It’s the pointing Spider-Man meme. It’s Lucille Ball and Harpo Marx on either side of an imaginary mirror. It’s the biggest regular-season series left on the MLB schedule.
It’s the Dodgers versus the Atlanta Braves. Over the last five years, the two teams have been in a class by themselves atop the National League. Since 2018 they rank first and second in wins, runs allowed, and runs scored. Each team has won a World Series. The Braves have won five division titles, the Dodgers four, and each is about to win another.
Thursday, they’ll kick off a four-game series at Dodger Stadium with the NL’s best record at stake. In a series with storylines and contrasts and MVP candidates everywhere, the similar paths the Braves and Dodgers have followed might be the most remarkable aspect of the series. Here’s a look at the blueprint each team used to get where they are.
1. Drafting and developing young talent
Center fielder Ronald Acuña Jr., second baseman Ozzie Albies and pitcher Max Fried have been the Braves’ mainstays during their run of five consecutive division titles. (Michael Soroka, who lost the last two seasons to injury, has been a recurring cast member as well.)
Over the same time period, six active Dodgers – Clayton Kershaw, Julio Urias, Caleb Ferguson, Max Muncy, Chris Taylor and backup catcher Austin Barnes – haven’t changed teams.
Of those 10 players, six have only played for one organization. The others – Fried, Muncy, Barnes and Taylor – were acquired as minor leaguers.
It’s no industry secret that drafting well, picking the right international amateurs, and plucking the best minor leaguers from other organizations is a strong formula for success. But it’s a useful thought experiment to try and picture the Braves and Dodgers without those 11 players.
Now consider where their younger stars came from. The Braves drafted Spencer Strider, Bryce Elder, Austin Riley, Michael Harris and A.J. Minter. Ian Anderson and Kyle Wright, currently on the injured list, were first-round picks in 2016 and 2017, respectively.
The Dodgers drafted Will Smith, James Outman, Bobby Miller, and four others who are rehabbing major injuries: Walker Buehler, Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin and Gavin Lux.
Both teams have turned heads with their free-agent signings and blockbuster trade acquisitions. (We’ll get to them in a moment.) But the key to the Braves and Dodgers sustaining their success over this five-year run is a farm system that constantly replenishes with talent.
2. Weathering missteps
Drafting and developing is not a perfect science. Pitchers Mike Foltynewicz and Sean Newcomb, and infielder Johan Camargo, were counted among the Braves’ young core when Alex Anthopoulos became the team’s general manager in 2018. For various reasons, none ended up as a roster mainstay.
Atlanta has had other prospects (Kolby Allard, Luiz Gohara, Cristian Pache) fall short of expectations. Outfielder Marcell Ozuna, who was absent during the team’s 2021 World Series run because of a domestic violence suspension, fell short of expectations in a different way.
The Dodgers haven’t made many missteps, but it didn’t help when Cody Bellinger hit 41 home runs over the three seasons (2020-22) after his 47-homer MVP season of 2019 – then turned his career back around with the Chicago Cubs. Or when Trevor Bauer, the prized free agent acquisition of the 2020-21 offseason, was suspended for violating the league’s domestic violence policy (and subsequently released) after making only 17 starts. Or when Noah Syndergaard posted a 7.16 ERA after signing a $13 million free agent contract last winter, setting off a season-long scramble for starters.
While some organizations might count on three or four core players to lead them to the promised land, the Dodgers and Braves had enough roster depth to survive these setbacks.
3. Trading the right prospects
When they are not using their prospects to replenish next year’s roster, Anthopoulos and Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman are trading their young talent for useful major leaguers at the deadline.
The best example of this might have been in 2021. After losing Anderson and Acuña to midseason injuries, the Braves acquired Jorge Soler, Eddie Rosario, Joc Pederson, Stephen Vogt and Adam Duvall. The five players jelled with the Braves’ clubhouse quickly, exceeded expectations and led the team to a championship. None of the five minor leaguers the Braves traded are in the major leagues today.
The Dodgers are hoping to orchestrate something similar this summer with newcomers Kiké Hernandez, Amed Rosario, Joe Kelly, Lance Lynn and Ryan Yarbrough. Although there are always exceptions to the rule (the Dodgers traded Yordan Alvarez and Oneil Cruz as low-level minor leaguers), history suggests the prospects the Dodgers surrendered in those trades will not come back to haunt them.
Maybe the best evidence that some trade-deadline magic is afoot: The Dodgers are the only team since 1881 to post a winning percentage of .750 or better in August in four consecutive seasons (2020-23). The NL team with the next-best August record over that span? The Braves, at 70-37.
4. The splashes tend to work
Ozuna and Bauer are the obvious exceptions here, but the big-money contracts the Dodgers and Braves have issued over their recent run tend to justify their cost.
Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman – the latter of whom the Dodgers pried from Atlanta – have been worth every penny of their combined $527 million salaries. Clayton Kershaw is a future Hall of Famer who still pitches like one when he’s healthy. He’ll make $20 million this year, a bargain for a team with a payroll in excess of $220 million.
For Atlanta, the number of young stars who have signed long-term contracts makes it difficult to imagine them going away anytime soon. Acuña, Albies, Harris, Strider, Austin Riley, Matt Olson – who replaced Freeman as seamlessly as possible – and Sean Murphy are all under contract through at least 2026. Those six will make a combined $70 million in base salary this year – less than what the Angels will pay Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon combined.
Not every owner can afford to pay a luxury tax on his payroll like the Braves and Dodgers, but few can sustain success through homegrown talent this well, either. After this week, the teams might not meet again until the postseason. In October, the randomness of a single-elimination series can bring even the best regular-season teams to their knees.
Until then, let the battle for bragging rights commence.