My Thoughts About the Los Angeles Dodgers

It's still the offseason, but Spring Training is just around the corner. Teams have been busy with signing players to improve their rosters. No team has been more busier than the Los Angeles Dodgers. In case you haven't heard, the defending World Series Champions have signed Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki. I've been following the signing of several players since the offseason began, with one being Blake Snell, which was the only move I agreed with. To refresh your memory, Snell threw his first career no-hitter last season while he was with the San Francisco Giants. As you can tell from the title of this story, I have more to say about the Dodgers and the reasons why I have such a huge dislike of them. You must be wondering why I've been so harsh towards them in previous stories. My criticism of them will never ease up and won't anytime soon. Once you see the following reasons, you'll have a better idea of why I'll never look at them the same, nor respect them again.

1. Outrageous Spending

Before the 2024 MLB regular season began, Shohei Ohtani signed a 10-year, $700 million contract. The reaction to this signing was mixed. While many praised it, others question the amount as excessive. As much as I respect Shohei, the contract was the only thing that I criticized him for and gave him the side-eye. In one of my stories about Juan Soto's enormous contract he signed with the New York Mets, I thought his deal was ridiculous too. No athlete, regardless of sport or popularity, is entitled to be paid close to a billion dollars. Even though some of the money in Shohei's contract was deferred, having a large contract screams entitlement. The contracts of both of these players should be scrutinized. The Dodgers have already spent over a billion dollars to acquire several players and baseball fans have called for Major League Baseball to set a salary cap on all teams. That way, spending wouldn't be out of control. I agree that a salary cap needs to be put into place. MLB should investigate these signings and their practices when it comes to acquiring players. Finally, they need to slow down with these large contracts. Not every team has large payrolls to sign the best players.

2. Gatekeeping Talent

I've been following the Dodgers' shenanigans during the offseason and I have even more to say. I've accused them of trying to obtain Japanese talent for themselves, not allowing other teams to sell their pitches to those players. To me, it's an act of selfishness and also greedy. Plus, they're ruining baseball by doing this. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, gatekeeping is defined as to try to control who gets particular resources, power, or opportunities, and who does not. This definition perfectly describes the Los Angeles Dodgers. Do teams have a right to sign whoever they want? Of course, but when you display a "Japanese talent is ours" attitude, that's where I have a problem. With the recent signing of Sasaki and the other signings of Japanese players, it's seen as an unfair advantage towards other teams. There were other teams in the running, including under .500 teams, that would've loved to add an arm or two to their rotations.

3. They love to instigate towards their rivals

Finally, after the conclusion of last year's World Series, it makes me look at the team a lot differently and will never look at them the same again. They may have won a World Series title, but they're also pure instigators. To be fair, I like only three players on that team: Freddie Freeman, Shohei Ohtani, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. However, the rest of that roster are good at provoking their rivals, including their division rivals, such as the San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants. The first case of them being instigators was when catcher Will Smith called Padres player Jurickson Profar irrelevant. Profar is more relevant that Smith is and just to note, there are two Will Smiths in MLB: the aforementioned catcher and a relief pitcher. The other example was during last year's NLDS, a Dodgers fan threw an object at Padres' Fernando Tatis, Jr. Other players I would consider as pure instigators are Max Muncy, Walker Buehler, and Joe Kelly. This team loves to provoke and start stuff with their National League rivals to get a rise out of them. They are the most overrated, overpaid, entitled, and overhyped team in MLB.

Now that you've seen my reasons for my dislike of this team, my criticisms of them will never go away. I've continued to piss off Dodgers fans and I'm not sorry for it. If you think that my harsh criticism of the Dodgers is unfair, again, I'm not apologizing. Their fanbase is just as toxic as the Yankees. According to an October 2024 article published on Crestline, the Dodgers ranked as the fourth most annoying fanbase and worst behaved fans and in case you're curious about where the Yankees rank on that list, they were first in both categories. I'll have a link down below to the article detailing the rest of the teams on Crestline's list.

https://crestline.com/c/most-annoying-baseball-fans