What we learned when the Dodgers got swept

So, the Los Angeles Dodgers will not three-peat.

Swept by the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series, the Dodgers’ season has ended early for the first time since 2023. They made themselves main characters of the sport by winning rings – and villains by spending billions. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, their success and their largess dominated the story of baseball this summer and, with a labor battle looming, it will again this winter.

Somebody else – the Brewers or Tampa Bay Rays or Cleveland Guardians – will win the World Series with a payroll that’s a fraction of LA’s. Cleveland hasn’t won in 78 years. Milwaukee and Tampa Bay have never won a ring.

Milwaukee Brewers end the Dodgers’ quest for a third straight title, sweeping LA to earn a trip to the World Series

Viscerally – and narratively, judging by the discourse – this is shocking. It is shocking because over a two-year span the Dodgers have started to seem inevitable. It is shocking even though history tells us that winning three World Series in a row is so difficult and unlikely that to expect it is utter folly.

We must say quickly that the Dodgers lost because the team they were facing was trying, too. This is uninteresting and always true. But it is a little more interesting and a little more true in this case because the Brewers are notably great. The Dodgers — those behemoths of payroll and destiny and a predetermined aura that, even if they don’t win it all, they’ll at least play the role of Final Boss, beaten only by a plucky upstart — lost to the team with the best regular-season record.

The Brewers won the most games in baseball this year. They won the most games last year, too, before the Dodgers swept them in the NLCS. They did not win the most games in baseball in 2024, but if you start in 2024, the Brewers have won the most games over the past three regular seasons combined.

The three seasons before that? From 2021, following their bubble World Series win at the end of the pandemic-shortened season, through 2023, the Dodgers won the most games in baseball.

That’s a lot of numbers and convoluted context to make a simple point: A best-of-seven series can only tell us so much about the Dodgers and especially about the sport’s economic landscape going forward.

To be more explicit, the owners, as represented by the league, will not retract their salary cap proposal simply because we are now guaranteed a low-payroll team will win the World Series. The Dodgers were a convenient boogeyman, but the owners’ desire for cost-control is not actually contingent on the results of a small-sample-size tournament.

But what did we learn about the venerated and ultimately fallible Dodgers?

Compared to the Brewers, they look older, which they are, and perhaps more complacent, which they probably are. They looked, at times, tired.

“The train finally ran out of steam, I guess,” Max Muncy, the team’s longest-tenured player, said after the final 6-4 loss.

Which, can you imagine anything else for a team that played an extra month of baseball the last two years and traveled the most miles those seasons after starting both 2024 and 2025 in Asia? It is, after all, a team composed primarily of dads in their mid-30s.

“They may have a bunch of Hall of Famers, but we have a bunch of gamers,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “And the gamers won this week.”

It was an apt comparison and an insightful one for the way it painted the Dodgers’ living legends as a detriment, or at least as losers.

In the clinching game, Shohei Ohtani homered. It was a cathartic, euphoric moment for the global superstar, the greatest player of his generation.

But before that, he had gone two months without leaving the yard. All postseason, he appeared limited by an injury and largely ineffective at the plate. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts kept him in the lineup, moving him around the batting order and refusing to bench the biggest name in the sport. Who could be better, or at least more deserving of deference, than Shohei “four-time MVP” Ohtani?

It was a manifestation of the problem that will continue to plague the Dodgers at least into next season. The problem of: Too Many Future Hall of Famers.

Kirby Lee/Imagn Images/Reuters

The Dodgers are playing a different game than the rest of MLB. Their philosophy could shape baseball’s future

For the fourth-straight season, the Dodgers’ position player group was the oldest in baseball. Initially, that was reflective of the fact that they are the most willing to pay the free-agency premium for proven talent. But the aging curve is undefeated, and eventually that looks like Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman – both former MVPs who came to LA after winning titles elsewhere and then won together – going 4-for-29 (a .138 batting average) without an extra-base hit in the series.

But you can’t bench those guys, either. Even if their best days are behind them, they’re still better than most. Just not as good as they used to be. But that isn’t always good enough when the opponent is also elite.

Eventually, being the oldest team isn’t a sign of established greatness – it’s a sign the window could be closing.

In recent history, the Dodgers have been able to spend their way to continued contention, adding an influx of stars every offseason. The obvious candidate to do that this winter is Tarik Skubal, who ended the season in LA after the Dodgers traded for him at the deadline.

. The Dodgers’ front office has always been smart, in addition to being rich, and that’s the real secret sauce.

But this October has shown there are savvy contenders in small markets, too. And the Dodgers’ financial advantage might be fleeting.

