because of this.
Dodgers were going to sign Ohtani no matter what. They had set up the roster with a load of expiring contracts in 2024 just so no matter how high the bidding went; the Dodgers would match and go beyond. Before you go all " Dodgers deferred all his salary" it was Ohtani who offered that. Why? Because Ohtani in a Unicorn. He was the only player who along with his ability to play baseball at a high level, Ohtani brought along a Market to expand to. Ohtani has off field endorsements that more than what the 70 million a year the Dodgers own. You combine Ohtani's New Balance contract with his Calvin Klein, those alone goes over the 70 million mark.
The Dodgers did not invent the deferred contract. Check out the New York Mets and who gets deferred payments this year, I hope you all celebrate Bobby Bonilla Day. Mid-season the Mets will cut 62-year-old Bobby a 1 million dollar deferred check from his Mets playing days. And will continue to do so until 2035 when a final payment will be made to a 72-Year-old Bobby. But there are two other player who get deferred payment in 2025. Adam Ottavino will get 500k this year until 2031, then Adam will get a final 1 million dollars. The last is the great Bret Saberhagen who get a cool 250k in 2025 until a final payment in 2028. I hope that 250k is not really needed by Brett, but if he had made a couple of bad financial decisions that 250k might come in handy,
The Dodgers are signing everyone one and it is not fair to the other teams seems to be the rallying cry on the internet. First to the idea there is not parity in baseball. Last year there was 3 team that were out of it mathematically in August. The Rockies, the White Sox and the A's. Everyone else was a hot win streak away from the last Wildcard slot. I remember in August the Reds got to within 3 games of the Brewers for the division led going into a home and away set of games. If the Reds had just gone 4-2 in the stretch the Reds would have been division leaders. But for some reason the Reds can't beat the Brewers when it matters most. 0-6 and dropped out of the division race and lost valuable ground in the Wildcard race. My point is that in August 3/4 of MLB teams had a chance to get into the playoffs in late August of 2024.
Don't blame the Dodgers for having a plan and executing it. The Padres were arguably the second-best team in the MLB last season and had the 4th best attendance record in 2024. Do you think the Padres had a plan to build on that success in 2025? I think the plan was for the Padres owners to pocket the profits from 2024, what do you think? The Dodgers were the #1 team in attendance both at home and on the road. What better way to reward the fans who supported the Dodgers than by getting better and fixing the flaws in the 2024 team. Don't you wish you could see the plan your team has in place to become successful?
Because I can see the Dodger plans fairly clearly. First, the Dodger built redundancy into the roster, If August rolls around and the injury bug has not hit the Dodgers as hard as last year, they will have players to trade at the August deadline when teams are willing to give up prospects out of desperation. Second, the Dodgers have a lock down bullpen because every pitcher in the starter's rotation will have inning limits. The whole staff will be 6 innings at most, 5 2/3 innings will probably be the average, The Dodgers don't have one inning eater in the whole staff.
Well thank you for reading my rant. To all the fans of other teams I beg you to figure out what your team plans is to at least get that last wildcard slot. Because once you get in the post season anything can happen. I remember in 2023 Mookie Betts and Freddy Freeman combined for 1 hit in the series lost to the Padres which got them bounced out of the playoffs despite the Dodgers 107-win season. Nothing is written in stone yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment