They had been planning this for a long time. Plans fall through all the time, of course, whether they are for dinner, a meeting, or taking over the world of baseball by signing the greatest player anyone has ever seen to the largest contract ever given, only to follow that up less than two weeks later with the biggest deal ever given to a pitcher. Many in the baseball world were stunned and taken aback by the magnitude of it all when everything came together so brilliantly for the Los Angeles Dodgers — for this superteam to come together and hit the field.
Shohei Ohtani, a two-way star, was first given a 10-year, $700 million contract guarantee. On Thursday, they gave Yoshinobu Yamamoto, his Japanese colleague who has never pitched in the major leagues, $325 million spread over 12 years. The Dodgers spent almost $1 billion on two players after a short period of restraint last winter, when they only signed one-year contracts worth about $50 million in free agency. And they are going to be very, really excellent today, in 2024 and beyond.
The current MVP, Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts, two more potential Hall of Famers, catcher Will Smith, center fielder James Outman, and slugger Max Muncy round out their lineup. Bobby Miller, a rookie this year, was the only player certain to be in their 2024 rotation going into the winter. They now have Tyler Glasnow, whom they acquired in a deal with the Tampa Bay Rays and inked a five-year, $136.5 million agreement, to throw the second game of the season’s opening series, and Yamamoto to start Opening Day against the San Diego Padres in Seoul.
They will most likely be the National League West’s title the next season and a formidable force. The Dodgers will then be that much stronger in 2025 when Ohtani returns from his second Tommy John surgery and likely enters the rotation. Smaller cities like Pittsburgh and Kansas City, whose whole clubs aren’t worth much more than the Dodgers promised Ohtani, Yamamoto, and Glasnow, may understandably be upset by this. Honestly, the whole sport is in a state of flux. Despite their intense pursuit, the New York Yankees, New York Mets, and San Francisco Giants were unable to provide Yamamoto with the necessary funds, favorable weather, and a chance to play with Ohtani again. Ohtani led Yamamoto and the rest of Team Japan to the World Baseball Class title this spring and hopes to repeat that feat numerous times with the Dodgers.
Even though it is simple for people outside of Los Angeles County to worry, stew, fret, lament, and bemoan the current situation in Major League Baseball—to praise the Dodgers, complain about the absence of a salary cap, and vow to never play the game again—these frustrations do not accurately reflect the nature of the modern game or the role that superteams play in it.
This is why baseball is so beautiful: In other words, these clubs are winless during the wild-card period.
There are numerous examples of successful superteams that either didn’t win at all (Cleveland in the mid-to-late 1990s), won far less frequently than they should have (Atlanta won just once in their 14-straight division title run from 1991 to 2005), or saw their fortunes run counter to their superness. One such team is the late 1990s Yankees, who were the last to win a World Series in a row. With three Hall of Famers (Edgar Martinez, Randy Johnson, and Ken Griffey Jr.) and another all-time great (Alex Rodriguez), the 1997 Seattle Mariners won ninety games. After Griffey, Johnson, and A-Rod were traded four years later, Seattle amassed an MLB record 116 wins.
The playoff format for the sport, which consists of 12 teams and two seven-game series after a five-game series, almost guarantees a victory for any club. This is not the NBA, where a dynasty can be spawned by three great players. This isn’t the NFL, where ten years of championship hopes may be boosted by one outstanding quarterback. This is baseball, where clubs that compete for championships year after year aren’t the result of the ridiculous salary discrepancy.
Nine different baseball teams have won the World Series in the last ten years, making baseball the most successful major men’s team sport in North America. There was one less winner (eight) but one more club (15) in the NHL Stanley Cup Final. Compared to the NFL (11 teams, 7 champions) and NBA (10 teams, 5 winners), both were far superior. After 25 years, MLB is still relevant even if it is the only uncapped league among the four. During that time, 16 baseball clubs have won more titles than the NHL (14), NFL (13), and NBA (11). And baseball, which has had 20 of its 30 clubs in the World Series during the previous 25 years, has the lowest proportion of teams that have ever played for a championship—only the NHL has had more teams do so.
