00:00Joel Sherman here for Three Things. I'm in Arizona for the last few days. I'm here for a few more
00:05days.
00:06Over the weekend, I spent some time at Dodger camp, and obviously they're a huge story of this season.
00:14They were the first team to repeat as champions since the Yankees of 1998 and 2000.
00:21It means they'll be the first team that has a chance to three-peat since those 1998 to 2000 Yankees.
00:27And the way they have spent money, accumulated stars, and maybe distanced themselves from everyone else has created a furor
00:39around them.
00:40Are they bad for baseball? Do we need a salary cap in MLB to contain a team like them?
00:47So why don't we deal with all things Dodgers today on Three Things and start with number one,
00:53which was, unfortunately, I am old enough that I covered the extent of that last dynasty.
01:00The Yankees won a championship in 1996, and then 1998 to 2000, they won the three in a row.
01:07They got to another World Series in 01 to Game 7 in 03, and they got to Game 7 of
01:14the ALCS in 04.
01:16And I remember back then hearing that this will never end, the Yankees will just keep buying championships, it's bad
01:24for baseball.
01:26And I think the opposite was true.
01:29I think dynasties are actually good for the sport.
01:32It allows fans to do what's happening now, focus hatred and energy towards a team, unless, of course, you're a
01:39Dodger fan,
01:41and for teams to be competitive, figure out how to keep up with the best teams in the sport.
01:48And then here's a reminder.
01:51Everything ends.
01:53When I was a kid, if you told me there'd be no Radio Shack today, I'd go, are you crazy?
01:57I'm sure people who lived through the Roman Empire went, the Roman Empire's going to end.
02:01And again, I lived through the Yankee dynasty.
02:03I watched it end.
02:05Guys got older at kind of the same time.
02:07And Brocious, O'Neal, Tino, there was no next core four, nothing close to even be able to fill in
02:16the gaps
02:16for what was an historic group at one time to come to one place.
02:22It's just not really been matched in Major League history when you take the core four plus Bernie Williams
02:27for homegrown players of that level.
02:30And at some point, you've got to change it over.
02:33And the reality is, the championship Yankees did not spend on free agency and in big players
02:42the way that the teams that began to not win championships did.
02:47Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Alex Rodriguez, Randy Johnson, Kevin Brown,
02:53they couldn't hold the weight of those championship expectations.
02:57They couldn't come through.
02:59And kind of like maybe in somewhat of an irony, it feels like that dynasty,
03:06though they didn't win, they last won in 2000, they were so good those following years
03:11that through 2004 until the Red Sox won,
03:18that felt like, to me, the dynasty, 96-2004.
03:22And the signature play in 2004 of the Red Sox rallying from 0-3 down is Dave Roberts
03:29stealing second base with Mariano Rivera on the ninth and ready to close out the Dodgers
03:34and sweep them and get back to the World Series.
03:36Dave Roberts is now the manager of the Dodgers in this full circle world.
03:41And one of the things we learned is there's ways to go about this.
03:44The Red Sox decided to go dollar for dollar with the Dodgers, with the Yankees,
03:49and built up and also were way ahead on some of the money ball principles
03:56of being able to find and develop players.
04:00And they ended up, starting with that 2014, winning four championships since then.
04:05The Yankees have won one.
04:07So the Red Sox were able to do it.
04:09There are teams that have been able, with lower payrolls,
04:14to figure out ways to navigate and be really good.
04:17I mean, from 2008 until 2023, that's a 16-year period.
04:25The Dodgers and Yankees had the best record in the sport.
04:27The third best record in the sport is the Blue Jays,
04:29who went to more World Series 2 than the Yankees won.
04:33Just there's no crying in baseball.
04:34Figure out how to beat the Dodgers.
04:38I mean, that's part of competition.
04:41Stop crying and figure it out.
04:44This will not last forever, which maybe brings us to number two.
04:48Hey, the Dodgers have really, really got it going on.
04:52But part of it going on is they signed one of the greatest contracts in history,
04:58the Shohei Ohtani contract, which only cost them $2 million in real money per year.
05:02It's 10 years, it's $70 per year, $700 million, but $68 million a year is deferred.
05:10And they bring in so much money because of just Ohtani,
05:13and he helped be able to recruit Yamamoto to the Dodgers, ultimately Roki Sasaki.
05:20It's given them real advantages.
05:22But in some of the other places, they're still great players,
05:26but you did see the beginning of aging maybe on Betts and Freeman last year.
05:31Will they be replaced well?