所以，洛杉矶道奇队将无法实现三连冠。

在国家联盟冠军系列赛中被密尔沃基酿酒人队横扫后，道奇队自2023年以来首次提前结束了赛季。他们凭借总冠军戒指成为了这项运动的主角，也因挥霍数十亿美元而成为了反派。或许事实恰恰相反。无论如何，他们的成功和慷慨主导了今年夏天的棒球故事，而随着劳资纠纷的临近，今年冬天，这股风潮还将再次席卷棒球界。

其他球队——比如酿酒人队、坦帕湾光芒队或者克利夫兰卫士队——会用远低于洛杉矶道奇队的薪资总额赢得世界大赛冠军。克利夫兰已经78年没赢过世界大赛了。密尔沃基和坦帕湾也从未获得过总冠军戒指。

密尔沃基酿酒人队终结了道奇队冲击三连冠的梦想，横扫洛杉矶道奇队，晋级世界大赛。

从本能反应和叙事角度来看（从目前的讨论来看），这令人震惊。令人震惊的是，在过去的两年里，道奇队的夺冠似乎势不可挡。尽管历史告诉我们，连续三次赢得世界大赛冠军是如此困难和不可能，以至于期待它完全是愚蠢之举，但这仍然令人震惊。

我们必须迅速指出，道奇队输球是因为他们遇到的对手也同样全力以赴。这虽然老生常谈，但永远都是事实。不过，在这个例子中，这一点显得更有意思，也更真实一些，因为酿酒人队实力强劲。道奇队——这支财力雄厚、命运眷顾、气场强大的球队，即便最终未能夺冠，至少也能扮演最终Boss的角色，只有一支顽强的后起之秀才能将其击败——竟然输给了常规赛战绩最佳的球队。

酿酒人队是今年棒球联盟中胜场最多的球队。去年他们也是胜场最多的球队，直到在国联冠军赛中被道奇队横扫。虽然他们在2024年没有成为胜场最多的球队，但如果从2024年开始计算，酿酒人队在过去三个常规赛赛季的总胜场数是最多的。

此前三个赛季呢？从 2021 年（在因疫情缩短的赛季末赢得世界大赛冠军之后）到 2023 年，道奇队赢得了棒球界最多的比赛。

用了这么多数字和复杂的背景来说明一个简单的道理：七场四胜制的系列赛只能告诉我们这么多关于道奇队的信息，尤其是关于这项运动未来的经济形势的信息。

更确切地说，代表老板们的联盟不会因为现在确定一支低薪资球队会赢得世界大赛冠军就撤回他们的工资帽提案。道奇队只是一个方便的替罪羊，但老板们控制成本的愿望实际上并不取决于小样本锦标赛的结果。

但是，我们从这支备受尊敬但最终也会犯错的道奇队身上学到了什么呢？

与酿酒人队相比，他们看起来更老（事实也的确如此），或许也更自满（很可能确实如此）。他们有时看起来很疲惫。

“我想，这列火车最终还是没力气了。”球队效力时间最长的球员马克斯·芒西在球队以 4-6 输掉比赛后说道。

你能想象一支过去两年比去年多打了一个月棒球赛，并且在2024年和2025年赛季初都在亚洲征战，赛季里程数也创下新高的球队会是什么样吗？毕竟，这是一支主要由30多岁父亲组成的球队。

“他们队里可能有很多名人堂成员，但我们队里都是些实战型球员，”酿酒人队经理帕特·墨菲说道。“而这周赢球的是这些实战型球员。”

这种比较很贴切，也很有洞察力，因为它把道奇队的传奇人物描绘成一种累赘，或者至少是失败者。

在决定胜负的比赛中，大谷翔平击出本垒打。对于这位全球巨星、他那一代最伟大的球员来说，这是一个酣畅淋漓、欣喜若狂的时刻。

但在此之前，他已经两个月没离开过球场了。整个季后赛，他似乎都受到伤病的困扰，打击表现也乏善可陈。道奇队主教练戴夫·罗伯茨仍然让他留在首发阵容中，并调整他的打击顺序，拒绝让这位棒球界最耀眼的明星坐板凳。还有谁能比四届MVP得主大谷翔平更出色，或者至少更值得尊敬呢？

这体现了道奇队至少在下个赛季仍将面临的一个问题：未来名人堂成员太多了。

Kirby Lee/Imagn Images/路透社

道奇队和其他MLB球队的打法截然不同。他们的理念或许会塑造棒球的未来。

道奇队连续第四个赛季拥有全联盟最老的野手阵容。起初，这反映出他们最愿意为经验丰富的球员支付自由球员溢价。但岁月不饶人，最终，穆奇·贝茨和弗雷迪·弗里曼——这两位前MVP球员都曾在其他球队赢得总冠军后加盟洛杉矶，并携手夺冠——在本轮系列赛中29个打数仅击出4支安打（打击率.138），且没有一支长打。

但你也不能把他们放在板凳上。即使他们的巅峰时期已经过去，他们仍然比大多数球员强。只是不如以前那么出色了。但当对手也是精英球员时，这并不总是足够。

最终，成为队史最老的球队并不代表已经功成名就——这恰恰表明辉煌的时代之窗可能正在关闭。

近年来，道奇队一直依靠大手笔引援来保持竞争力，每个休赛期都会引进一批明星球员。今年冬天最有可能加盟的球员无疑是塔里克·斯库巴尔，他在赛季末被道奇队交易得到后，便留在了洛杉矶。

道奇队的管理层除了财力雄厚之外，一直都很精明，这才是真正的秘诀。

但今年十月的比赛表明，即使在小市场球队中，也存在着精明的竞争者。而且，道奇队的财力优势可能只是昙花一现。