The Dodgers have fielded stacked teams during the previous 12 years, but none of them were as stacked as the team they have now.
A $1.4-billion winter last year was followed by a $465-million winter this year, the continued investments in the roster offering them a chance to do more than become the first team to defend its World Series title in 25 years.
The Dodgers have a chance to become the greatest team in baseball history.
They have a chance to win 120 games.
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Hold on — 120 games?
Is that really possible?
“Of course,” Dodgers veteran shortstop Miguel Rojas said.
Rojas mentioned how the record for wins in a season is 116, shared by the 1906 Chicago Cubs and 2001 Seattle Mariners.
“It’s just four more wins,” Rojas said.
Look at the nameplates above the lockers at the team’s spring-training facility and Rojas’ claim becomes self-explanatory.
Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki on one side. Freddie Freeman, Max Muncy and Teoscar Hernández on an adjacent wall. Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Clayton Kershaw near the doorway leading to the weight room.
“I think we have the talent on this team,” Rojas said. “It’s a really special team. If we combine that with the character and we get everybody on the same boat, I think we can win a lot of games.”
Other players said they weren’t thinking about winning a specific number of regular-season games, which, ironically, is why the Dodgers could take down the Cubs’ and Mariners’ joint record.
“I don’t care about that at all,” Betts said. “We haven’t played game one, man. We have to take care of Game 1.”
The importance of focusing on the next game rather than the win total or the championship was also emphasized by Muncy.
“We’re just trying to take care of business and put ourselves in a good position to make the postseason,” Muncy said. “That’s the most important thing, making the postseason. It doesn’t matter if it’s 90 wins, 120 wins.”
Muncy said the team has established a culture of staying present.
“You can’t look at what we’ve already done,” he said. “You can’t look at what we’re trying to do. We’re just focusing on what we can do at this moment.”
For Muncy and Betts and the team’s other infielders, the priority during the team’s first workout on Tuesday was to become better acquainted with each other. Betts, who moved back to his natural position in right field after a midseason injury last year, has returned to shortstop. Their projected starter at second base, Hyeseong Kim, is a newcomer who played last year in the Korean Baseball Organization.
Along with Rojas and Chris Taylor, Muncy said, the group has “been out there for about a week and a half now, every single day for several hours, trying to get ground balls, just trying to get better on defense.”
Such attention to detail was critical in October. In the World Series against the New York Yankees, the Dodgers weren’t just the more talented team. They were also the more fundamentally sound team, taking advantage of the Yankees’ garbage defense to erase a five-run deficit in their series-clinching Game 5 victory.
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“What I can tell you is the mentality of everybody in this room is to win every single day,” Rojas said. “So if we can win 162, we’re gonna try to win 162. I know it’s impossible, and it’s really hard to win 120 games, but at the end of the day, that’s the expectation.”
The approach has resulted in 11 division titles and two World Series championships in 12 years. Now, with the most expensive collection of talent in baseball history, the same mindset could produce a record-breaking season.
Half of their starters could go down with injuries and the Dodgers would still have the deepest rotation in baseball. They spent $85 million on Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates to improve what was already one of the most dependable bullpens in the game. They still have a historically dangerous lineup that includes the likes of Ohtani, Betts and Freeman. They have a steady and trusted leader in manager Dave Roberts.
History is inevitable. One-hundred twenty wins feels within reach.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
