Dodgers don’t want to talk championship in February

LOS ANGELES — The first day of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ title defense included a prominent, familiar face. Clayton Kershaw roamed the back fields at the organization’s spring training facility at Camelback Ranch in Phoenix, having agreed to terms on the worst-kept secret reunion in MLB history. He will be back for an 18th season, all with the Dodgers.

As the Dodgers brought Kershaw back into the fold, they were also completing a one-year deal with Kiké Hernández. It is worth $6.5 million, league sources said. The Dodgers have committed nearly a half-billion dollars in pursuit of MLB’s first repeat title in a quarter-century, so why stop there?

“To be honest with you, I think ownership did it for us,” shortstop Miguel Rojas said. “When they went out there and got all the free agents and re-signed the guys, they sent us a message. Like: ‘We’re not just happy winning one championship. We want to do more.’”

That Kershaw and Hernández are sentimental supplements to yet another aggressive offseason demonstrates what the Dodgers are trying to accomplish. They have improved one of the game’s most feared lineups, bringing back Teoscar Hernández and adding Michael Conforto and Hyeseong Kim to a group that already had three former most valuable players. They have added a two-time Cy Young Award winner in Blake Snell and the Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki to a pitching staff that includes two electric talents on nine-figure contracts (Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto) and expects to get Shohei Ohtani, Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin back from major elbow surgery. They gave Tanner Scott the richest free-agent contract for a reliever ($72 million) this offseason and then gave Kirby Yates $13 million.

Tuesday was the first day the 2025 team’s pitchers and catchers sat together in the same room. In one corner, Ohtani, Yamamoto and Sasaki sat discussing their new gloves as reporters entered the room. Snell’s locker was positioned next to Kershaw’s, with the two left-handers combining for five career Cy Youngs.

No Dodgers team has ever won back-to-back titles. There has not been a team that has won consecutive World Series since the New York Yankees won three in a row from 1998 to 2000. But none of the reigning champions since have doubled down on their spending after winning it all quite like this. The Dodgers also have a chance at three titles in six years.

“We can’t keep thinking about being champions again,” Mookie Betts said. “We haven’t even played Game 1. We have to take care of spring training and then when Game 1 comes, then Game 1 comes. But we can’t keep talking about the World Series.

“We didn’t win last year because we were talking about the World Series every day,” he continued. “I think we won last year because we talked about the task at hand.”

The record for the most regular-season wins is 116, shared by the Seattle Mariners (in 2001) and Chicago Cubs (in 1906). Neither had the Dodger blue target on their back, as this group appears to have. Those two teams might not have had the roster these Dodgers do, either.

“I could care less about that, honestly,” infielder Max Muncy said. “As long as we’re in October, that’s more what I care about. You can’t look at what we’ve already done. You can’t look at what we’re trying to do. We’re just focusing on what we can do at this moment.”

Then again, Rojas himself projected 120 wins last week on “The Chris Rose Rotation” podcast.

“If I wasn’t thinking that was a possibility, I wouldn’t have said it,” Rojas said.

And yet the talented Dodgers are not without suspense. Their rotation is consumed with injury and workload questions. Their roster is among the oldest in the sport. Their manager’s contract is set to expire at the end of the season, though Dave Roberts is likely to get an extension before the spring is over. The Dodgers are in the process of converting Betts — a six-time Gold Glove Award winner in right field — to being a full-time shortstop ahead of his age-32 season. Betts spent his winter trying to speed along a position change the Dodgers put on him just weeks before opening day last season, working with Chris Woodward, the first-base coach, and Rojas to adapt his arm angle to the new position.

So Betts is here early, along with several of the Dodgers’ position players, working on the intricacies.

“He’s natural,” Muncy said of Betts. “He’s the best athlete I’ve ever seen.”

Rojas said: “I think he’s way more comfortable with the things he’s doing at short. He just needs to get more reps.”

Last year, Betts had 14 days before he was tasked with being an everyday shortstop starting with opening day in Seoul, South Korea. Tuesday’s first day of pitchers and catchers came 35 days before the team’s title defense begins in Tokyo. Consider it a starting block.

“You can’t race to the finish line,” Betts said. “We know where the finish line is, and you take your time getting there. Do it right. Do it once. If you do it right, you only have to do it once.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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