The Dodgers Are Used to Pressure. This Is Different.

PHOENIX — Flags best fly endlessly in the event you lift them.

At Dodgertown, the ancestral house of the Los Angeles Dodgers in Vero Beach, Fla., a mural celebrating six World Series winners greeted guests. No such signage exists at Camelback Ranch. The staff has gained the National League West 11 occasions since moving its spring coaching base to Arizona in 2009, however the franchise does no longer memorialize mere postseason berths. The Dodgers supposed to construct a monument to the 2020 World Series championship staff however pandemic-related building delays sidelined the venture, and the group moved on. There aren’t any work of art and no banners, no portraits of protocol-following perseverance. If you depend on commemorative decorations as your information, the triumph in a 60-game season might as smartly no longer exist.

When Mark Walter, the landlord of the Dodgers and the executive govt officer of Guggenheim Partners, met with two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani this previous wintry weather, he tried to promote a imaginative and prescient according to those conflicting truths, the immense satisfaction and deep frustration inside his franchise. The Dodgers had transform a colossus since Walter’s workforce took over in 2012 — a perennial contender, enjoying ahead of crowds that lead the game in attendance, using a cash gadget now valued at just about $5 billion. Yet the luck may no longer offset the edge of October defeats. A chain of early postseason exits since 2020 had dissatisfied Walter and the ones inside his baseball operations division. As he defined the dichotomy, Walter sought after to fret one thing to Ohtani: The proprietor regarded as his tenure working the Dodgers to be an on-field failure.

“We’ve only done it once,” stated staff president Stan Kasten, who was once provide when Walter spoke to Ohtani. “And we need to do it more often than that.”

In Ohtani — who will debut as a Dodger this week all the way through a two-game sequence in Seoul, South Korea — Walter and the remainder of the group discovered a $700 million image of a brand new technology. His arrival has vaulted the membership into a brand new monetary stratosphere, with a deferral-laden contract serving because the spine for a $1.2 billion offseason bonanza. His presence has heightened expectancies for a staff that has no longer neglected the postseason since Barack Obama’s first time period in administrative center. Ohtani selected the Dodgers since the franchise introduced a pathway to October that have been foreclosed to him all the way through six seasons with the Los Angeles Angels. The Dodgers pursued Ohtani as a result of they’d grown uninterested in gazing different franchises behavior parades in November.

And as a result of a union between the 2 events made a ways an excessive amount of industry sense to cross up.

When Kasten first heard about how Ohtani sought after to construction his contract, he assumed he was once lacking one thing. Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman known as Kasten after a dialogue with Ohtani’s agent, Nez Balelo. “Can you repeat that?” Kasten stated. Over the process a 10-year pact, Ohtani supposed to obtain best $20 million, with $680 million deferred via 2043 so he would no longer handcuff his new staff.

In contemporary years, the Dodgers have made deferrals a addiction. The contracts for each perennial MVP applicants Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman characteristic deferred thousands and thousands. When the staff introduced $300 million to Gerrit Cole after the 2019 season, the bid integrated deferrals. Yet the contract Ohtani sought supplied such a lot monetary flexibility to the staff that Friedman later admitted he do not need had the braveness to signify it himself. Kasten described Walter as “very supportive” of the contract construction. “I would tell you to ask Mark about it,” Kasten stated. “But we know that’s not going to happen.” (Through a unique staff professional, Walter, who infrequently addresses the general public, declined an interview request.)

With Ohtani’s contract functioning successfully as a bank card, Friedman rebuilt the beginning rotation and reinforced the offense of a staff that gained 100 video games in 2023 regardless of myriad shortcomings. The Dodgers bested the game’s different monetary behemoths to land Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto with a 12-year, $325 million deal. After obtaining Tampa Bay Rays starter Tyler Glasnow, the staff hammered out a $110 million extension. The signing of former All-Star outfielder Teoscar Hernández for $23.5 million felt like an afterthought. Ohtani, after all, was once the most important prize. He won’t pitch this season as he recovers from Tommy John surgical procedure. But he can nonetheless encourage hyperbole. Freeman advised that after his profession was once over he would inform his grandchildren about enjoying with Ohtani, “just like we talk about Babe Ruth.”

The first step at the highway to the purported promised land happened at Camelback Ranch 3 days after the Super Bowl. Crowds coated all sides of a trail connecting the Dodgers clubhouse to a convention area for the staff’s first exercise. The speaker gadget blared a playlist that sounded as though it had no longer been up to date since 2016. Reporters stood atop step-ladders. Fans lofted selfie sticks. A person hoisted a kid onto his shoulders. The throngs pressed in opposition to the chain-link fence, determined for a glimpse of Los Angeles’ latest lodestar. When Ohtani jogged to the sector, the roar was once loud sufficient to drown out the bridge of “I Knew You Were Trouble.” The soundtrack was once becoming, a minimum of to the staff’s president.

“I don’t want to compare it to Taylor Swift, but I think it’s our equivalent, in terms of conversation,” Kasten stated. “It’s just everywhere you look, people are talking about him.” Kasten framed the alliance as mutually advisable. “He had been this outsized talent for the last six years. But I think pairing him with the size of the Dodger brand makes his impact and his visibility even larger than it has been, until now.”

Dave Roberts rounded a nook and noticed a mass of media within the color of the grapefruit bushes planted outdoor Camelback Ranch. There was once the standard workforce of American and Japanese newshounds. But the media family members group of workers had put in a riser so seven other digicam crews may movie the executive’s day-to-day briefing with out turning the gang right into a rugby scrum. Roberts has selected to greet the amplified consideration this 12 months with the amplification of his personal enthusiasm.

“Oh, wow!” Roberts stated. “Look at this setup, huh?”

When Ohtani was once offered at Dodger Stadium on Dec. 15, he expressed confusion to Dodgers broadcaster Joe Davis as he gazed out at rows and rows of attendees. Ohtani have been informed best media can be there. Davis needed to wreck it to Ohtani that the huge crowd was once, in truth, simply the media. A identical overwhelm will greet Ohtani all the way through the season, particularly at those video games in Seoul. The Dodgers are already lined through one of the crucial greater home press contingents. The workforce now contains round a dozen Japanese newshounds, monitoring Ohtani’s exploits in granular element, from the choice of house runs he hits in batting observe to the bigger which means of a fist bump with Hernández. When Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register requested Ohtani in passing about his canine, Dekopin, Plunkett’s image was once plastered throughout Japanese newspapers.

Ohtani conducts workforce interviews a couple of times per week. He infrequently finds a lot about himself. He values his privateness. Reporters had been discouraged from drawing near Ohtani or Yamamoto for one-on-one conversations. The staff most popular to carry the crowd periods in entrance of a backdrop that includes promoting for Guggenheim. (The staff’s uniforms additionally now come with a Guggenheim patch.) For the avid gamers, the parade of newshounds has wrought some genial inflammation. The clubhouse is steadily barren when newshounds are authorized inside of.

“It’s just a lot of people,” pitcher Walker Buehler stated. “They’ll ask you two questions about you, and then six about Ohtani. And you’ll be like, ‘You just baited me! You baited me into this. You guys got me.’”

The number one one that will handle the scrutiny is Roberts. The courtship of Ohtani created unease for him. When Roberts determined on the Winter Meetings to show a Dodger Stadium sit-down with Ohtani — which no different professional from any staff concerned within the sweepstakes had completed up to now — Friedman and common supervisor Brandon Gomes declined to supply him a lot quilt. The workforce patched issues up later that week, but if the Dodgers offered Ohtani, Roberts was once no longer at the level.

As Roberts spoke to the crowd beside the grapefruit bushes, an intrepid 8th cameraman scaled a staircase main towards the complicated’s govt workplaces.

“Excuse me,” a safety guard informed the cameraman, “you have to come down from there.”

The cameraman pointed to a Dodgers professional.

“Excuse me,” the guard repeated.

The cameraman pointed once more. A staff professional walked over. “He’s with us,” the staffer defined. SportsNet LA, the staff’s tv community, has produced 10 seasons of “Backstage: Dodgers,” which gives lighthearted seems on the internal workings of the franchise. The guard was once adamant. Regulations trumped content material; in the end the cameraman left his perch and rejoined the scrum. Soon after, Friedman and contributors of his baseball operations division, clad in three-quarter-zip pullovers, descended the stairs.

