In a sport that rarely produces dynasties, the Los Angeles Dodgers are world-beaters. They are among Major League Baseball's smartest teams, but also among the richest. Aggressive yet pragmatic. Decorated with star talent, but fortified by considerable depth. Their moves over this past half-decade have rarely been motivated by necessity, but more so by improving on the margins, or embracing opportunities, or, when the moment strikes, gluttony. This offseason has evolved into a perfect snapshot.
While the eager, hard-charging, division rival San Diego Padres and their hyper-competitive general manager, A.J. Preller, worked to bolster an ascending roster, acquiring a number of high-end starting pitchers, the Dodgers -- arguably still better in the present, and more sustainable in the long term -- waited on an opportunity they seemed content with missing. When it actually came to them on Friday afternoon, by way of outdueling the New York Mets for Trevor Bauer, the best free-agent starter by a wide margin, they let it be known:
There's us, and then there's everybody else.
Remember this: Last year the Dodgers lost Kenta Maeda and Hyun-Jin Ryu, who finished second and third, respectively, in American League Cy Young voting with new teams. They let Rich Hill continue his illustrious career elsewhere, got nothing from the decorated David Price, who opted out of the COVID-shortened season, and yet they won the World Series -- with a group of starting pitchers who finished with the sport's second-lowest ERA.
Bauer -- who agreed to a three-year, $102 million deal that includes opt-outs after each of the first two seasons -- joins that group coming off his best season, bringing a fifth Cy Young Award to a staff that might have more in its future. He joins a re-energized Price and a revitalized Clayton Kershaw, who rediscovered some of his prime form in his age-32 season. He joins Walker Buehler, who might very well be the game's best pitcher over these next three years. And he joins a collection of talented young arms headlined by Julio Urias, Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin -- two of whom no longer possess a solidified spot in the rotation.
Teams throughout the league are agonizing over the innings jump necessitated by the additional 102 games on the 2021 schedule, but the Dodgers and Padres each boast seven legitimate starting pitchers. The Padres' seven -- Yu Darvish, Blake Snell, Dinelson Lamet, Joe Musgrove, Chris Paddack, Adrian Morejon and MacKenzie Gore -- project for 16.5 FanGraphs WAR, according to ZiPS. The Dodgers' seven -- Kershaw, Buehler, Price, Urias, May, Gonsolin and now Bauer -- project for 17.8.
The Padres employ eight position players projected for more than 1.5 WAR in 2021:
Fernando Tatis Jr.: 4.4
Manny Machado: 3.8
Ha-seong Kim: 3.0
Trent Grisham: 2.4
Jake Cronenworth: 1.9
Tommy Pham: 1.7
Jurickson Profar: 1.6
Wil Myers: 1.6
The Dodgers have seven (eight if Justin Turner returns, which is probably still more likely than not):
Mookie Betts: 5.9
Cody Bellinger: 5.4
Corey Seager: 4.7
Will Smith: 3.2
Max Muncy: 2.5
Gavin Lux: 2.4
Chris Taylor: 2.2
Padres-Dodgers games provided some of baseball's most memorable moments last year -- Grisham pimping a homer off Kershaw, Machado jawing at a boisterous Brusdar Graterol, Bellinger robbing Tatis in a huge spot -- and will be appointment television all summer. Picking the better team seems impossible.
But maybe it's actually quite simple. Maybe it's as easy as remembering that the Dodgers added Betts, the game's second-best player, to a roster that was already favored to win the World Series in 2020. And that Bauer, the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner, was added to a 2020 team that won it all after one of the most dominant seasons in recent memory.
Bauer finished the 60-game season with a 1.73 ERA, topped only by Shane Bieber, and fell within the top five in WHIP (0.79), strikeout percentage (36.0) and opponents' OPS (.522), surging dramatically enough for many to wonder if his breakout was anomalous.
Bauer, 30, entered the league as the No. 3 overall pick from a loaded draft class in 2011 and performed more so like a midrotation workhorse than a bona fide ace, posting a 3.99 ERA while averaging 181 innings from 2014 to 2019. You can dismiss his 2020 season as the byproduct of a small sample size, or of an unconventional schedule that had him continually facing weaker lineups in the Midwest, or of his alleged use of the same foreign substances he once bemoaned, as evidenced by significantly elevated spin rates. Or you can chalk it up to an imaginative, meticulous worker who thrived in a welcoming environment with the Cincinnati Reds, and finally came into his own before the end of his 20s.
Andrew Friedman didn't issue a single nine-figure contract in his first five years as the Dodgers' president of baseball operations. After the 2019 season, with the payroll more manageable under baseball's competitive balance tax, he made a strong-yet-unsuccessful push for Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rendon, then traded for Betts, signed him to a $365 million extension and watched him lead the Dodgers to a .712 winning percentage and their first title in 32 years.
Three weeks after a thrilling triumph over the Tampa Bay Rays, Friedman joined the Dodgers' broadcast affiliate and expressed a burning desire to repeat in 2021. He echoed the mantra that had been populating the team's text-message chains:
"Let's be pigs."
The Dodgers are here to eat.