Not to be outdone, the Dodgers were one week into the season when Bill Plaschke posted a column with this headline: \u201cWho says the Dodgers can\u2019t go 162-0<\/a>?\u201d<\/p>\n The Dodgers won 93 games<\/a>. They also won the World Series, becoming the first back-to-back champions in 25 years<\/a>.<\/p>\n One week into spring training, the Dodgers are the only undefeated team.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThey do,\u201d manager Dave Roberts<\/a> said.<\/p>\n What would be a realistic number of wins?<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what\u2019s realistic,\u201d he said. \u201cWe 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\u2019ve got to be playing your best baseball at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n During the Dodgers\u2019 13-year playoff run, they\u2018ve won 100 games five times. When doing that, they\u2018ve 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.<\/p>\n It is one of baseball\u2019s eternal verities that wins and losses in spring training do not matter.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s always fun to win,\u201d said Andrew Friedman<\/a>, the Dodgers\u2019 president of baseball operations. \u201cThat is always way more fun than losing. But so much of spring training is, just don\u2019t get a call from our trainer. Keep guys healthy.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is far and away the biggest priority: get guys ready for the season and keep them healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n Noah Miller runs the bases during a spring training game against the Angels on Feb. 21.<\/p>\n (Ronaldo Bolanos \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n 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 Kik\u00e9 \u201cMr. October\u201d Hern\u00e1ndez<\/a> can be available in the postseason, depth is critical.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile 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,\u201d Friedman said. \u201cAfter 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Friedman is no great fan of the Cactus League grind.<\/p>\n \u201cSo much of spring training, it feels like, is just downside,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re just waiting for that phone call [from the trainer]. You\u2019re doing everything you can to stave that phone call off.\u201d<\/p>\n The upside is on the business side. As of Thursday, tickets for Saturday\u2019s exhibition game against the Chicago Cubs started at $97. The starters are likely to play half the game. Shohei Ohtani<\/a> is in Japan, preparing for the World Baseball Classic.<\/p>\n So, to the point: It does not matter that the Dodgers are undefeated in spring training, and they\u2019ll 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<\/a> and closer Edwin D\u00edaz<\/a>.<\/p>\n Baseball Prospectus projects the Dodgers to win 104 games. Fangraphs projects 99.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n I had to ask Roberts how good he thought the Dodgers\u2019 chances would be this season if they never lost.<\/p>\n He chuckled.<\/p>\n \u201cPretty good,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX\u00a0\u2014\u00a0It is never too early for hyperbole. No major league team has won more than 116 games. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[10558,2135,337,31682,426,91544,23932,48,52,51,47,50,49,77115,4122,278,36991,430,91545,4470,72],"class_list":{"0":"post-196434","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-andrew-friedman","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-call","11":"tag-depth","12":"tag-dodgers","13":"tag-exhibition-game-last-spring","14":"tag-innings","15":"tag-la","16":"tag-la-headlines","17":"tag-la-news","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","20":"tag-los-angeles-news","21":"tag-many-game","22":"tag-postseason","23":"tag-season","24":"tag-spring-training","25":"tag-week","26":"tag-win-projection","27":"tag-world-series","28":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Noah](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1772196369_34_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n