To some, Roberts occupies the freshest seat within the recreation. Friedman has impregnable process safety. The Ohtani deal includes a provision known as a “key man” clause. He can choose out of his contract if Friedman or Walter leaves the group. The identical coverage does no longer practice to Roberts, whose contract runs via 2025. “If the highest preseason expectations in club history crash,” esteemed Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke wrote just lately, “the Dodgers will need an easy target to take the blame, and that will be him.”

In 8 seasons on the helm, Roberts hasn’t ever gained fewer than 91 video games — with the exception of for the shortened 2020 season, when the membership performed at a 116-win tempo. His .618 profitable share is the most efficient in Major League Baseball historical past. He would most probably discover a bevy of suitors for his services and products, particularly within the wake of recent Chicago Cubs supervisor Craig Counsell’s market-setting five-year, $40 million contract. Unlike Counsell, Roberts has in fact gained a World Series — although his postseason resume comprises its percentage of strategic misfires.

Roberts has described anything else wanting a championship in 2024 as a bust. Of route, he has spoken with that self assurance ahead of. He assured the Dodgers would win the 2022 World Series. That staff set a franchise file with 111 victories, however crashed out of the postseason in 4 video games. The sadness larger the incentive so as to add Ohtani. Before the season, Roberts advised his avid gamers must fear much less about exterior noise and pay attention to particular person development. Ignoring the noise, he said, shall be harder than ever.

“This year feels different because you’ve got, essentially, the best player on the planet,” Roberts stated. He added, “People love beating the Yankees. And people love beating the Dodgers. When you put on this uniform, that’s what you sign up for. But this year, it’s a little bit more extreme.”

The costliest pitcher within the historical past of Major League Baseball hasn’t ever thrown a pitch in Major League Baseball. Whenever Yoshinobu Yamamoto took the mound this spring, the instance merited tracking. As he unveiled his arsenal in a bullpen consultation all the way through the staff’s first exercise, a group of newshounds watched from a distance. Roberts, Friedman and quite a lot of contributors of the training group of workers and entrance administrative center stood in the back of the row of mounds. Standing in the back of the catcher, peering via a mesh-covered fence have been Buehler, reliever Daniel Hudson and starter James Paxton. Each took a peek as Yamamoto spun curveballs and splitters at the side of his 95-mph fastball. “Everything just explodes out of his hand,” Paxton stated an afternoon later.

Yamamoto has been an object of fascination amongst big-league groups for years. The checklist of executives who traveled to Japan to look at him in 2023 integrated Friedman, New York Yankees common supervisor Brian Cashman and San Francisco Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi. After the season, New York Mets proprietor Steve Cohen and president of baseball operations David Stearns made identical jaunts to court docket Yamamoto. The Yankees offered Yamamoto together with his personal No. 18 jersey in pinstripes.

His unfastened company sparked even larger zeal than anticipated. When the offseason started, some executives pegged Yamamoto in line for a freelance value about $200 million. As the fee escalated, the Giants bowed out. The Yankees introduced $300 million. So did the Philadelphia Phillies. The Dodgers gained the bidding through matching Cohen’s be offering after Yamamoto met with Betts, Freeman and, after all, Ohtani.

Yamamoto represents the promise and the peril inherent within the Dodgers pitching group of workers. His stature is unremarkable; he stands 5-foot-10 and weighs about 175 kilos. He changed into elite via a focal point on flexibility and unconventional actions like chucking a javelin. The transition from Japan to the most important leagues may also be difficult. During the wintry weather, Yamamoto familiarized himself with the baseball used within the main leagues, which is smaller and slicker than its identical in Japan. During his spring debut, a center-field digicam for SportsNet LA may seize the other grips of Yamamoto’s pitches.

The tipping dialogue that adopted didn’t instructed alterations to Yamamoto’s supply. The group expects him to steer its rotation, which can most probably serve as as one thing comparable to a six-man unit to offer breaks for the starters. The regulars might want the remainder. Yamamoto hasn’t ever pitched at the big-league time table. Glasnow logged a career-high 120 innings remaining season. Paxton has thrown 117 2/3 innings since 2019. Buehler won’t start the season with the membership as he makes an attempt to go back from his 2d Tommy John surgical procedure. Clayton Kershaw hopes to rejoin the staff through July or August as he recovers from the primary surgical procedure of his profession, a corrective process on his left shoulder. The checklist of rehabbing pitchers at Camelback Ranch will come with Dustin May, Emmet Sheehan and Tony Gonsolin.

