Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers Are a Sight to Behold

This last match will be remembered for a long time. Ohtani walked the first batter he faced before striking out the next three. Then he came to the plate and threw a ball more than four hundred feet – the first time in MLB history that one of the pitchers in the game had hit a leadoff home run. And that was just the beginning! Through six innings, Ohtani — in his inimitable cool way, with a movement that combines grace and strength — allowed only two hits and struck out ten, including six of the seven batters he faced during one stretch. In between, he hit a second home run, one that left the stadium, clearing the roof of center field. As he hung in the night sky, his teammates in the dugout and bullpen, who had a close-up view of all of Ohtani’s Bunyanesque exploits, clutched their heads in disbelief. And then he hit a third! It was the greatest performance from the greatest player in history.

Ohtani’s value to the Los Angeles Dodgers is immeasurable. His contract – seven hundred million dollars over ten years, with team-friendly carryovers – is, given what he brings to the team, on and off the field, a bargain. Still, not every MLB team could, or would, pay that much, let alone surround him with other players with gargantuan contracts.

The Dodgers have a payroll of over three hundred and fifty million dollars, almost three times that of the Brewers. This caused the usual concerns about competitive imbalance and the inherent plight of small-market teams. It’s quite easy to see the broad outlines of a story. In the first game of the NLCS, Blake Snell, a former Cy Young winner who had signed with the Dodgers in the offseason for nearly two hundred million dollars, pitched eight shutout innings. Then, in game two, Yoshinobu Yamamoto (three hundred and twenty-five million for twelve), who gave up a home run to the first batter before pitching a complete game in which no one else reached second base. Tyler Glasnow, who signed with the club for over a hundred and thirty million dollars over five years, allowed a run in the third game. Then came Ohtani. The Dodgers have had fifteen consecutive winning seasons and thirteen consecutive playoff appearances, and have already won two World Series this decade. They need another championship like Taylor Swift needs a Grammy. But they have become a symbol of something bigger than a heavyweight. They are sometimes presented as an existential threat to other teams.

It’s a strange argument: The Brewers, not the Dodgers, had the best record in baseball during the regular season. The Dodgers, in fact, were mediocre for a long stretch in the middle of the season and lost all six regular season games they played against the Brewers this year. Rather, both franchises seemed to support the idea that pay is only weakly correlated with success. (And let’s not talk about the New York Mets just yet.) Plus, much of the Dodgers’ talent was underappreciated by other teams. Betts was traded to the Dodgers by the Boston Red Sox. Max Muncy, who recently set the record for most home runs in a postseason, was claimed off waivers after being released by the Oakland Athletics. Last offseason, Snell’s agent had trouble finding a buyer. Rōki Sasaki, who had been an impressive starting pitcher in Japan, was wanted by virtually every MLB team, each of which would have been allowed to pay him more or less the same small amount, due to MLB’s international amateur free agent rules. But his choice to come to the Dodgers was validated when, after joining the team, he struggled greatly with his velocity as a starter. He went to the Dodgers’ complex in Arizona, worked with the team’s performance team, fine-tuned his mechanics and adopted a new role in the bullpen, becoming a formidable reliever almost overnight. It’s a story of competence and confidence as much as taxes and luxury income.

That’s what really sets the Dodgers apart: They’re good at being GOODnot just occasionally great. Over the past week, Brewers manager Pat Murphy has gone on a media frenzy, trying to make the case that his team is the biggest underdog the sport has ever seen. He drew attention to pay disparities. He joked that the Series would only be fair if the Dodgers players wore their gloves on opposite hands. Murphy argued to a writer in favor of Athletic that his team had no stars, while the Dodgers were full of celebrities. Then, as evidence, he pointed to Mookie Betts, who at that very moment was speeding past in a golf cart driven by an attendant at the Brewers clubhouse. Betts had a big smile on his face. He was treated better than Murphy, in Murphy’s own stadium!

Or maybe there was a simpler explanation. Of course, Betts was offered a ride: his smile is contagious. Who can blame him? Likewise, it was impossible to look at Ohtani on Friday and do anything other than appreciate the grace of her movements and the grandeur of her performance. Even a hater has to take off her hat. ♦