PHOENIX — The Los Angeles Dodgers, surrounded by suitcases and boxes throughout the clubhouse, cleaned out their lockers, double-checked to make sure they had their passports, and prepared for the longest flight of their lives.
After playing their final game of spring training Wednesday, were instructed to be at their spring-training complex at 6:30 a.m. Thursday, board buses at 7 to travel to Sky Harbor Airport at 9 a.m. for a 6,277-mile flight to Seoul, Korea. They’re scheduled to land at 2:30 p.m. PT Friday, where they will open perhaps their most-anticipated season in franchise history on March 20 in the Gocheok Sky Dome against the San Diego Padres.
This is a team that spent a record $1.1 billion in free agency, building a team that could be the envy of baseball, filled with future Hall of Famers, MVPs and All-Stars.
The Dodgers, who had thousands of fans each day just watching them work out on the back fields of their spring-training complex, are expected to draw a franchise-record four million fans at Dodger Stadium this season, and will be baseball’s No. 1 road attraction.
They are the Beatles in spikes.
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“Let’s be honest,’ says former MVP Mookie Betts, “we all know why they’re here. It’s not like they’re coming to watch me, you know what I’m saying. We all know why people are coming.’
Yes, their names are Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, two international stars who have captivated the sporting world.
“It’s cool being on a team like this, and you just embrace it,’ Betts says. “You don’t have to do anything else but just take care of your job, and let everyone watch.’
They watched Ohtani dominate at the plate all spring, hitting .500 with two homers, nine RBI and a 1.476 OPS. They watched Yamamoto’s talent electrify at times, striking out 14 batters and walking four in 9 ⅔ innings. They watched Tyler Glasnow, acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays in December, pitch like a potential Cy Young winner, ending his spring with 8 ⅓ hitless innings.
And, well, they just watched Ohtani’s comings and goings all day long, whether it’s driving up to the complex, walking from the cage or just swigging water.
“It’s been crazy,’ Dodgers outfielder James Outman says. “The first day he was here, even before spring training started, I see cameramen and reporters lined up behind the fence at 6 in the morning. It’s been going on like that every day, just trying to capture anything they can.
“I’m telling you, he’s like Elvis. Everyone screams just getting a glimpse of him.’
Says Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman: “There are thousands of people here every day. There’s cameras filming cars driving in here. So, yeah, it’s a little different. But that’s a good thing. It means something good happened in the offseason.’
With this Dodgers’ team, it may be breaking news any time they lose a game.
“There’s definitely a different buzz for sure,’ three-time Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw, who’s expected to join the team after the All-Star break, tells USA TODAY Sports. “I mean, expectations have been there every year, but this year is more. I know that our team’s going to be one that people are watching. I think it’s a good thing.
“I think Shohei can handle it. He seems like he’s singularly focused on being really good at baseball and can handle all of the outside noise. He’s like the shiny new toy, I don’t see that wearing off anytime soon. Last couple of years, it’s been Mookie and then Freddie [Freeman]. There’s a lot that comes with it. Everybody’s kind of looking to you, looking at you.
“Now that you’ve been around, it’s not that like you’re not any more important, but it’s just that somebody’s mew that catches your eye. It’s going to be like that for at least a year, especially next year when he pitches.’
The Dodgers already are the best team money can buy with a payroll projected to be a franchise-record $313 million, more than three times the size of the Baltimore Orioles, who won 101 games last season.
“You know, people can get mad or say what they want, and say, ‘They spent all the money,’ ‘ Kershaw says. “Well, why don’t you guys do it too. Being an owner is a lucrative business, I don’t care what people say. Go do it, too.’
The Dodgers, who have been to the postseason the past 11 years, won 10 division titles, three pennants and one World Series championship, aren’t about to apologize.
“Regardless of whether you win or not, we are supposed to win every year, and that is awesome,’ Kershaw says. “So, you’ve got to give a lot of credit to the ownership group because a lot of these teams go for it, and they tank. They go for it, then they tank. That’s not [the Dodgers’] model. They go for it and they reload at the same time.’
The Dodgers, who have won at least 100 games each of the past four full seasons, don’t even know the meaning of rebuild. The last time they had back-to-back losing seasons was 1986-87. And they won the World Series the following year.
“We’re going to hear a lot of outside noise,’ says Dodgers veteran Jason Heyward, who won a World Series with the Chicago Cubs. “No one goes 162-0. It doesn’t matter if you’re picked to win the World Series not. We’ve got to keep a real perspective in our clubhouse.
“It’s a fun time to be on a team that makes moves to go for it.’
Not without their flaws
It’s hardly as if the Dodgers are flawless. There’s plenty of uncertainty at the back end of the rotation. They don’t have a full-fledged closer. And, yes, there’s that massive question at shortstop.
The Dodgers went into the spring planning on Gavin Lux to be their everyday shortstop after missing all of last season with knee surgery. The plans were torn up three weeks into spring training.
