Superstars Don’t Make A World Series Winner. Shohei Ohtani Is Making People Forget.

Several weeks ago, baseball fans did their best (and failed, based on ratings) to muster the energy to watch a World Series matchup between the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks. It was a continuation of an MLB era where the unexpected has become expected.

Neither team won their division. Neither entered the season with a bona fide star. Both beat teams that had stars to spare. For yet another year, it was emphatically proven that winning postseason teams are not necessarily built by gargantuan contracts. The Mets, Yankees and Padres spent nearly a billion dollars and none of them made the playoffs. There was more to baseball than the dotted line.

No one cares anymore. Shohei Ohtani signed a contract for $700 million. The Dodgers are World Series favorites again.

The short-term memory of baseball fans clamoring for free agents this offseason is frankly shocking. There is an obvious disconnect between the way that teams prepare for the season and the season itself. With an expanded playoff format and a dozen or so teams willing to shell out more than $100 million, it is becoming clearer and clearer that no one player has the ability to change a team’s fortunes. But big signings over the winter continue to swing the World Series’ future odds like a pendulum.

On paper, the Dodgers were probably already one of the best teams in baseball, so Ohtani is obviously going to improve their chances. The nature of his contract is also overwhelmingly favorable for the team, as Los Angeles will be able to defer the vast majority of the money it owes him and sign more players in the interim.

But if Ohtani had been on the team last year and sustained the same injury that took him off the mound for the Angels, the Dodgers still probably would have lost in decisive fashion in the NLDS. It’s impossible to prove one way or another, but it’s a fact that the Diamondbacks were the better team for three games in October. After a 101-win season, Los Angeles was simply overwhelmed in the postseason. No one player could have made any difference.

Teams like the Diamondbacks succeeded in the playoffs because their well-paid stars performed well and key supporting characters stepped up. Rising star Corbin Carroll led Arizona all season on a $1.6 million salary. No active member of the roster made more than $12 million.

It’s easy to get excited in the offseason, a time when there are no stakes and unlimited opportunities to speculate. But it has set some of the richest teams up for failure in recent years. Payrolls and offers keep getting bigger, but 29 teams will lose in 2024. That number won’t change.