MLB preview: Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers hope to become 1st repeat champs since '98-'00 Yankees

Shohei Ohtani was in the batter’s box for the season’s first pitch Tuesday, arriving at the Tokyo Dome coronated a World Series champion.

Twenty-nine other teams will be trying to dethrone his Los Angeles Dodgers, who flexed their financial might again during the offseason hoping to become the first repeat champions since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees.

Blake Snell and prized rookie Roki Sasaki joined a pitching staff headed by Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who started for the Dodgers in his native Japan against the Chicago Cubs.

“We’d normally spread things among the teams a little differently,” baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said. “We felt like we had a unique opportunity with a unique person and are trying to do everything we can to capitalize on it.”

MLB increased revenue to a record $12.1 billion last year, up from $11.6 billion in 2023. Attendance increased 0.9% to an average of 29,568, the highest since 2017 and the first increase in consecutive years since 2011-12, and Manfred predicts MLB will top 70 million for the third straight year. The Dodgers’ five-game World Series win over the Yankees averaged 15.81 million viewers, the Fall Classic’s high since 2017.

Three of the four League Championship Series teams were among the biggest spenders: The Dodgers were second in payroll and luxury tax at $374 million, trailing only the New York Mets at $430 million and $400,000 ahead of the Yankees.

At the bottom, the Athletics spent just $66 million during their last year in Oakland, and the increased disparity has led to renewed talk of owners seeking a salary cap when the current five-year labor contract expires after the 2026 season.

“There’s no reason for us to be focused on collective bargaining,” Manfred said. “We haven’t even formulated a bargaining position.”

Mets owner Steve Cohen, flush with his hedge fund fortune, made the biggest offseason move when he lured outfielder Juan Soto from the Yankees with a record $765 million, 15-year contract.

“I’ll compete under any circumstance,” Cohen said. “You tell me the rules, and I’ll compete against them.”

Teams with lesser resources know payroll doesn’t always equate with success through multiple playoff rounds and player attrition as bodies buckle under data-driven maximum effort. The only top spenders to win titles since the current luxury tax started have been the 2020 Dodgers, 2018 Boston Red Sox and 2009 Yankees.

Athletics, Rays to play home games in minor-league ballparks

The A’s left the Oakland Coliseum, where they had played since moving from Kansas City for the 1968 season, and will spend at least three seasons at 14,000-capacity Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento before moving to a planned ballpark in Las Vegas.

“The ballpark is charming,” Manfred said. “I do think that fans are going to have an opportunity to see Major League Baseball all season long in a really intimate environment.”

The Tampa Bay Rays were forced from Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg this season after damage caused by Hurricane Milton and will play home games across Tampa Bay at 11,000-capacity Steinbrenner Field, the Yankees’ spring training base.

“The opportunity to play on the Tampa side could give insights into the Tampa Bay market as a whole that could be useful for the club moving forward,” Manfred said.

Broadcast market disruption

MLB will produce the local television broadcasts of Arizona, Cleveland, Colorado, Minnesota and San Diego this season as it moves toward trying to consolidate rights to as many teams as possible. Cincinnati and Milwaukee had planned to join but withdrew and partnered with Main Street Sports Group, the renamed Diamond networks that will televise nine clubs.

MLB’s national contracts with Fox and Turner Sports expire after the 2028 season, and ESPN is terminating its deal after 2025, three years early.

“We’ve literally had a really significant number of interested parties, and they’re going to have to sort themselves out a little bit before I could give you a good feel for timeline,” Manfred said.

Pitch velocity at all-time high and offense near record lows

After limiting defensive shifts for the 2023 season, offense has remained near record lows. Last’s year batting average of .243 was higher than only .237 in 1968, .239 in 1908, .242 in 1967 and .2427 in 2022 in the post-1900 era. There were just seven qualified .300 hitters, the second-fewest above only the six in 1968. There were 55 in 1999. Four-seam fastballs averaged a record 94.3 mph last year, up from 91.9 mph when tracking began in 2008.

Robot home plate umpires increasingly likely for ‘26 season

Spring training testing of the Automated Ball/Strike challenge system has been generally well received, though there have been some opponents, most notably three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer. MLB will consult with owners, management officials and players before making a decision on 2026 regular-season use.

“Reaction certainly from fans has been overwhelmingly positive,” Manfred said. “I think that there’s confirmation that the use of the technology and the renderings and the scoreboard is really a fan engagement addition that people really like.”

No rules changes aimed to combat pitcher injuries

Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole’s season-ending elbow injury renewed attention on among baseball’s biggest issues.

Following an MLB study that concluded rising velocities, pitch shaping and emphasis on maximum effort are the likely causes of the vast increase in pitcher injuries, Manfred said it’s too early to explore rules changes.

“Our focus right now is training methods, particularly offseason training methods,” Manfred said. “It’s going to be somewhere between education and recommendations. It’s very hard to tell people you can’t do X, Y and Z, right? They’re grown men, and there’s no way to monitor it during the offseason.”