After the Dodgers signed Blake Snell around Thanksgiving 2024,
I remembered the Dodgers’ mindset after winning the 2020 World Series.
My mind kept going back to a quote I read from Andy McCullough’s biography of Clayton Kershaw: The Last of His Kind: Clayton Kershaw and the Burden of Greatness.
In discussing the thought process that Kershaw went through in the years after winning the 2020 World Series that led him back to the Dodgers after considering joining his hometown Texas Rangers and retirement, the mindset of the Dodgers’ front office to start the 2021 season was discussed and could be best described in three words.
“Let’s be pigs.”
On page 325 of McCullough’s book, the above quotation is attributed to Andrew Friedman, as the organization’s thought process was not sit on their laurels, content with just a single title.
[emphasis added.]
For what it is worth, the plan backfired spectacularly as the Dodgers overvalued the results of the shortened regular season to
figuratively set $102 million on fire in a decision that had a hangover effect until the signing of Shohei Ohtani. After that fiasco, the Dodgers learned not to needlessly spend, but to spend efficiently on the best fit. The Dodgers did not guarantee themselves success yesterday, but they ruthlessly upgraded themselves, which sometimes is enough.
I will argue to my dying day that had the Dodgers spent a fraction of what they spent on
Anthony DeScalfini instead, the streak of division titles would have remained unbroken, and the title defense would have been a lot more likely as
DeScalfini effectively ate innings in 2021, preserving arms like Walker Buehler and
now-disgraced Julio Urías for the playoff run.
Much like the 2025 Toronto Blue Jays, on this point, I can only go what if, but one never has the opportunity to discuss this particular point in context.
Time is a flat circle
Stop me if you have heard this one, but the Dodgers’ acquisitions of the past three offseasons could be best described as “
this verse, same as the first.”
Before the 2024 season, the Dodgers signed both the unicorn,
the eventual Hall of Famer Shohei Ohtani, and the best pedigreed pitcher to ever pitch in Nippon Professional Baseball,
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and the Dodgers won their first World Series since the COVID Cup year of 2020 on the backs of Freddie Freeman, just enough pitching, and duct tape.
In 2025,
the Dodgers sign not-quite-ready yet phenom Roki Sasaki and the best available bullpen arms to fill the perceived weakness of the roster, the bullpen:
Tanner Scott,
Kirby Yates, and
re-sign Blake Treinen. Things got a little hinky, but the Dodgers eventually won their first back-to-back World Series in franchise history and are the first repeat champions in the sport in 25 years.
In 2026, the Dodgers signed the best relief arm available (again)
in Edwin Diaz and
the best outfield bat available in Kyle Tucker, who greeted the Dodger fanbase on Instagram Thursday evening.
Contrary to popular belief, I have seen Dodgers fans’ reaction to the signing be one of bemused acceptance. It is no longer shocking when the marquee talent comes to Los Angeles; the cost of experience is wonder. Winning the Ohtani sweepstakes, followed by winning the Snell sweepstakes, followed by winning the Tucker sweepstakes, is almost old-hat at this point.
Still, the rich get richer, and it
is still fun. While Tucker is not an Ohtani-level talent, he fits the Dodgers’ biggest offensive need while providing some much-needed youth over the next two to four seasons.
The Ascendant Empire
I am not going to pretend that the Los Angeles Dodgers are not the perceived villains of the sport. Still, if the last two years have taught us anything, it’s that success on the field is not guaranteed, but one can tilt the odds in one’s favor with enough money.
However, the team makes itself hard to love sometimes, especially when it will not pay its tour guides a living wage and charges
its most devoted fans a premium to come to its annual FanFest. One need only look back fifteen years ago to a painfully unfunny monologue by Seth Meyers at the ESPY awards, who rattled off “the Dodgers are so poor jokes” in quick-fire succession thanks to the sheer incompetence of former owner Frank McCourt.