They now are going with Mookie Betts, the six-time Gold Glove outfielder who was making the permanent move to second base, only to be told that he’s now their new everyday shortstop. Lux will play second base.
The last time Betts played shortstop on an everyday basis?
Try 13 years ago when he was a senior Overton High School in Nashville, Tenn.
“You’re going from one of the easier positions on the field,’ Betts says, “to one of the hardest outside of catching. And I’m definitely not catching. But I embrace challenges. I really love learning and processes. So, I think this is right up my alley.”
Yet, it’s not as if Betts is in the winter leagues trying to learn a new position. He’s learning it at the big-league level. In regular season games that will count. And on a team where anything short of a World Series championship will be considered a failure.
“I think the most important thing I’ve learned is that I can do it,” Betts says. “I can do it. I really believe I can do it. I trust I can do it. The coaches believe in me. We’re putting in all the work. I think just that positive mindset will take me a long way.”
Time will tell how patient the Dodgers plan to be on the great shortstop experiment. They have Miguel Rojas, who could always be their defensive replacement in late innings if needed, and is tutoring Betts.
“I feel good about it,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts insists. “I do know he is embracing it, he is excited about the challenge. Players like Mookie get bored sometimes, so a different challenge is exciting. It’s one of those things, though, you’ve just got to let that process play out until you know more.
“If there’s somebody I would bet on, it would be Mookie.’
Andrew Friedman, Dodgers president of baseball operations, isn’t worried a bit, saying it was a bigger deal moving Betts from right field to second, than second base to across the diamond.
“Being around Mookie, he doesn’t miss when he puts his mind to something, and he’s all-in on this,’ Friedman says. ‘I would bet every two weeks we will look up and he’ll have gotten considerably better at it.’
The Betts move will be just another subplot in baseball’s greatest reality show.
Can Ohtani become the first player in history to win back-to-back MVPs in different leagues? Can Yamamoto win a Cy Young award in his rookie season after being the most the heralded pitcher to come from Japan? Will Betts and Freeman be even more productive with Ohtani in the lineup? Can the Dodgers finally have their first World Series parade in downtown Los Angeles since 1988?
“I don’t think there is a gear up from the pressure we have felt every other year,’ Friedman says. ‘I’m looking at it that we just have a better chance of realizing what our goal is, but the pressure to realize the goal remains unchanged.
“We definitely feel like this team has a real chance to do special things.’
World Series or bust
Indeed, it’s hardly as if this is anything new to the Dodgers. They always talk about expecting to be in the World Series. It’s just that the now the rest of the country is now joining in the refrain.
“There’s always going to those high expectations to win a World Series when you’re a Dodger,’ veteran reliever Daniel Hudson says. “So, I don’t know if there are going to be any more targets on our back than have possibly already been there.
“I mean, it’s going to be crazy, but outside of when we go to Korea, I don’t know if it’s going to be too nuts.’
Well, try telling that to the guys who have never gone through anything close to this in their lives.
Glasnow, 30, who has spent his eight-year career with the Tampa Bay Rays and Pittsburgh Pirates, has never seen so many reporters and fans. He’s used to a handful of reporters, and a smattering of fans in the stands. But if this is what it’s like in spring training, what’s it going to be like when games actually count?
Says Glasnow: “It’s definitely different for sure with all of the fans, but when you’re on a team with these many star players, and are expected to win, hey, it’s a good position to be in.’’
But if you think Glasnow was in the least fazed, well, there may have not been a more dominant pitcher in the Cactus League.
“I don’t know how anyone hits him. It feels like it’s an accident when someone does,’ Friedman says. ‘I think he’s really found his footing and has enjoyed the dynamic with our run-prevention group, his teammates, our catchers, and is poised to go out and have a really good year.’
It’s these expectations, Yamamoto says, is why he came to the Dodgers, signing a 12-year, $325 million contract, leaving the Yankees, Mets, Phillies and Giants at the altar.
“The Dodgers have had a great, great run the last 11 years,’ Yamamoto says, “and I just felt like that was a great fit for me to join them. … I’ve been given all of the support I need.’’
All that’s left, of course, is to run away with the NL West, storm through October, win a World Series title, and then get asked all winter whether they can do it again.
There are more than seven months remaining before the start of the World Series, and a whole lot of things must go right, but if this spring is any indication, who can blame the Dodgers for dreaming?
“You have visions of how things will come together and spend time when you’re acquiring different players, thinking about how it will all come together,’ Friedman says. “And it has exceeded even our wildest dreams in terms of cohesiveness and how guys have connected.
“Anytime you’re bringing in personnel outside, there is that risk, where it could play out that there could be two separate clubhouses, the guys who have been here and the new guys. But the guys who have been here have done an incredible job making guys feel welcome and involving them in everything we do. It has really been seamless, and feels like these guys have been playing together for years.’
If things continue to go this smoothly until October, well, Hollywood will have their script.
“Hey, these guys are pretty exciting to watch,’ said Will Ferrell, who stopped by the Dodgers’ camp this week. “Look at this talent.’
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