Team A just set a record for the highest slugging percentage ever in a single season, and might lose only one of its starting nine.
Team B has committed more than $1 billion in future money to free agents this offseason, using much of that record sum to upgrade its weakest lineup links after nearly matching the run-scoring output of Team A in 2023.
In case you couldn’t guess, Team B is the Los Angeles Dodgers. Team A is the Atlanta Braves. And picking which team has the better lineup going into 2024 has been one of the juicier storylines of the off-season.
Former New York Mets general manager Steve Phillips believes the Braves — who have yet to re-sign starting left fielder Eddie Rosario or backup outfielder Kevin Pillar, both free agents — still have a better lineup than the Dodgers, who have used the winter to upgrade at DH (Shohei Ohtani), left field (Teoscar Hernández), second base (Mookie Betts’ new position), and shortstop (where Gavin Lux is returning after missing all of 2023).
While Ohtani will not be in the Dodgers’ starting rotation while he recovers from offseason elbow surgery, he will still be in the starting lineup as the everyday designated hitter. Hernandez, Betts, Freddie Freeman and Will Smith will join Ohtani in what will be one of the most feared lineups in baseball.
Phillips did go on to applaud the Dodgers lineup, offering that their lineup will be “explosive”.
Ezoic
“The Dodgers add another big bat. This bat in that lineup is going to be phenomenal. They are loaded right now.”
Per Steve Phillips Sirius XM MLB Network Radio
There are two sides to every debate. Dodgers Nation’s Doug McKain recently offered that Betts, Ohtani and Freeman could potentially go down as the best 1-2-3 hitters in the history of Major League Baseball.
“Mookie, Ohtani, and Freddie, they have the chance to be the greatest 1-2-3 in Major League Baseball history. If you look at their numbers last season, Mookie had a 167 weighted runs created plus, Freeman, a 163 weighted runs created plus. Ohtani, a 180 weighted runs created plus. If you look at that right there, there’s only been 19 times in (MLB) history where you have had three players on the same team with a weighted runs created plus of 150 or higher.”
Raise the WRC+ threshold to 160, and only five teams in baseball history have ever had three players producing at 60 percent above league average.
Do the Dodgers’ top three hitters give them enough to compete with the Braves’ depth? Can Atlanta reproduce what it did in 2023 if Rosario signs elsewhere for 2024? Will both teams be healthy enough eight months from now to make the debate valid?