Remember when Dodgers were the butt of the jokes at 2011 ESPYs, how no one cared they got cheated of a title in 2017? How 2020 didn’t count? A Mickey Mouse ring. How they always will choke in the playoffs. Now who is laughing. All that laughing has turned into crying
pic.twitter.com/wCuUgePKha
— DodgersBeat (@DodgersBeat)
January 16, 2026
No one outside Los Angeles is laughing anymore.
Yes, fans should be angry at their skinflint owners who refuse to spend money to put a quality product on the field or discuss trading their stars for pennies on the dollar (see: Peralta, Freddy, Milwaukee Brewers; see also: Skubal, Tarik, Detroit Tigers, Skenes, Paul, Pittsburgh Pirates) rather than build a nucleus around them. But if folks want to be angry at the Dodgers, fine — do whatever makes you happy.
To paraphrase one of the seminal songs of my childhood: “If it makes you happy, then why the heck are you so sad?”
As Eric Stephen points out, yes, the Dodgers used deferred money and creative accounting to get Tucker into Dodger blue. Other teams are finally starting to use some of the Dodgers’ accounting skills, but there is only one Shohei Ohtani, one Mookie Betts, and so on.
All that ink about the Toronto Blue Jays and Boston Red Sox being active in the offseason looks a lot less lustrous now. Apparently, the New York Mets tore the figurative guts out of their seemingly dysfunctional team after spending all that non-deferred money on Juan Soto just to regress badly in typical Mets’ fashion. I would riff on the New York Yankees, San Francisco Giants, and San Diego Padres, but for the life of me, I cannot parse a viable strategy apart from “hope and prayer.”
If titles could be won by simply cracking open a checkbook, the Mets and Yankees would be basking in championship gold rather than in the tears of their frustrated and disappointed fans. For all of the money and revenue the Dodgers generated in 2025, they still had to dig themselves out of a 3-2 series hole in Toronto to remain champions.
The Dodgers have built an engine that, at this point, is practically self-sustaining, driven by making money and winning through scouting, development, and signing. Yes, the Dodgers put the torch to their draft picks for this upcoming draft, but if Tucker and Diaz pan out, it’s a small price to pay to keep the engine running.
A franchise record of over four million fans came to Dodger Stadium in 2025,
and overall attendance topped 70 million for the third consecutive season, in part due to Dodgers fans showing up in droves on the road.
As is often the case, no one pays attention to the avalanche until it is on top of them, when it is far too late to seek cover. In-depth discussions about baseball’s changing economic model are for another day, as well as the owner’s next ill-fated lockout in approximately twelve months; right now, as
Jacob Macofsky points out, the Dodgers paid a premium, and reaction around the league was swift.
Everyone sees the end result of the Dodgers’ efforts, and either tries to mimic the model poorly (see: the Blue Jays; see also: the Philadelphia Phillies, the Padres, the Mets) or feigns helplessness and does next to nothing (see: the Giants; see also: the teams subsisting on revenue-sharing money).
Anyone in baseball would be forgiven for waking up to
Sonny and Cher’s I’ve Got You, Babe a la
Groundhog Day, and thinking it’s either a blissful dream that will never end (if you’re a Dodgers fan) or an odious nightmare that just will not stop (if you’re the rest of the league).
Time is a flat circle, but the Dodgers have got you, babe — at least for right now. The Dodgers’ empire is still ascendant as they finally added some youthful pop in Tucker to complement their aged core. Barring a surprise acquisition by trade of Skubal or Skenes or an ill-advised reunion with Cody Bellinger, one would imagine that the Dodgers’ offseason is now mostly complete.
I say mostly because at the end of the day, the Dodgers are missing only a familiar face as they march towards an attempted threepeat. At this point, it would be shocking if the Dodgers did
not reunite with the player who holds the record for appearances in playoff games: Kiké Hernández. As Hernández said at the 2025 Championship Rally at Dodger Stadium, the champion does not apologize to anyone.
