MLB winter winners and losers: Dodgers ready to repeat, Cardinals look clueless
Published 9 February 2025
PHOENIX — The weather is gorgeous without a cloud in the sky for the opening of the spring training, but everywhere you turn there are orange traffic cones, potholes, and detours.
It has nothing to do with the partying and traffic from the wild Waste Management Open in Phoenix, rather the other 29 Major League Baseball teams trying to navigate any possible way to knock off the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Dodgers, the defending World Series champions, are threatening to strangle the hope out of all their competitors with their sexy array of stars, massive $380 million payroll, and enough talent where they could their divide their team in two, and still wind up playing against one another in the World Series.
If the Dodgers can win the World Series with only three healthy starters, Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman playing injured, and forced to rely on a bullpen from the first inning to the ninth, can you imagine how powerful they’ll be after spending close to a half-billion dollars in the winter?
They’ve now got eight starters – nine when three-time Cy Young winner and future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw re-signs – after signing two-time Cy Young winner Blake Snell and grabbing Rōki Sasaki, perhaps the greatest young pitching talent in Japanese history. Oh, and don’t forget they also signed the two best closers on the market, too, with Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates.