The Los Angeles Dodgers are public enemy number one as we approach the 2024 MLB season. Although the Texas Rangers are the defending champions, every MLB team will aim to take down the Dodgers this year.
Just ask St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher, Miles Mikolas. Mikolas said he can’t wait to ‘stick it’ to the Dodgers to start the season and called out the Boys in Blue for playing “checkbook baseball.”
St. Louis is scheduled to take on the Dodgers in their home opening series at the end of the month.
Entering the season, the Dodgers have the ninth-highest payroll in the league, according to Spotrac. The Cardinals are right behind the Dodgers with the tenth-highest payroll. So please, make it make sense.
Dodgers superstar Mookie Betts said that every game Los Angeles plays will be the other team’s World Series and he wasn’t lying when. Mikolas’s comments show that fact.
Everyone has the Dodgers circled on their calendar because of the team they built and how they make it happen. Two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani signed a record-breaking ten-year, $700 million contract; however, most of the contract is deferred, meaning more than 97% of his earnings are delayed until after his deal with the Dodgers expires.
Because of this, the front office has been given so much leeway, and they were able to stay aggressive in free agency, which allowed them to sign the second-best free agent on the market, Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Nobody outside of the Dodgers is happy with the way L.A. constructed their roster, but they simply are trying to win.
Mikolas is just one of the many players in the league who are not happy with the Boys in Blue, but it’s all outside noise. The Dodgers will focus on capturing title number eight this season, while other MLB teams will hope the highlight of their season is beating Los Angeles.
There are levels to this, and the Cardinals will be one small obstacle in the way of a bigger goal in mind. That is unless the Dodgers face them in October, which is an entirely different discussion in itself.
Photo Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports
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