Despite the uncertainty, the staff expects its pitching to be very good. The identical can’t be stated for its infield protection. A chain of wayward throws through infielder Gavin Lux, who’s coming back from knee surgical procedure, satisfied the group to play Betts at shortstop, a place Betts had treated in best 14 video games within the first 10 years of his big-league profession. Lux didn’t glance a lot better after swapping puts with Betts to play 2d base.

The overwhelming energy of the Dodgers, the propulsive drive anticipated to vault the membership previous 100 victories another time, would be the first 3 hitters within the lineup. Betts posted a .987 OPS remaining season with 39 homers and 40 doubles. Freeman put forth his standard output, with a .976 OPS, 29 homers and 59 doubles. Ohtani surpassed them each whilst pulling double responsibility as a glass: 44 house runs and a 1.066 OPS in an offense that supplied scant coverage. When executives across the recreation grumble in regards to the Dodgers, they’re grumbling in regards to the prospect of seeking to close down this trio, all the way through a season wherein Ohtani can pay attention to his hitting.

At one level this spring, Roberts when compared Ohtani to probably the most gifted teammate he had ever had. Near the tip of his enjoying profession, Roberts shared a clubhouse with Barry Bonds, the game’s all-time house run chief, a slugger tarnished through his involvement with performance-enhancing medicine however respected through his friends for his skill. Ohtani, Roberts concept, would possibly sooner or later surpass Bonds — in talent, if no longer homers.

“Shohei,” Roberts stated, “has a chance to be the best player ever.”

The other people ringed the observe area, clicking cameras and lifting selfie sticks over again, as Ohtani settled into the batter’s field to stand are living pitching for the primary time since his elbow surgical procedure. One fan clutched a painted portrait of the arena’s most famed designated hitter. This was once a number of days after the primary exercise. The consideration on Ohtani and the Dodgers had no longer slackened. If anything else, it had intensified, and would best proceed to take action.

For a decade, Kershaw acted because the gravitational drive inside the Dodgers clubhouse. The duo of Betts and Freeman equipped that presence in recent times. Given the magnitude of Ohtani’s popularity, the ramifications of his contract and the level of his talent, Ohtani will have to serve that function now. He has bonded with Hernández, a former American League West rival. Freeman pronounced himself amazed that Ohtani remembered the title of Freeman’s son, Charlie, after assembly the boy finally 12 months’s All-Star Game.

“He seems to be holding onto his balance, to the extent he can,” Kasten stated. “But it’s almost like, in America, he can escape. Because in Japan, he can’t. I’ve been there recently. He’s everywhere.”

When Ohtani introduced his marriage, Japanese tv stations interrupted their programming. The Dodgers intend to capitalize on that devotion. “One of our goals is to have baseball fans in Japan convert to Dodger blue,” Friedman stated at Ohtani’s introductory press convention. That effort is not going to finish with Ohtani and Yamamoto. The staff is anticipated to make a full-pocketed pursuit of Rōki Sasaki, the 22-year-old right-handed phenom, each time the Chiba Lotte Marines make him to be had. Visitors to Dodger Stadium can be expecting a bevy of recent sponsorships adorning the ballpark. The costs of tickets to go into the ballpark are emerging at the secondary marketplace.

As Ohtani ready to stand his new teammates in batting observe, fanatics and newshounds catalogued his actions. When he attached with a fastball from pitcher J.P. Feyereisen, the sound reverberated around the facility. The crowd gasped because the ball took flight. Ohtani watched it transparent the center-field fence as he left the batter’s field. He peeled a pad off his surgically-repaired appropriate arm, which remained sheathed in a compression sleeve. He jogged again towards the clubhouse, previous the gang screaming his title, one step nearer to Opening Day.

The judgment in this first season of the 10-year union won’t come till October. Ohtani hasn’t ever skilled the MLB playoffs. The Dodgers by no means pass over a call for participation. The franchise embarked in this technology hoping to amass flags to boost and banners to proclaim championships.

Anything much less can be a failure.

(Top representation through Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Photos through George Rose / Getty Images; Gene Wang / Getty Images; David Durochik/Diamond Images)