Dodgers Prioritize Playoff Bye Over 117 Wins
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- Los Angeles Dodgers opened 4-2 in their first homestand despite getting almost nothing from the top half of their star-studded lineup, and their sights are set on a third straight title — something no NL team has accomplished.
- Dave Roberts said breaking the 117-win single-season record held by the 1906 Cubs and 2001 Mariners "is not our north star" — the Dodgers' front office learned that lesson after a 111-win 2022 ended in a first-round exit, and they now prioritize a first-round bye to avoid the wild-card round.
- The Dodgers set a franchise record by using 40 pitchers in both 2024 and 2025, and are slow-playing Blake Snell ($182M contract) again after spring shoulder fatigue, with Roki Sasaki and Justin Wrobleski getting extended looks while Snell is out until late May at the earliest.
- Freddie Freeman plans to play 159 games this season, missing two for the birth of his fourth child with wife Chelsea and one for the day after clinching the division, as the Dodgers' position-player core — Freeman (36), Betts (33), Muncy (35), Miguel Rojas (37) — averages a major-league-oldest 31.3 years.
- Shohei Ohtani delivered six innings of one-hit ball in his latest start, erasing any lingering doubt about his readiness as a traditional starter, and Roberts said the desire for Ohtani to go wire-to-wire "is high, and I think it's realistic."
- From 2013 to 2023, the Dodgers won 10 division titles in 11 years and piled up 1,031 regular-season wins — 91 more than the second-place Yankees — but captured just one championship (the 2020 COVID-shortened season), a history that prompted an internal study of what was going wrong in October.
Why it matters: The Dodgers' deliberate pacing in 2026 trades regular-season margin for October freshness: 40 pitchers used in back-to-back seasons, stars getting planned days off, and a front office that has publicly deprioritized the 117-win chase. That calculus was shaped by 111-win first-round flameouts in 2022, and it defines the template for every contender trying to sustain a dynasty in an era of expanded playoffs.
