Why the Dodgers must keep their aging championship

The Dodgers walked into a packed home stadium when their World Series parade was over, waving to an adoring crowd that seen them as more than back-to-back champions.

They have been beloved Angelenos.

Many of the gamers are on a first-name foundation with the metropolis, and if they aren’t, they’re recognized by a nickname.

Freddie, Mookie and Shohei.

Yoshi and Roki.

Miggy Ro and Kiké.

Players who have been once strangers are now prolonged members of lots of of hundreds of households.

Ordinarily, a group as outdated as the Dodgers would have to take into account a roster makeover. Freddie Freeman and Miguel Rojas might be 37 by the start of the next World Series. Max Muncy might be 36, Kiké Hernández 35, Mookie Betts and Teoscar Hernández 34 and Shohei Ohtani 32.

But under these circumstances, how may the Dodgers suppose of breaking up their group?

How may they unload any of their superstars, regardless of how a lot they might decline in the next 12 months? How may they not retain their key free brokers, regardless of how outdated they’re?

They can’t, they’ll’t and they’ll’t.

The Dodgers have to run this back — again.

“Obviously, we would love everybody to come back,” Freeman said.

Muncy has a $10-million group option for next season. The Dodgers have to choose it up.

Rojas and Kiké Hernández are free brokers. The Dodgers have to re-sign them.

Freeman gained’t be making the calls on his teammates, of course. The choices might be made by president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, who was characteristically evasive when requested about the efforts the Dodgers would make to keep their out-of-contract gamers.

“Obviously, guys who have been here and been a big part of it start with a major upper hand,” Friedman said. “That being said, they’re free agents. They’ve earned the right to go out and talk to the 29 other teams as well.”

Muncy doesn’t have a alternative to go away if the Dodgers exercise his option, but Rojas and Kiké Hernández have said they want to return next season.

Whatever Friedman decides shouldn’t preclude the Dodgers from purchasing on the free-agent market, with Kyle Tucker and Steven Kwan being potential additions to their outfield.

But the nucleus of the Dodgers can be even older than it was this 12 months when their collective age offered a selection of issues.

Their 18-inning victory in Game 3 clearly diminished them more than it did the Toronto Blue Jays, who gained the next two video games. In retrospect, that ought to have been anticipated, as the Dodgers struggled to keep consistency on offense over a grinding six-month common season.

While Betts remodeled into one of the league’s best defensive shortstops, he skilled a sharp offensive decline. Muncy was restricted to 100 video games because of accidents. Teoscar Hernández wasn’t close to being the same participant he was last 12 months.

There have been instances that even Ohtani began to show the results of being on the fallacious facet of 30. Ohtani’s father acknowledged this actuality in a congratulatory open letter he wrote to his son, which was printed in the Monday version of Sports Nippon.

“Shohei, you’re 31 years old,” Toru Ohtani wrote in Japanese. “I think that as a baseball player, you’re in your prime, but there will come a time when you have to decide between pitching and hitting. When you can’t pitch anymore, you can be an outfielder. I think that if you practice, you can definitely do it.”

That being said, the group has to be saved together.

A championship can power groups into sentimental choices, as was the case last winter when the Dodgers re-signed Teoscar Hernández to a three-year, $66-million contract.

This winter, they may have to settle comparable disputes between their hearts and minds. They ought to hear to their hearts.

The gamers deserve it. The followers demand it.