PHOENIX — It is never too early for hyperbole.
No major league team has won more than 116 games. The Dodgers had yet to play an exhibition game last spring when former Times columnist Dylan Hernández declared they could win 120.
Not to be outdone, the Dodgers were one week into the season when Bill Plaschke posted a column with this headline: “Who says the Dodgers can’t go 162-0?”
The Dodgers won 93 games. They also won the World Series, becoming the first back-to-back champions in 25 years.
One week into spring training, the Dodgers are the only undefeated team.
Reality check: The Dodgers are not going to win every game, yet they play in a market where everybody expects them to win every game.
“They do,” manager Dave Roberts said.
What would be a realistic number of wins?
“I don’t know what’s realistic,” he said. “We win a lot of games. Honestly, we showed last year that the regular season certainly does matter but, at the end of the day, you’ve got to be playing your best baseball at the right time.”
During the Dodgers’ 13-year playoff run, they‘ve won 100 games five times. When doing that, they‘ve made it to the World Series once, losing to the cheating Houston Astros. In 2023, they won exactly 100 games in the regular season and exactly zero in the playoffs.
It is one of baseball’s eternal verities that wins and losses in spring training do not matter.
“It’s always fun to win,” said Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations. “That is always way more fun than losing. But so much of spring training is, just don’t get a call from our trainer. Keep guys healthy.
“That is far and away the biggest priority: get guys ready for the season and keep them healthy.”
Noah Miller runs the bases during a spring training game against the Angels on Feb. 21.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
If winning in spring training is not predictive, neither is it irrelevant. For an organization that would rather prime a pitcher for the postseason than dare use him for 200 innings in the regular season, and juggle a roster spot all summer so Kiké “Mr. October” Hernández can be available in the postseason, depth is critical.
“While there is no direct correlation between that and how you are going to do in the regular season, I do think it is some kind of proxy for the depth that you have,” Friedman said. “After three or four innings, there is a line change, and minor league players are coming in. I think being able to maintain a high level of play in these back-side innings speaks to depth.”
Friedman is no great fan of the Cactus League grind.
“So much of spring training, it feels like, is just downside,” he said. “You’re just waiting for that phone call [from the trainer]. You’re doing everything you can to stave that phone call off.”
The upside is on the business side. As of Thursday, tickets for Saturday’s exhibition game against the Chicago Cubs started at $97. The starters are likely to play half the game. Shohei Ohtani is in Japan, preparing for the World Baseball Classic.
So, to the point: It does not matter that the Dodgers are undefeated in spring training, and they’ll probably win somewhere around 100 games. They did, after all, repair their two glaring weaknesses by committing $300 million to All-Stars in the prime of their careers: outfielder Kyle Tucker and closer Edwin Díaz.
Baseball Prospectus projects the Dodgers to win 104 games. Fangraphs projects 99.
But this is the season of hyperbole, so the Dodgers still have a chance to go 194-0 between the Cactus League and the regular season.
I had to ask Roberts how good he thought the Dodgers’ chances would be this season if they never lost.
He chuckled.
“Pretty good,” he said.