05:33There's a lot of talk about how great the Dodger farm system is.
05:36I think that it is really good.
05:38But what it's mainly really good at is people thinking it's really good
05:42and them being able to trade for what they need when they need it.
05:46But if you go look at who the best players are who signed their original contract with the Dodgers,
05:51most of them who had successful seasons last year,
05:55a lot of them predate this Andrew Friedman administration, which starts in 2015.
05:59Cody Bellinger was drafted before then.
06:01Seager was drafted before then.
06:03Nathan Avaldi was drafted before then.
06:05The best of this group, Michael Bush, who got traded,
06:09wasn't a very big trade for the Dodgers.
06:15Will Smith, really good for the Dodgers.
06:17Andy Pajas.
06:18That's the best position, guys, that the Dodgers have developed that are playing for the Dodgers.
06:22Do you count Yamamoto as a developed player?
06:25They signed him.
06:26Okay, if not, is the next best pitcher Avaldi, again, predates them.
06:32Dean Kramer from the Orioles.
06:34Again, there is a perception that they've created some kind of core four-ish situation there.
06:39The reality is they've really pumped their prospects and be able to trade them for what they want.
06:44But when they have to replace guys internally, will it actually last forever?
06:49I'm not really sure.
06:50But, you know, we'll see.
06:53Which brings us to number three.
06:56You know, there's been a lot of chances to beat the Dodgers the last two years as this unbeatable team.
07:04They've played four elimination games.
07:06They're 4-0 in those games.
07:08I mean, there is a chance that if you played the White Sox or the Rockies in four games, they
07:13would win one of those games.
07:14The Dodgers have won all four.
07:16Let's think about those four games.
07:18Two are against San Diego in the division series of 2024.
07:23San Diego's up two games to one.
07:25By the way, if the Padres win one of those next two games, Dave Roberts is going to get fired.
07:30Because that would be three straight years in a row the Dodgers got knocked out in the division series.
07:35I think even Roberts would concede.
07:37It would be over for him.
07:39Instead, they win the World Series.
07:41They win last year's World Series.
07:42Now he's going to Cooperstown instead of trying to figure out if he could get a job someplace else.
07:46Last year in the World Series, the Blue Jays go home to Toronto, up three games to two.
07:51They've got to win one of the last two games.
07:53I think if you watched every inning of that seven-game series and didn't know the final score of any
07:58games,
07:59it would feel like a 10-8 round in boxing.
08:01I thought the Blue Jays won that World Series in every way except for winning the World Series.
08:06They had chances to win games six and seven for sure and didn't.
08:10By the way, the Yankees, if they could field it all in 2024, might have won the World Series.
08:192025 Division Series last year, if Orion Kirkering could be able to do a regular pitcher fielding practice,
08:26throw to the plate.
08:27The Phillies might beat the Dodgers in the Division Series.
08:30They never get to that classic World Series against the Blue Jays.
08:33They are beatable.
08:36I know everyone wants to make them unbeatable.
08:39I know, hey, how can the Brewers ever beat them?
08:42See, they got beat four games to nothing in the NLCS.
08:47They actually won the season series 6-0 during the season.
08:50There are ways to beat them.
08:53But I'll leave you with this.
08:54The Dodgers currently remind me of the championship Yankees in two ways.
09:01One, they have incredible grace under pressure.
09:05So they have played so many big games now.
09:10This group of players going back not just the last two years but longer than that,
09:15that nothing that's going to come up in the postseason is going, like nerves isn't going to be a part
09:20of beating the Dodgers.
09:21They're going to, like those Yankees, those Yankees were up for the fight.
09:24They weren't nervous about the fight.
09:26They were ready for the fight.
09:28And these Dodgers were ready for the fight.
09:29So you better show up ready for the fight.
09:32Number two, those Yankees and these Dodgers had two ways to win a game.
09:37Number one, they were both extraordinarily talented.
09:40So they could win.
09:41The second way they win is you lose.
09:45The Yankees not completing a 3-1 play between Anthony Rizzo and Garrett Cole.
09:50They're not going to beat themselves generally.
09:52So you've got to show up and play clean and beat them.
09:57That's how you had to do it against those Yankees.
10:00You had to beat them.
10:02They weren't going to beat themselves.
10:04So are they tough to beat?
10:07Yeah.
10:08The Dynasty Yankees were tough to beat.
10:10The current Dodgers are tough to beat.
10:12You know what?
10:13No crying in baseball.
10:15Somebody figure out how to beat them.
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