Over the offseason, the Dodgers lost Trea Turner, who’d had a fantastic 2022. They lost Justin Turner, who had been a longtime thorn in the Giants’ side and who had a great career in Los Angeles. They lost non-Turner Tyler Anderson, their best 2022 pitcher by fWAR. Their big moves over the offseason were trading for Miguel Rojas and signing JD Martinez and Jason Heyward, then hoping that they were both not washed up. It was reasonable to expect that, while they certainly wouldn’t be bad, the Dodgers would at least take a step back from their last few years of dominance.
They’re fucking great again. Of course. The assholes.
Sure, the Dodgers don’t quite measure up to the 111-win team they had last year, but they’ll easily content themselves with the 103-win pace they’re on now. Part of this is expected. Will Smith, Freddie Freeman, Max Muncy, and Mookie Betts are annoying the shit out of all of us by being typically excellent. Clayton Kershaw is kershawing it up and Julio Urias is having a bit of a down year so far with only a 123 ERA+.
There are also the surprises, both good and bat. James Outman is putting himself squarely into Rookie of the Year territory with his .903 OPS and strong center field defense. On the other hand, Rojas has been an offensive disaster. Noah Syndergaard, signed to shore up the rotation, hasn’t been effective either. David Peralta, another free agent signing, hasn’t lit the world on fire, or even kept its hands warm on a chilly night.
Dustin May was having a great season and now he’s hurt, which is bad for him, but fine for the team because the Dodgers will call up some prospect to replace him that we’ve never heard of, and that guy will have a 2.38 ERA over the next six weeks, and May will come back throwing harder and looking even grosser and you don’t think it’s possible but it IS. This is who they are.
Cody Bellinger was one of the best players in baseball. Then he was awful. Now with the Cubs, he is again one of the best players in baseball, and he’s on the Cubs, and even with David Peralta being bad and Jason Heyward being nothing special, the team still doesn’t really miss Bellinger.
And yet they do. The Dodgers can let stars go because they’ll just sign or develop new ones, better ones, younger and cheaper ones. It’s not just that they’ve found the secret sauce — they are the secret sauce. The Giants took two front office guys who knew the secrets — Yes, Kapler is in the dugout now but when he was in LA he was very much involved in the crimes.xls spreadsheet — and still haven’t been able to replicate said secrets yet.
The Dodgers are the model organization. They just are. It’s maddening. It’s frustrating. They just do everything right.
Like starting a baseball academy in Uganda! Nobody could complain about that, right?
And though the team’s logo has become ubiquitous on caps and shirts at baseball fields around Kampala, many Ugandans say the Dodgers, unlike Stanley, have acted like the colonizers of centuries past, mining the country for its natural resources — in this case, athletes — but refusing to give back.
“What the Dodgers are doing is picking the best, the cream of the crop,” said Bice, a former Dodgers scout in Uganda. “And if you’re not the best they are going to drop you.”
Baseball equipment is hard to come by in Uganda since none of the things needed to play the game are manufactured locally and shipping them in can prove costly. Yet the Dodgers have shared little, leaving those on the other side of their walled compound to rely on gear smuggled in by missionary groups.
I mean, sure, that’s not great, but it’s still better for the Ugandans than not having any baseball academies, right? Maybe? Possibly?
Well, okay, it’s a bit of a mixed bag, but at least the Dodgers are still full steam ahead with their Pride Night. They’re in Los Angeles, so that would be pretty uncontroversial, wouldn’t it?
Ah, right. Due to complaints from Bill Donahue and Marco Rubio — two noted non-Angelenos — the team disinvited the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from their Pride Night. The Sisters are exactly the kind of queer organization that Pride Night should be designed to uplift and feature. They raise money for cancer networks and free clinics and alternative proms, they raise awareness of issues that the queer community face, and one of them literally created the rainbow flag.
You can’t have a Pride Night without acknowledging their influence. And yet, as a way of pandering to some of the worst people in America, that’s exactly what the Dodgers are going to do. Sure, their record on the field is spotless, but they can’t hide this.
They’ll still win 100 games, but at least I get to know that they’re assholes.
Please don’t bring up Charles Johnson. Let me have this.
The baseball gods don't appreciate this, and will continue to make them choke in October. Don't worry.