The Los Angeles Dodgers are world champions for the eighth time.
On Wednesday night in the Bronx, they roared back from being five runs down in Game 5 to beat the New York Yankees 7-6 and seal an emphatic 4-1 victory in the 2024 World Series.
After securing the best record in the sport and tasting victory in the Fall Classic, Dodgers’ owners, including Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly, have been more than vindicated in their decision to invest over a $1 billion into the team.
The jewel in the crown was superstar Shohei Ohtani, who left the city rival Angels as a free agent in the offseason and signed the biggest contract in baseball history.
The man often compared to Babe Ruth chose the Dodgers over the Blue Jays, Angels, Cubs and Giants, and was rewarded with a super-unique $700 million contract, making him the richest athlete in sports history.
But Ohtani, who posted the first 50 home run/50 steal season in MLB history, deferred his life-changing money in the same style that Boehly has applied with Chelsea in the Premier League.
The majority of Ohtani’s monster $700m deal doesn’t kick in until 2034, and it was his idea to help out the Dodgers a decade before his real pay day.
“I figured if I can defer as much money as I can, if that’s going to help the CBT and that’s going to help the Dodgers be able to sign better players and make a better team, I felt like that was worth it,” Ohtani, who is now expected to win his third MVP award, said.
The Dodgers set about creating a juggernaut which the 30-year-old Ohtani is undoubtedly the face of.
Backed in part by a 25-year, $8.35 billion local media-rights deal with Spectrum, they re-signed Clayton Kershawalso and also added Japanese phenom Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Teoscar Hernández to their star-studded roster to turn their championship dreams into a reality.
In March, the Dodgers and catcher Will Smith agreed to a $140 million, 10-year contract, raising the team’s spending to nearly $1.4 billion for five key players since December 2023.
However, it was another, earlier free-agent deal that proved to be the deciding factor in the World Series.
The Dodgers swooped in and signed first baseman Freddie Freeman from the Braves in 2022, signing him to a six-year, $162 million contract.
Freeman wanted a second ring after earning one with Atlanta in 2021, and in the Dodgers he recognized his best chance of winning it.
The 35-year-old annual All-Star hit a home run in the first four World Series games, including the walk-off grand slam in Game 1, the first in World Series history.
In only five games, Freeman drove in 12 runs to tie the World Series record set by the Yankees’ Bobby Richardson in 1960 (in seven games).
He swatted homers in each of the Fall Classic’s first four games to join the Astros’ George Springer (2017) as the only player to homer in four straight games within a single World Series.
His final World Series slash line was .300/.364/1.000. and he was rightly named World Series MVP.
The Dodgers have spent big and won big.
They’ve flexed their financial muscles and won baseball’s biggest prize — and they might not be done adding players and payroll.
Fresh off losing the World Series, Yanks slugger Juan Soto is about to hit the open market as one of the hottest commodities in recent history.
The bidding for his services is expected to result in one of the largest contracts in Major League Baseball history — something along the lines of $600 million.
“That’s a lot of money,” he admitted.
His monster debut season in the Bronx will make him an attractive proposition for any franchise, but one that only a handful of big market teams are likely to afford, including the Dodgers.
The 26-year-old, who posted a .288 batting average, 41 home runs and 129 walks and a .989 OPS and formed a formidable duo with Aaron Judge, says that every team is on the table as he hits free agency.
“I don’t know what the teams are that want to come after me, but definitely I’ll be open to this and every single team,” Soto said. “I don’t have any doors closed or anything like that. I’m going to be available for all 30 teams.”
The Dodgers certainly have deep enough pockets to make it happen, and have proven a willingness to flash the cash in order to stay über competitive.
Adding a player like Soto, after winning the World Series, would be a major signal of the Dodgers ownership’s intent, and show how hellbent they are on creating baseball’s next great dynasty.
