Dodgers 2025 Overview of spring training: complacency will not derail the rehearsal attempt

When Luis Gonzalez fought a quick shot coupé by Mariano Rivera and managed to hit him in the central field to decide on the World Series 2001 match 7, he ended the New York Yankees series of three consecutive championships of the World Series.

No World Series champion has been repeated since the three Peat of the Yankees.

Half of the last 24 winners of the World Series did not even make the playoffs the following season. Five teams have in fact won more games as defending champions than during their title seasons, but six (including the Texas Rangers last season) had lost records in the follow -up of their winning year of the title.

Seven teams (including the Dodgers 2021) reached the series of league championships in their title of defense of the title. But only one defending champion since the Yankees – the Philadelphia 2009 Phillies – returned to the World Series.

But none of them followed their World Series victory with the kind of offseason that the dodgers had just made. When launchers and wrestlers report to Camelback Ranch on Monday before the first training training in the spring on Tuesday, the Dodgers will do it after adding a double laureate of the Cy Young Award (Blake Snell), a coveted international star (Roki Sasaki ), Another established international player (Hyeseong Kim), two elite readers (Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates) and another former All-Star (Michael Comforto) to a list that has seen relatively few subtractions.

It was enough to rely a lot. But will it be enough to reverse the trend and repeat as champions in 2025?

“It is extremely difficult to win a world series and it is even more difficult to repeat as a champion,” said the president of the Dodgers of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, confirming history. “During our conversations on the offseason as staff, we agreed that the two largest factors – obviously how difficult it is to win – is, one, there is a kind of Comlacement which can consume a group after winning a world series and, two, you have usually had to redire your pitch in October to win these 11 games. »»

With an ironic smile, Dodger’s general manager, Brandon Gomes, rejects the problem of the “red line” as “a tax that we do not think that we will have to pay” this season.

Indeed, among the eight starters whose dodgers will choose their starting rotation for 2025 – Snell, Sasaki, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May, Landon Knack, Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw (finally) – Only Yamamoto and the Talon Pitch Last October.

“Fortunately for our 2025 team, unfortunately for our quality of life in 2024, our pitch was not in red,” said Friedman. “We have a number of launchers who have returned who are relatively fresh because they could not present in October.”

The same cannot be said of the Dodgers enclosure. Their readers transported them as the World Series, launching 86⅔ sleeves during the playoffs, against 55⅔ compared to their three surviving starters (Yamamoto and the Walker Buehler and Jack Flaherty).

There could be persistent problems accordingly – Evan Phillips missed the World Series with a painful shoulder, Michael Kopech resisted a forearm problem. But the additions of Scott and Yates fortified the group of lifts.

“Each year, my concern focuses on the enclosure of the lifts and the inherent volatility that accompanies this work line,” said Friedman, saying that his level of concern could no longer be increased. “This volatility explains why we were so aggressive (to add Scott and Yates).”

This aggressiveness of last winter should also help fight against any complacency that could settle.

“To infuse new blood, some guys who are hungry, I think it’s good for us,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, saying that complacency is not in “DNA” of the group central team.

“We are talking about it definitively during the process,” said Friedman. “But as every time we seek to acquire a player, we look at him from a scale of talent and makeup. Makeup is a word often used in baseball language. Part of the definition for us is the desire to win. This is part of our verification process to make a long -term commitment to a player. »»

At the same time, the basic heart of Dodgers return players “is not wired for complacency to be a problem,” said Friedman.

“It’s not in their DNA. This is not in my DNA, “said Roberts, whose team opens the season in Tokyo with a series of two games against Chicago Cubs next month.

Friedman said that “watching them work daily” is the main reason why he feels confident that complacency will not settle down. Talk to the players during the off -season who convinced him more.

“The parade really had a deep effect on the guys,” said Friedman. “Speaking, there is a real feeling that they want to do anything that is possible to have this feeling again and a real commitment to do everything they can to make it an era of Dodgers baseball. “”

This objective “Golden Era” is that a Friedman has proclaimed several times since the World Series victory last fall. Roberts kisses him and said words like “inheritance” and “standard” will be presented in his comments to the completed team next week in Arizona. He could refer to dynasties in other sports such as Lakers, Chicago Bulls and New England Patriots as in a class that Dodgers could join.

But the MLB has made more difficult for its champions in the past 25 years, expanding the format of the playoffs and introducing more obstacles. The Dodgers 2024 were only the eighth team in 30 years that the Joker was presented for the first time to win the World Series after having published the best record for the regular season. A third joker team was added in 2022.

“It’s just difficult,” said Roberts when he was asked to explain why baseball went so long without repeated champion. “Everyone says the best team does not always win. People who know baseball know this.

“It’s just difficult. I’m sorry. This is a bad answer. But it’s just difficult. This is the honest answer. It’s the truth.

California Daily Newspapers