As we near the end of the MLB offseason, the Los Angeles Dodgers have already had the most historic off-season in MLB history. LA so far have spent over a billion dollars on new signings for the upcoming season. Los Angeles is notorious for spending big amounts of money, and continues to produce a good team to situate on the field for the season.
This off-season has been unlike any other in recent memory. There have been many big names on the market looking for a team to spend big on them. Going into the off-season, everyone was hoping to land these big superstars. This year, the hottest free agents have been Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell, Matt Chapman, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Many of these players are already proven superstars, but for Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who’s never played a single pitch in the MLB, has still yet to see any MLB action. He has been a spectacular player for the NPB league.
Being that this off-season is already so far along, as well as near approaching the 2024 season, a generous amount of these free agents have already been taken off of the board, with the most notable being Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, both playing on the same team in sunny southern California for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The contracts that these players agreed to were no joke either. In fact, the two way star Shohei Ohtani signed an MLB record 10 year, 700 million dollar contract, coming out to about 70 million dollars a season over the next 10 years. But in reality, he will most likely only see about 2 million dollars a year because he elected to defer 680 million dollars of his contract. This was a huge pickup for the Dodgers, but at what cost? A lot of fans are questioning whether or not LA was smart with the amount of money they spent on just one single player. Although this contract alone showed just what the Dodgers are willing to do to put a winning team on the field, they decided they weren’t finished just yet, and agreed to a contract with star Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, inking a 12 year, 325 million dollar deal.
Apart from free agency, the Dodgers found more ways to acquire some new stars aboard their roster. They made a major trade with the Tampa Bay Rays, which included them giving Tampa Bay a young starting pitcher in Ryan Pepoit, and young outfielder Jonny DeLuca. In return, LA received star pitcher Tyler Glasnow as well as veteran outfielder Manuel Margot. The Dodgers fill yet another hole on their roster.
Unlike all other off-seasons prior, the Dodgers looked at what holes they needed filled in their line-up and rotation and filled them. LA knew going into this off-season that if they wanted to build and establish a dynasty, they would need to dive deep and spend tons of money on players that would help reach these goals. As we can see, the Dodgers achieved this goal and were not shy with how they spent their money. It makes their fanbase ecstatic about the upcoming season, while also making other fanbases upset. A lot of MLB fans think that this can ruin the competitiveness of the game and make it so much more boring. To other fans, it will be either a good ten years or a boring uncompetitive ten years. But now it’s just a waiting game to see whether all this money being spent was worth it, or will go down as one of the biggest money losses in all of MLB history.
