Copyright San Diego Union-Tribune
Peter Seidler picked the right metaphor. The Dodgers really are of the dragon species. Gone are the fun days when John Moores could say he felt a “little sorry” for the Dodgers, when Kevin Towers could tell L.A. reporters the Dodgers lacked heart, when Larry Lucchino could troll the whole franchise. Compared to those Dodgers, the Dodgers of the past two Octobers stand as the polar opposite. They’re smart and feisty, clutch and cohesive. Exploiting their unmatched resources and an MLB system that caters to the bigger media markets, they will spend whatever it takes. Meanwhile, here in Major League Baseball’s 26th-ranked media market, while the Padres remain a top-10 team, there’s a gnawing concern that a recent Dodgers-Padres outcome created a double-whammy. The Padres’ not burying the Dodgers in the best-of-five Division Series last October is the type of failure that can linger for a franchise. Say, a decade or two. Those Padres, said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, would have gone on to win the 2024 World Series. Unable to close the Dodgers out, the Padres went scoreless in Games 4 and 5, wasting good pitching by Yu Darvish in the finale. But it’s how the Dodgers have reacted since the Padres pushed them to the brink that’s driving the ‘24 NLDS higher up the San Diego sports list of all-time bummers. The Dodgers haven’t lost consecutive games in the postseason since escaping the clutches of Manny Machado and friends. They haven’t lost a postseason series, either. Entering Game 4 of the World Series on Tuesday night against the Toronto Blue Jays, they’d gone 21-5 (.808) in the two World Series tournaments since the Padres, getting a two-run home run from Fernando Tatis Jr. and four scoreless innings of relief, won Game 3 in the East Village by a 6-5 score. Along the way, the Dodgers have punked several Major League challengers, giving them a direct sense of what the Padres have had to contend with in the National League West. L.A. cast aside both New York teams, making the Yankees look tense and clumsy by comparison in the 2024 World Series. This month, they dismissed the last-seeded Cincinnati Reds, handled a very good Philadelphia Phillies squad and, in a four-game sweep, overwhelmed a sound, low-payroll Milwaukee Brewers club that led the Major Leagues in victories this year. It’s how the Dodgers are winning that’s spooky. Chokers no more in October, they’ve looked as comfortable as Tommy Lasorda with a plate of lasagna. They seem to vibe off each other, playing the game with joy. One person who wouldn’t be surprised by any of it is Seilder, a scion of former Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley. He likely saw that the folks who run the Dodgers are baseball Einsteins compared to their immediate predecessors such as Frank McCourt and the Fox Media Group. To everyone, it was evident that current Dodgers ownership would invest a lot more money in the baseball operation, relative to MLB standards, than those groups ever did. And while that has happened, Dodgers control person Mark Walter, a hedge fund billionaire, hired a sharp baseball executive in Andrew Friedman, who’d squeezed huge returns on the salary dollar with the small-budget Tampa Bay Rays. Understanding how tough it would be, Seidler went after the Dodgers with a zeal disproportionate to his franchise’s small-market status. He approved four player payrolls in the top seven in baseball, and signed off on several blockbuster trades that seem to mortgage the long-term future. “He was obsessed with beating the Dodgers,” Padres Hall of Fame pitcher Randy Jones, a friend of the late club chairman, said after Seidler’s death in November 2023 at age 63. The results were highlighted by the ouster of L.A. in the 2022 Division Series, three games to one, featuring homefield victories before raucous homefield crowds in Games 3 and 4. But as part of the Seidler-approved massive double-down spending spree entering the 2023 season, the Padres may face a reckoning someday. Infielders Manny Machado and Xander Bogaerts, both 33 years old, are under long-term, expensive contracts. Even the numerous skeptics of the $280-million deal given to Bogaerts couldn’t have expected the former Red Sox star to hit so poorly with runners in scoring position in his Padres debut season, marred by a recurring wrist ailment. Few would’ve forecast that 2023 team — third in payroll — to miss the playoffs, as it did. Say the Padres had eliminated the Dodgers in the following October, following a strong rebound season in which they posted the majors’ best second-half record. The ’23 flop would’ve been relegated to the franchise’s footnotes. Instead, Seidler’s dragon has multiplied. The Dodgers have become a thunder of dragons. A flight of flame-throwers. If the Blue Jays can’t overcome them, the Dodgers will win their second consecutive World Series title — something a National League champion hasn’t done since the Cincinnati Reds swept the Yankees in 1976.
