Mets. Dodgers. The top two payroll teams in MLB. It’s happening.
Ordinary, the idea of the top two payroll teams meeting up anywhere in the postseason would be pretty boring. The Mets, whose competitive balance tax salary for the season is $356.2 million, are the #1 team. The Dodgers, with a CBT salary number at $351.7 million, come in second. (The Orioles were 23rd with a number of $134.2 million, more than a hundred million below the lowest of the tax-paying thresholds.) That should be super boring.
These particular Mets and Dodgers teams are more interesting than that. The Dodgers, despite that huge payroll, have been cobbling together a patchwork pitching staff through this whole postseason, already planning a bullpen game in this LCS round against the Mets. They have Shohei Ohtani, who does ridiculous things on a nightly basis and now that he’s departed from the cursed Angels is not getting the Tungsten-Arm O’Doyle tweets any more.
The Mets are chaos, possibly the greatest example of the “it’s over” / “we are SO back” dichotomy that exists in many places today. They’ve been back a lot lately, overcoming an early hole with a 9-19 May to rattle off excellent records in three of the four months after that. They beat a pretty good Brewers team in the wild card round and a pretty good Phillies team in the LDS round. Now the Grimace/OMG/who knows what else crew takes aim at a west coast juggernaut.
For the most part, my sympathies go towards the team that has the longer title drought. That metric mostly only doesn’t apply if the Yankees are the team with a longer title drought. Their drought must last at least another 25 years plus however long from right now it takes the Orioles to win a World Series. The Mets haven’t won since 1986, while the Dodgers won in 2020, so that’s a pretty easy one for me. But if the Dodgers win this thing, I won’t be too broken up about it. I don’t actually care about the Mets.
Dodgers lineup
- Shohei Ohtani – DH
- Mookie Betts – RF
- Freddie Freeman – 1B
- Teoscar Hernández – LF
- Will Smith – C
- Max Muncy – 3B
- Enrique Hernández – CF
- Gavin Lux – 2B
- Tommy Edman – SS
It is former short-time Oriole Jack Flaherty who gets the Game 1 start here for the Dodgers. Flaherty starting in the LCS round for any team is not something you probably would have guessed if you watched him pitch here, but his fortunes ended up improving. He gave up four runs in 5.1 innings in the LDS in a game that the Dodgers lost to the Padres. They advanced anyway.
Teoscar Hernández might be the guy who interests me the most in this series, not because he’s the best player but because he fits a possible bill of a very near future Oriole. Hernández will be a free agent after this season and could well be the kind of veteran hitter that the team is lacking.
Mets lineup
- Francisco Lindor – SS
- Mark Vientos – 3B
- Brandon Nimmo – LF
- Pete Alonso – 1B
- Starling Marte – RF
- Jesse Winker – DH
- Jose Iglesias – 2B
- Tyrone Taylor – CF
- Francisco Alvarez – C
Kodai Senga is the Mets starting pitcher for Game 1. He made one regular season start, one LDS round start, and here he is. It’s a little unorthodox, but then, so are the Mets.