No group in Main League Baseball is dealing with increased expectations and extra stress to win this season than the Los Angeles Dodgers. After a spending spree this offseason that included the report signing of two-way famous person Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers are dealing with World Sequence or bust ranges of expectation.
Given their roster, they know they’re placing an enormous goal on their backs for the remainder of the league. A lot in order that Mookie Betts mentioned on Saturday that when different groups play the Dodgers they are going to be treating it like their very own World Sequence.
That could be a daring declare, particularly because the Dodgers aren’t even the defending World Sequence champions. Nor did they even make the World Sequence. In actual fact, they’ve constantly been a postseason disappointment lately regardless of their enormous payrolls and spectacular rosters. The one championship they’ve gained over the previous decade was the 2020 championship that got here within the COVID-shortened season.
Proclaiming your self to be the matchup everyone treats because the World Sequence, once you your self aren’t the group proudly owning the latest title, is the peak of conceitedness. Even with their roster and offseason additions.
Together with Ohtani, the Dodgers additionally added Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Teoscar Hernandez to a group that already Betts, Freddie Freeman and Clayton Kershaw on it.
The Dodgers ought to be the most effective groups in baseball, and so they clearly realize it. But when they don’t make a severe run on the World Sequence and have actual playoff success they run the danger of not solely being one of many largest flops in latest Main League Baseball historical past, but additionally fully embarrassing themselves.