How the Dodgers widened the gap between them and baseball

If talent alone decided the World Series champion, showing up to spring training would be pointless for 29 of the major league’s 30 teams.

Because in baseball, there are the Dodgers and there’s everyone else.

The Dodgers successful title defense last year was a testament to how much better they were than everyone else. Almost everything that could go wrong for the Dodgers went wrong, but their overwhelming edge in talent offered them significant margins for error. 

The team that will start reporting to Camelback Ranch this week will be even more loaded.

The Dodgers didn’t just maintain their advantage over other teams. They widened it, in some cases by a lot.

While the two-time defending champions picked up the best hitter and best reliever on the free-agent market this winter, most of their fellow World Series contenders failed to improve. Some of them became worse.

“For Dodgers fans,” Ohtani said in Japanese, “I think it was an extremely good offseason.”

Not so much for their competitors.

With Roki Sasaki moving back to the starting rotation, Edwin Diaz will be the closer the Dodgers desperately need. The team’s other big-money newcomer, Kyle Tucker, will fill a vacancy in their outfielder while injecting youth into a lineup that was in danger of becoming too old.

For the Dodgers, the acquisitions of Diaz and Tucker did more than address a couple of shortcomings. The moves kept the only two game changers on the free-agent market out of their rivals’ hands.

Consider what the Mets would look like with Diaz. Or the Toronto Blue Jays with Tucker

The Mets were the rare contenders who had a productive offseason.

They lost Pete Alonso, but added Bo Bichette, Jorge Polanco and Marcus Semien. They traded for a legitimate frontline pitcher in Freddy Peralta. Promising rookie starter Nolan McLean, who made his debut in August, should be with the team an entire season.

But their bullpen could be a problem.

They spent $51 million on Devin Williams, who had a rough season last year with the Yankees. As a setup man for Diaz, Williams would have been a worthwhile gamble. As a closer, he’s an invitation for disaster.

Most other projected contenders had offseasons that resembled the Blue Jays’.

Instead of pairing Tucker with Vladimir Guerrero Jr., they will figure to have a weaker offense after losing Bichette to the Mets. The best offensive addition was Kazuma Okamoto, a high-floor, low-ceiling corner infielder from the Japanese league. The $210-million contract the Blue Jays awarded to starting pitcher Dylan Cease represented a major overpay, especially for a pitcher with an underwhelming postseason track record. 

The most important moves made by the Yankees and Phillies were to re-sign their existing stars — Cody Bellinger for the Yankees, Kyle Schwarber and J.T. Realmuto for the Phillies. 

The Brewers, who had the best regular-season record in the National League, return a weaker team after trading Peralta. They acquired a couple of high-level prospects from the Mets in exchange for their ace, but the deal was made with the future in mind instead of the present. 

In the National League West, the Padres, Giants and Diamondbacks were limited to marginal, low-budget moves, as if they were already conceding the division title to the Dodgers.

And who can blame them? None of these teams have the kind of advantages the Dodgers have. The quantity of top-level players they have allows them to camouflage whatever problems emerge.

Last year, when their offense wasn’t clicking, the Dodgers could ride Shohei Ohtani. When their bullpen was crashing and burning, they could turn Sasaki into a closer. When Sasaki wore down, they could rely on Yoshinobu Yamamoto to throw a complete game, then another.

Such heroics shouldn’t be necessary now that Tucker and Diaz have joined the team. Tucker’s well-rounded game should make the offense more dynamic and the defense more solid. Diaz should bring stability to the bullpen.

“We know we got a good thing going on here when you know everyone’s trying to beat us,” Freddie Freeman said. “We love everything about that. And then when you keep getting the best players on your team, they really want to take you down.”

That doesn’t mean they will be able to. The already-difficult task of beating the Dodgers became harder this winter.