World Series: Dodgers sure know how to allocate their money
Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Blake Snell throws against the Toronto Blue Jays during the second inning in Game 1 of the World Series on Friday. Credit: AP/Brynn Anderson
TORONTO - Among the many hard lessons the Dodgers are teaching the 28 clubs not in this World Series, their rotation’s dominance this October has reinforced a timeless business axiom. It's one that the Mets’ Steve Cohen, as the sport’s richest individual owner, should have no problem embracing on the brink of this pivotal offseason in Flushing.
You get what you pay for.
The Dodgers have taken this to the extreme, of course. Not only do they have baseball’s highest payroll by far, at $395 million, but their top four starters — Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and Shohei Ohtani — account for $163.4 million, or greater than the total payroll of 15 teams.
That’s nearly double what the Yankees paid for their rotation ($92M) this season, a sum that even includes Gerrit Cole, who was lost to Tommy John surgery before Opening Day.
And the Mets? Well, let’s just say the $70.6 million spent on Sean Manaea, Frankie Montas, Kodai Senga and Clay Holmes was not one of Cohen’s better investments in 2025.
Cohen could’ve pushed for Snell, who was 3-0 with a 0.86 ERA this month heading into Friday night’s Game 1 start, but the Dodgers swooped in quickly to sign him to a five-year, $182 million deal at the end of November. The previous year, the Mets were spurned in their efforts to get Yamamoto, who accepted an identical 12-year, $325 million offer to take his talents to Chavez Ravine.
But that’s all in the past, and what the Dodgers have assembled — in totality, through the life of those contracts, a $1.3 billion investment — is taking a buzzsaw to their October competition. Their rotation’s 0.63 ERA was the lowest in LCS history and suffocated the Brewers in the four-game sweep. L.A.’s starters had a 1.40 ERA with 81 strikeouts and a .132 opponents' batting average in this postseason, which does a lot to explain their 9-1 mark.
Those ridiculous stats aren’t even the most impressive part. At a time of year when managers have a quick trigger on their starters, the Dodgers’ rotation pitched 64 1/3 innings out of a total 92 in those 10 games, or 69.9%, and their eight starts of at least six innings in which they allowed four or fewer hits ties them with the 2001 Diamondbacks for the most in a single postseason.
“I think it’s the old-school mentality of a starting pitcher,” Glasnow said. “Now in the playoffs, everyone’s firing on all cylinders, and because we’re pitching well, we’re able to go long. So the decisions are a little bit easier to make.”
Being well-rested could be a contributing factor, as most of the Dodgers’ rotation spent the regular season rehabbing injuries. Yamamoto was the staff leader with 30 starts (173 2/3 innings), followed by the retiring three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw’s 22 starts (111 2/3 innings).
Next was Glasnow and Dustin May, who both made 18 starts (May was traded to the Red Sox at the deadline). Snell had only 11, which worked out as a pretty good tuneup for October. Ohtani gets an asterisk, because his glacial rehab process had him averaging 3.6 innings in his 14 starts. And Roki Sasaki, the big winter prize? He made eight starts in his debut season (shoulder impingement) and was converted to their October closer.
Consider that the Dodgers’ rotation totaled the third-fewest innings in the majors during the regular season — only the White Sox and Rockies were below them — delivering 54.4% of the pitching workload. Not surprisingly, the Mets ranked fourth on that list, and their playoff push ultimately was sabotaged by having two capable starters for September. L.A. leaned on a total of 11 starters to absorb at least 10 innings along the way as the top guns reloaded for the October tournament.
“The Dodgers are so well-positioned to weather those storms,” said Kershaw, who made the World Series roster but is not scheduled to make a start. “We had all these guys that were able to fill in and let these guys get healthy. Not a lot of teams have that kind of depth. And I think it’s paying off now for sure. It’s been a really good way to get ready for October.”
It’s also an extremely rare luxury. Snell made only two starts, a total of nine innings, through the first four months of the season because of left shoulder inflammation — not what a new team wants to hear after handing over nearly $200 million. The oft-injured Glasnow is on a five-year, $136 million extension that runs through 2027, and he missed two months with back and shoulder issues.
Toss in Ohtani’s meticulous recovery from UCL repair, and that sort of three-ring crisis would send most teams into panic mode. The Dodgers mostly shrugged. They won the World Series last year by riding Yamamoto, Walker Buehler and Jack Flaherty. This time around, with all of the high-priced talent rehabbing through the regular season, the Dodgers liked their chances come October.
“It’s trying to be as prepared as we can, not knowing what’s going to happen or when,” president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. “But to have that depth to help backfill and keep our heads above water during periods where [injuries] are more clustered.”
The Dodgers’ rotation is fully functional now — and four wins away from cashing in for another World Series title.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