Take a look at the 2021 Dodgers, another recent effort at a superteam. With Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler, Julio Urías, and Betts in the lineup the previous year, they had won a title. Following up on that victory, they added future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer and all-around shortstop Trea Turner at the trade deadline. After six games in the National League Championship Series against eventual winner Atlanta, it resulted in 106 victories during the regular season and an October departure. 111 victories and a 3-1 loss to the San Diego Padres in the division series followed the next year. The previous season? a 100-win club that was swept in the division series by an Arizona squad that had just 84 wins and far less budget. After dominating the NL, the Diamondbacks faced the Texas Rangers and Kyle Seager, who was named the winner of the World Series MVP once again.
Let’s speak about money if it isn’t enough to convince you. The Dodgers have spent a little over $100 million more than the next-highest spending team in baseball, the Yankees, over the last ten years. Despite their apparent dominance, the two teams have only won one World Series between them, despite spending a combined nearly $5.1 billion during that time. The Yankees never won a World Series.
Only once in that same decade did the team with the highest free agency expenditure make it beyond the division series. Comparably, the club who spent the most money on free agents and player re-signs throughout the winter lost more postseason games than it did. In the 2020–19 COVID–19 season, only the Dodgers emerged victorious. There are many more disappointments on the list. San Diego guaranteed $894.3 million between contracts and new players last offseason; that amount is not all that different from the Dodgers’ this year. The Padres lost 82–80 and missed October as a result. This season, the New York Mets made an effort to put together a superteam. They had the biggest salary in the history of the game when they faltered, traded six players at the trade deadline, and ended 77-85.
For the Dodgers, none of this is completely improbable. Ohtani, Yamamoto, and Glasnow all have agreements that are very risky. Ohtani’s agreement has deferrals that minimize the downside, but even so, the Dodgers committed almost $450 million in current dollars to a player whose worth is largely dependent on his ability to perform well despite having had two elbow surgeries. More than the Yankees spent for the top pitcher in the major leagues right now, Gerrit Cole, the Dodgers promised the 25-year-old Yamamoto. With a career high of 120 innings in a season, and five years of frontline starting pay from Los Angeles, Glasnow has it.
Superteams make up for their disappointment in a variety of ways. They provide great baseball for fans. They abide for excellent drama enthusiasts. Even if it may be hard to accept, baseball in general needs the kind of cultural resonance that the Dodgers can provide.
They’ll satisfy your want for an antagonist, a villain. With Ohtani, Yamamoto, and Glasnow in the fold, victories against the Dodgers have even more significance. The Yankees’ complete domination in the first half of the 20th century—they were the greatest team ever in 1927, they won four straight World Series and six in eight years from 1936 to 1943, and they won five titles in a row from 1949 to 1953—is the reason why defeating them brings such satisfaction. The Yankees created decades of superteams to establish themselves as one of the top sports organizations, back when fielding a team capable of winning the pennant meant a certain route to the World Series.
In contrast, the Dodgers have won only one championship in the previous 35 years. However, they’ve evolved into a whole new kind of superteam, easily the best-run baseball organization. They draft really well. They do well by signing foreign amateurs. They have the best player-development system around. They are terrible at analytics. They are leading edge practitioners of performance science. They can also exercise more free agency than their wealthy counterparts who aren’t as skilled since they excel in all of those areas.
After all, when asked whether they would match Ohtani’s contract, the Giants and Toronto Blue Jays responded in the affirmative. The Dodgers made the identical conditions offer to Yamamoto as did the Mets. Ohtani and Yamamoto selected this squad for reasons beyond its enormous TV contract and other cash streams.
The Dodgers are a well-oiled machine, as seen by their ability to take a club that has won 100 games and improve it with players of this level. Perhaps this is the reason why supporters are so upset about Yamamoto, Ohtani, and Glasnow. The Dodgers are already excellent at everything. And these folks are added to it already?
It makes sense why there is animosity. In sports, fairness is a defining quality, and there may be a bitter aftertaste when one club makes two of the greatest transactions in sports history in the same month. However, history, statistics, reasoning, and everything else that makes you think, “Maybe this is a superteam—and maybe that’s just fine,” may all provide comfort in that situation.
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