Which 2 clubs face most pressure in '24? Go coast to coast

There’s always pressure in baseball if you think you have a contending team.

Having said that: No two teams face more pressure going into 2024 than the Yankees and the Dodgers, and today’s question is which one is facing more.

Start with the Yankees. There hasn’t been a decade without pressure for them to reach the World Series since Babe Ruth got to New York more than 100 years ago. What’s more, there wasn’t a decade until the 2010s that they didn’t make the Series at least once. But it’s been 14 years for them since they won it all in 2009, even with their rosters often featuring some of the biggest names in the sport and so often the biggest payroll.

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And last season, the Yankees didn’t make the playoffs at all. Now, they have made this blockbuster trade for Juan Soto and placed a huge bet on themselves at the same time, not knowing if Soto, a free agent to be, will remain with the team past this season.

When their manager, Aaron Boone, was asked about his job security past this season, this is what he said:

“You guys know me well enough that I’m consumed with getting back to the playoffs and winning it all.”

And there is always pressure on the Dodgers because they just about always win 100 games or more, and always seem to be knocking on the door once they get to October. They have made the Series three times in the past seven seasons and finally won their first since 1988 in 2020. But since then, they have lost once in the League Championship Series and twice in the Division Series, most recently a sweep at the hands of the D-backs, who had finished 16 games behind the Dodgers in the NL West last year.

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The Dodgers’ response to watching the D-backs sweep past them into the Series was to sign Shohei Ohtani for 10 years and $700 million, much of which is deferred. Then they spent another $325 million on Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Literally and figuratively, the Dodgers have now pushed all those chips to the middle of the table. A friend of mine joked, even though we didn’t know it at the time, that their loss to the D-backs ended up costing the Dodgers a billion dollars.

It was the great Billie Jean King, who happens to be part of the Dodgers’ ownership group and was a longtime fan before that, who once famously said that “pressure is a privilege.” I reminded Dodgers manager Dave Roberts about that one on Wednesday and asked if he believed that.

“Absolutely!” was his reply.

I asked him then if he is embracing that kind of pressure going into 2024, after the way the 2023 season ended, and the way ’24 has already begun. This was his answer:

“Goals haven’t changed. Pieces certainly have, though. I love being in a position where the stakes are the highest. Obviously, that comes with scrutiny, but that just shows the passion in sports fans.”

Everybody knows how the narratives for both the Dodgers and the Yankees were altered by injuries last season. The Yankees lost Aaron Judge for more than two months, ultimately lost Anthony Rizzo to a concussion after Rizzo got off to such a fast start, couldn’t keep Giancarlo Stanton on the field again and saw him hit just .191, with 24 homers, in 101 games. Nestor Cortes, a surprise star of 2022, made just 12 starts because of injuries, and Carlos Rodón, signed to a contract worth $162 million, made just 14 starts.

In the same season, the Dodgers rotation was ravaged by injuries. Walker Buehler never pitched because of Tommy John surgery. Clayton Kershaw would end up needing shoulder surgery when the season was over. Before that, in his playoff start against the D-backs, Kershaw looked like a shell of the great Cy Young/MVP pitcher he had once been, giving up six runs in the first inning of the first game of the series. The Dodgers never recovered.

Now there have been three big, flashy offseason moves and the Dodgers made two of them, for Ohtani and Yamamoto. The Yankees made the other with Soto, who is still just 25, who gives them the left-handed power they need and who, in a time when they can’t keep their stars on the field, played all 162 games for the Padres last season.

The Dodgers are coming off a huge disappointment, maybe the biggest for them since losing Game 7 of the ’17 World Series to the Astros, after winning 100 again. But the Yankees missed the postseason for the first time since 2016, and nearly had their first losing season since 1992. It’s reached the point, because of Yankee postseason history, that 14 years without the World Series feels like 140 to their fans.

It’s why there’s more pressure on them this season. Not just to make it back to the Series. But to become THE YANKEES again. All caps.