It's World Series or bust for big-money Dodgers

When the Los Angeles Dodgers open their 2024 regular-season schedule against the San Diego Padres on Wednesday (6 a.m. ET from South Korea), they are going to be under more pressure to win than any team in baseball. 

They are one of the few teams where it might actually be acceptable to put a World Series-or-bust label on them at the start. 

That is the sort of expectation that comes from the type of offseason the Dodgers had — especially when they have disappointed in the playoffs so many times over the past decade. 

The Dodgers already had a World Series-caliber roster filled with star power (specifically Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and now-re-signed Clayton Kershaw) and only added to it this offseason with the additions of Shohei Ohtani (on a record $700 million contract), Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Teoscar Hernandez and James Paxton. 

All of those moves ballooned the Dodgers' payroll to over $214 million. But even that number is deceiving due to all of the deferred money as part of Ohtani's contract. He is making only $2 million this season. Had the Dodgers not structured it that way to stay below the luxury-tax threshold, their payroll would have been closing in on $300 million. 

No matter how talented a roster is anytime you put a championship expectation on them you are probably setting yourself up for disappointment. Only one team is lifting a trophy at the end of the year, and the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against even the best teams. It takes an incredible amount of talent, strong play, luck and good timing for everything to all come together. 

But these Dodgers just feel different in that regard. 

Not only for the payroll and the offseason investments, but for the way they have consistently underachieved come playoff time.

They have been one of the league's best teams over the past 11 years, but their only championship during that time was the 2020 World Series that came in a shortened season when everything was weird. 

They did lose back-to-back World Series in 2017 and 2018, but they haven't been back since that 2020 championship despite a loaded roster and monster payroll. In fact, their playoff success has been trending in the wrong direction. Despite winning 211 regular-season games the past two regular seasons, they have gone just 1-6 in those two postseasons and were swept in embarrassing fashion during the 2023 playoffs. 

That sort of thing can't happen again. They have to make an extended run into the playoffs, and anything less than a World Series appearance is going to be an overwhelming disappointment.