New Dodgers feel World Series hunger during title | College News

As Evan Phillips stood in entrance of his locker earlier than the Dodgers’ home opener Thursday, answering questions concerning the workforce’s upcoming World Series celebration that night time and the gold jersey they’d put on to mark the event, his new neighbor within the Dodgers clubhouse interjected from one stall over.

“What’d you say to Tanner before the game?” first-year Dodgers reliever Tanner Scott, a longtime personal buddy of Phillips’ within the recreation, implored his new teammate to share with a reporter.

Phillips laughed.

“I was surprised they gave 66 over here a little bit of gold on his jersey,” Phillips joked, referring to Scott’s uniform quantity — and the actual fact he wasn’t half of the membership’s title-winning roster final yr.

“That’s some bull, right?” Scott responded with a playful shake of his head.

“It’s just foreshadowing,” Phillips insisted, “what’s to come for him.”

Such was life for new Dodgers gamers this previous weekend, with a group of six offseason acquisitions populating the workforce’s opening day roster.

All collection long, they had been current for the nightly pregame ceremonies honoring final yr’s World Series. They wore the identical gold-accented uniforms, and the identical 2024 title sleeve patches, as the remainder of their reigning-champion teammates.

But for them, the proceedings supplied a completely different sort of perspective.

They weren’t in any of the scoreboard spotlight reels honoring final yr’s workforce. They didn’t have the identical emotional attachment to watching a World Series banner get raised in middle subject. And when the workforce’s championship rings had been offered to gamers and coaches Friday, all of them stayed back within the dugout, serving as mere spectators whereas being reminded of what their earlier groups failed to perform final season.

“There’s a lot of people in that room who enjoyed it,” supervisor Dave Roberts mentioned of his clubhouse’s response to the weekend-long celebration. “And also, there’s new guys that didn’t partake. And I want them to want that next year.”

So too, of course, do the new gamers themselves — nearly all of whom supplied the identical purpose for eager to signal with the Dodgers this offseason.

“I went to a World Series as a rookie. Now I’m almost 10 years removed from that, and I want to go back,” veteran outfielder Michael Conforto, a member of the New York Mets’ 2015 pennant winner, mentioned on the membership’s preseason fan fest occasion after signing a one-year, $17-million deal in December.

“I wanted to go to a team that’s going to compete. That was the first thing that I told my agent, that it has to be a team that’s competitive. So I think it was a no-brainer when the Dodgers called. … We want to win games and have a chance to get a ring.”

Scott echoed comparable sentiments at his introductory press convention in January, contemporary off inking a four-year, $72-million contract.

“They’re not a fun team to face,” he mentioned then, simply months faraway from being eradicated by the Dodgers within the playoffs as a member of the San Diego Padres. “We’re ready to win another one. And I’ll be a part of this one.”

Veteran reliever Kirby Yates, signed to a one-year, $13-million deal a week after Scott, referenced the identical championship aspirations when he was launched at Dodger Stadium for the primary time.

“The older you get,” mentioned Yates, who has appeared in only one playoff recreation over his 11-year MLB profession, “that starts being more important.”

For Yates, a spectacle like this weekend’s was nothing new.

In 2022, he watched the Atlanta Braves obtain their World Series rings after signing with the membership within the wake of their 2021 championship. Last season, he went by way of it again because the newly signed nearer of the Texas Rangers’ defending-title squad.

“This is my third time signing with the reigning World Series champions,” he mentioned. “I’m looking forward to finally trying to make that run and be able to pitch in the postseason.”

Last yr’s Rangers celebration, Yates recalled this weekend, was a bittersweet expertise — the 38-year-old right-hander nonetheless reeling on the time from the 104-win Braves’ division collection knockout the prior October.

“I think everybody on that Atlanta team felt like we had a really good chance of winning that World Series, and it didn’t happen,” Yates mentioned. “So watching that ring ceremony … you’re excited for [your new team] and you’re happy for them. But on a personal level, you want your chance to win one, too.”

This weekend, nevertheless, Yates had a more auspicious feeling during the Dodgers’ World Series festivities.

Here, he noticed a workforce uniquely poised to repeat as champions; one which already had a star-studded core, then aggressively pursued extra depth and expertise during a half-billion-dollar offseason spending spree.

Yates’ signing itself, after all, represented one of their most luxurious splurges — more likely to successfully price more than double its $13 million price tag when accounting for luxurious tax penalties and the Dodgers’ need to cut former reliever Ryan Brasier and his $4-million wage in a corresponding transfer.

“The idea was to have as many good pitchers and as many good players as they possibly could have,” Yates mentioned, “to basically help [distribute] the load for the entire season, including October.”

Having been half of two earlier failed title defenses, Yates’ hope is that such roster construction will permit the Dodgers to beat what he believes to be the largest impediment for any defending champion: health.

“Playing that long into October, it takes its toll on everybody’s body,” Yates mentioned. “But I think the difference here, and what they’ve done, is how many people they’ve added; the depth that you have to be able to make that run.”

The Dodgers, in the meantime, are hoping the hunger of their new additions will function a completely different sort of catalyst of their 2025 quest.

None of their new gamers — from Yates to Scott to Conforto to Blake Snell — has gained a World Series. And this weekend, they’d the sensation of a title dangled in entrance of them, getting a fleeting preview of how a long-sought championship would possibly style.

“I don’t think any of the new guys really need any more motivation to go out and win,” Yates mentioned. “But watching how cool that is, watching everybody go get their rings, yeah, you definitely want your chance to be a part of that.”