Throughout the offseason, the CBS Sports MLB experts will bring you a weekly Batting Around roundtable breaking down pretty much anything. The latest news, a historical question, thoughts about the future of baseball, all sorts of stuff. Last week we tackled Aaron Boone’s future with the Yankees. This week we’re going to discuss the defending World Series champions.
Are the Dodgers a dynasty?
R.J. Anderson: I’ve raised this point before (I believe last winter with respect to the Astros), but I think we’re overdue for redefining and perhaps expanding what we mean by the term “dynasty.” It used to be that you couldn’t break out the d-word unless a team scored a cluster of titles within a short period of time. Nowadays, with the expanded postseason, I think it’s unrealistic to hold clubs to that standard. I also think it would be beneficial to the league as a whole if more emphasis was placed on the regular season. Therefore, I am comfortable calling the Dodgers (and the Astros, for that matter) a dynasty because they combined sustained regular-season success over a decade with a few titles.
Dayn Perry: Yeah, I think they are. You can’t apply the definition of dynasty from football and basketball to baseball. The sport just doesn’t work that way — meaning there’s just too much noise and randomness in play during the postseason on account of the small sample size. So, yes, the Dodgers are a dynasty. They’ve been to the playoffs for 12 straight years. They also have six 100-win seasons since 2017, and that total would probably be seven if the 2020 season hadn’t been so heavily abbreviated. That’s a dynasty.
Matt Snyder: Absolutely, unequivocally not. What makes a dynasty special is the sustained excellence both in the regular season and the postseason and given that it is so hard to achieve, we’re going to go through dry spells. We probably haven’t had one since the Core Four Yankees, but the Even Year Giants won three in five years and that’s a lot closer than two titles in five years. These Dodgers might become a dynasty and I’ve written as much. Having one or two every few decades would, again, go to how rare and special actual dynasties are. I don’t see the need to lower the bar here with terminology when we could simply throw qualifiers on there, such as the Houston Astros were an American League Dynasty (and maybe still are, depending on how 2025 goes) and the Los Angeles Dodgers are an NL West dynasty. MLB-wide, though? They’ve gotta win a title in 2025 and then maybe I’ll consider it. If not, they remain a no for me.
Mike Axisa: No, come on. Two titles in five years and four pennants in eight years? That’s a terrific run, but it is not dynastic. The Astros won four pennants and two titles in six years. That’s much closer to a dynasty for me. I mean heck, the Giants won three titles in five years and went 12-5 in 17 World Series games those years. The Dodgers are 12-10 in their four recent World Series trips. I understand is it harder to be a dynasty now that at any point in baseball history. The 1990s Yankees didn’t have to contend with revenue sharing and the luxury tax and the wild-card round. Still, I don’t think it’s too much to ask to win the World Series in back-to-back years before we begin throwing around the word “dynasty.” The Dodgers are a great team and no worse than the second-most successful franchise over the last 10 years, but a dynasty they are not.
