Greatest Dodger Team?

2024 The Greatest Dodgers Team Ever Assembled?

By David A. Avila

A cold spell has blanketed the bats of the Los Angeles Dodgers though you might think otherwise.

This Dodger batting attack is so potent that most fans can’t see it’s actually laboring. But once the weather warms and the muscles relax, the balls will be jumping off the Boys in Blue bats like drops of water in a frying pan.

Welcome to 2024 with a Dodger lineup that has never been more dangerous since the team was in Brooklyn. This version may be even better than that.

Over the decades the Los Angeles team has been built behind a theory that pitching is the key to success. If the other team can’t score runs, then all you need is one more run than the opposition. The Dodgers have won six World Series with this formula since the team arrived in 1958.

Back when the team was in Brooklyn, the smaller Ebbets Field was a haven for the big bats of Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese and of course Jackie Robinson. That team was powerful and led the National League in hitting almost every year from 1947 to 1957. Everyone of those players is in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

But this team now can probably surpass that version, at least this year.

With the addition of Shohei Ohtani and Teoscar Hernandez the already powerful Dodger offense picked up even more power and speed. It’s almost comical. It’s like adding a couple of drops of nitro on a stick of dynamite.

Already Ohtani and Hernandez have won games for the Dodgers they wouldn’t normally win. Its cold outside and teams in L.A. just aren’t built for games played in 40 and 50-degree temperature.

What are we? Bostonians?  

This is Los Angeles, the city of Palm trees and beaches less than 30 miles away. We don’t play in snow. In fact, what is snow?

While the rest of the country suffers rainouts and cancellations due to bad weather, the California teams keep playing. Just don’t expect a team like the Dodgers to hit until June. That’s when the weather heats up and so do the Dodger bats.

Ever since Dave Roberts became the Dodger manager, he’s brought that California cool to the team, that “don’t worry, be happy” attitude. Though he lived all over the country he spent a lot of time in Hawaii and also attended UCLA in Los Angeles. He knows the weather and knows that baseball is truly a summer sport.

So far Dodger fans have seen glimpses of greatness provided by Mookie Betts, Ohtani and Hernandez. Sprinkle in some Will Smith and you have a team leading the NL West by a handful of games.

Wait until it gets hot.

Fans still have not seen Freddie Freeman unload. When the first baseman gets hot, he sprays balls all over the field like one of those automatic sprinkles that go back and forth.

Max Muncy is another who can make a run. When he gets cranking balls fly out of stadiums as if shot out of a cannon. Ask Madison Bumgarner.

You also have a slew of other characters like Chris Taylor, Kiki Hernandez, Chris Outman, Gavin Lux who if they played on the Los Angeles Angels would all be stars. Add an X-factor like Andy Pages and you have perhaps the greatest team ever assembled in Dodger history.

I’ve seen them all from 1958 to the present. I’ve seen Sandy Koufax dominant batters during the sixties along with Maury Wills stealing the pants off the opposition. I’ve seen the emergence of Tommy Lasorda who groomed players in the minor league to the majors with an infield quartet that powered the Dodgers to contention during the 70s behind Ron Cey, Steve Garvey, Bill Russell and Dave Lopes.

I remember Fernando Valenzuela stepping onto the mound as a last-minute replacement and igniting Los Angeles fans into a frenzy to watch him pitch. Behind the Mexican southpaw the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees in the 1981 World Series.    

How can I forget the 1988 Dodger team as Kirk Gibson led the team along with Mickey Hatcher and Orel Hershiser to defeat two powerful teams back-to-back in the New York Mets and Oakland A’s. That homer by Gibson in the opening game of the World Series was magical. Fans refused to go home.

The 90s brought various Rookie of the Years like Mike Piazza, Raul Mondesi and Hideo Nomo, but no playoff wins. Not until the current Dodger franchise was under this current administration led by Magic Johnson did the team finally find its proper place.

Everything seemed to come together when the Dodgers traded for Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Nick Punto for Ivan De Jesus, James Loney, Allen Webster, Rubby De La Rosa and Jerry Sands in August 2012.

Gonzalez, a first baseman, became the anchor for the Dodgers that slowly complied a powerhouse team piece by piece to accommodate ace pitcher Clayton Keshaw. The Dodger farm system began feeding the big team with the likes of Cory Seager, Cody Bellinger, Joc Pederson, and Walker Buehler.    

Here we are now with perhaps the greatest Dodger team Los Angeles has ever assembled. Take it in slowly like a shot of upper tier tequila. The best is yet to come.

Summer is Coming

We’re close to June and that means the bats begin to heat up.

Recently the Dodgers pounded the Giants, Reds and D-Backs. And we’re still in the month of May.

Shohei Ohtani ripped a single into right field to grab his first walk-off hit as a Dodger against Cincinnati Reds.

“He got a little water bath by the guys,” said Dodger skipper Dave Roberts. “It was big.”

On Monday night against the Arizona D-Backs, fans saw one of the coldest Dodgers Freddie Freeman rip a grand slam. Once the first baseman gets going that’s a true sign that summer is coming.

Never forget Freeman is one of the best hitters in the past 10 years.

I’ve seen them all come and go from Ted Williams to Tony Gwynn. This Dodger team is stacked with a lineup that could eventually feature four Hall of Famers in Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani, Will Smith and Freddie Freeman.