Breaking: Snell Boost Dodgers Chances at Back to Back World Series Titles

Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. There is a world where the Los Angeles Dodgers can roll with that rotation next October in their pursuit of the first back-to-back World Series title since the Yankees three-peat of 1998-2000.

A lot can happen across the marathon that is a baseball season, but the top-end of what the Dodgers have just put together in their rotation is utterly ridiculous, and their reputation as the new Evil Empire has only grown overnight.

For those of you who may have missed it, what we are referring to is the fact that the Dodgers signed a two-time Cy Young, inking left-hander Blake Snell to a five-year, $182 million deal late on Tuesday night.

The details of the contract are still coming through, as Snell is set to earn a $52 million signing bonus on a contract that has no opt-outs and has some deferred money baked into the deal. Regardless of the terms, Snell is a Dodger, and the super-team just got more super.

While many will be quick to say this is bad for baseball, the reality is this: the Dodgers are the team everyone is chasing. And they will be the center of the baseball universe or the next decade.

Shohei Ohtani’s Signing Changed the Game

Last offseason, Shohei Ohtani was the big prize of the free agent class, very similar to how everyone is looking at Juan Soto this year. Ohtani’s free agent process was largely kept behind closed doors, but when the dust settled we were all left stunned when his contract was announced.

The fact that Ohtani signed with the Dodgers came as no surprise, as many viewed them as the favorite all along. The shock value came in when we learned first of the number, $700 million. That stole the initial headlines on his contract, then the follow-up, $680 million deferred took the cake.

Ohtani made the “self-less” move to defer a majority of his contract, allowing the Dodgers more spending power during his prime, so they could continue to build around him.

This contract helps the Dodgers in two major ways.

First, it allows them to have more working capital now, as Ohtani is only taking $2 million per season while he actually plays for the Dodgers. On the back-end, Ohtani will collect $68 million a year for a decade from 2034-2043, but that money could have been set aside across the decade to where it doesn’t hurt the Dodgers much. Not to mention, who cares about what happens 10 years from now?

The second way Ohtani’s contract helps the Dodgers is by manipulating the luxury tax, as the deferred money brought the present-day value of his contract down to the point where he only counts as $46.08 million against the competitive balance tax each year, instead of as $70 million.

With more working capital in the short-term, and more room to play with under the tax, the Dodgers have the ability to really build out a team full of stars around Ohtani. Last offseason, that meant trading for and extending Tyler Glasnow, and signing fellow Japanese star, Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Yamamoto and Ohtani bring a massive international audience with them to the Dodgers, giving them an absolute cash cow, which they can keep investing back into the club to make them as strong as possible.

Hence why they are able to give Snell a $52 million signing bonus as a carrot to not wait for a better offer, but sign right now and join a star-studded rotation.

A lot of teams aim for at least one, if not two, aces. The Dodgers legitimately have four, assuming Ohtani returns to form coming off elbow surgery and Yamamoto continues to establish himself stateside after a strong showing in October.

Glasnow was dominant before injuries ended his season prematurely, and Snell pitched to a 1.45 ERA after the All-Star break, a year after winning the ERA title and the NL Cy Young.

All of their aces carry some injury risk for sure, but the ceiling of what they can do is pretty insane.

Dodgers Dynasty Will Go Down in MLB History

Like the sun, the Dodgers are now the team that everything orbits around in Major League Baseball.

They have the face of MLB in Ohtani, who just won his third MLB and is on track to be considered the greatest player who ever lived (and that is somehow not hyperbole).

They have Mookie Betts, who has arguably been the most productive and consistently excellent player of the past decade. Then of course you still have a future Hall of Famer in Freddie Freeman, fresh off a World Series MVP.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto is still early in his career, but a year ago he was being touted as the top pitcher on the market and a generational free agent being only 25 years old. His age made him the top free agent on the market over Blake Snell, who lands to the Dodgers too a year later.

Glasnow is the wild card of the rotation, but could be the best pitcher in baseball if he ever figured out how to stay on the mound for a full season. All of these guys are under contract for at least the next three years, and that’s not even mentioning one of the best catchers in baseball in Will Smith.

Since the Yankees of the late 1990s and early 2000s, we have not seen a team with a more wide-open World Series window than this Dodgers team. They already won one in their first year of the Ohtani era, and it came in a year where he didn’t throw a pitch.

All the pressure is on the Dodgers to repeat, and keep winning across this decade, but they also have all the tools to get the job done. No free agent destination is better right now than Los Angeles, where you get the chance to play for a near-guaranteed 100-win club on an annual basis.

Once the money was right, how long did Snell need to think before signing to become a Dodger, and get the chance to pitch in big games every year? It’s a no-brainer.

Aside from being the place to sign, the Dodgers churn out prospects in their farm system, giving them future talents who can develop into stars, or at least quality big leaguers, along with the ability to have prospect capital to deal in trades anytime.

This ability to constantly be able to retool their roster has put the Dodgers in the envious position of being a perpetual World Series favorite. Whether they get the job done is to be determined, but that is what will keep more eyes on baseball as we all watch to see how it is going to unfold.