Are the LA Dodgers the new 1927 Yankees?

Welcome to The Debrief, Box Score’s freewheeling conversation about the sports we love that begins right when the action stops.

Kelvin C. Bias
A reporter at Sports Illustrated for 25 years, Kelvin C. Bias grew up in suburban L.A. spoiled by the invincible Vin Scully. (“It’s time for Dodger baseball!”) Kelvin once had to leave an eventual 16-inning game at Chavez Ravine because of his brother’s fear of heights, and when in Tokyo, he can’t go six seconds without seeing Shohei Ohtani’s face…somewhere. His Blue Heaven bug burgeoned after living in NYC for the past 31 years.

Sridhar Pappu
Sridhar Pappu is the award-winning author of The Year of the Pitcher: Bob Gibson, Denny McLain and the End of Baseball’s Golden Age, and Murderers’ Row: The Rise of the 1927 Yankees, out in March 2027 from W.W. Norton.

Albert Chen
Albert Chen is the author of Billion Dollar Fantasy and was the co-creator of All-American, which won a Webby Award for Best Sports Podcast.

The Dodgers acquired two-time AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal from the Tigers in a blockbuster deal that makes the defending champions a heavy favorite to win a third-straight World Series this fall. Where were you when the Skubal trade broke and what was your reaction?

Kelvin C. Bias: This is a terrible answer, but I didn't know about it until my friend called me Sunday morning. But that's indicative of the wealth that the Dodgers have. It's so ridiculous what they're doing that it's not even news to me. My first reaction was there's 1000% going to be a lockout, even though this was a trade and not a free-agent signing. I was convinced that this is going to cause problems.

Sridhar Pappu: I am a Cincinnati Reds fan, but I spend a lot of time in Chicago and my nephew-in-law is a White Sox fan. And the White Sox traded for Luis Castillo, who's my guy. And so I was really excited and we're texting back and forth. And then the Skubal trade happens. So forget Luis Castillo. It was like my heart sank for baseball. Not about the Dodgers’ World Series chances. I just thought about a lockout. When is the season going to start next year? But I was all excited about Castillo and the implications for the AL Central and all this kind of stuff, and no one’s talking about that now. And no one’s really talking about Skubal's impact, either. They're just talking about what it’s going to do to the lockout. It's crazy.

Albert Chen: It felt completely inevitable when it happened, but it's still shocking that the best team in baseball got Skubal. Maybe he hasn't been the best pitcher in baseball this year, but if you are looking to just win one game, you probably want that guy on the mound. And it does feel like no one's talking about the actual baseball impact of this trade. I mean, the Dodgers are going to be the top seed and they're getting Skubal for five starts in October, which is totally insane. But that's just the way baseball works. 

How does the Skubal trade change your expectations for the Dodgers?

Sridhar Pappu: It actually doesn't change anything, except it makes them more invincible. We've forgotten that they were the No. 3 seed going into the 2025 playoffs and winning that World Series was not easy. Game Six and Game Seven, that was a grind. And now they don't have to grind. How many Cy Young winners do they have on that staff? I'm not saying this as a Dodger hater. I like watching those guys play. I just think about it in terms of matchups. Who's going to stop them? Because I don't know who. I don't know who in the National League, and I certainly don't know who in the American League. We had a great postseason last year. I just don't know if we'll see it this year. That's my main concern.

Albert Chen: From a baseball standpoint, break down their rotation and how it would look in the postseason. You have Yoshinobu Yamamoto as the ace, clearly he's incredible. But then there are a lot of question marks. This trade was a lot about Ohtani. What are you getting from Ohtani in the postseason? You just don't know with his health. Blake Snell's coming back, but you just don't know with him either. He hasn't pitched in a while and he's just not necessarily the same pitcher. Tyler Glasnow coming out of the bullpen, sure, that's great. But when you boil it down, there definitely are some questions with their starting pitching. And look, baseball is weird. In 2017, the Dodgers were a 104-win team. The Mariners were a 116-win team in 2001. Neither of them won the World Series. The field is still mathematically the favorite to win over the Dodgers. So I totally get it why the Dodgers from a baseball standpoint needed this. They needed another really good starting pitcher and they got him. Not much has changed, and yet it does feel like everything has changed at the same time.

Kelvin C. Bias: Let me tell you about my Dodger fandom. I grew up in Southern California. My dad took me to Dodger Stadium. It's the greatest stadium. I got spoiled listening to Vin Scully as a kid. That's the best. But I would say the Skubal trade actually made me think that karma's going to get them. This is too much. They had a 16.9% chance to win the World Series before this trade. Now it's 40%. So the field's probably still going to win. And last year they used up all their luck for a hundred years in Game Seven. I thought that game was over 50 times.

Sridhar Pappu: We have been at this point in baseball history a lot where the great team becomes the "invincible team" with one move and they totally flop. I mean, the 1990 Oakland A's traded for the National League batting champion and had arguably one of the best lineups in baseball. And 16-year-old me in Oxford, Ohio, watched that team get swept by my Cincinnati Reds. We've seen it time after time, when teams go out and get that last piece, that final pitcher or that final bat that's going to do it, and it doesn't happen. And especially now, when it is very much tournament baseball, we just don't know.

Kelvin C. Bias: And there's a target on their back. There already was one and now it's a huge target. Everyone gives their best effort against the Dodgers.

Have the Dodgers become too good, and is that bad for baseball?

Albert Chen: Last year's World Series was the highest rated in a long time. Globally, it was the most viewed by far. Dynasties and these super teams are great for narratives. Look at the Golden State Warriors in the NBA, and Tom Brady's Patriots. People tune in. Can the Brewers take down the Dodgers? Can the Dodgers actually be the first team to three-peat since the Yankees? Those narratives are great for the league. In terms of viewership and interest in the sport, I don't think this is a bad thing at all for baseball. 

Kelvin C. Bias: I would say that it’s both bad and good. The amount of coverage in Japan, the new fans globally spreading the game, that's all good for baseball. But it's also bad because we're going to probably have a lockout. Does anyone think that there's not going to be a lockout? 

Sridhar Pappu: I have a book coming out in the spring in time for an opening day that won't happen. It's called Murderers' Row: The Rise of the 1927 Yankees. And it doesn't cover the season, it ends on opening day. But it's about the formation of the team and how it was built. But after the 1928 season, F.C. Lane, one of the best baseball writers at that time, wrote a piece arguing that the Yankees were bad for baseball, that they were too good, and they had destroyed the overall interest in the game. All the joy had been taken away from all the other cities. The next year, in 1929, the Yankees crashed. That was a hundred years ago. And you could argue that was the most important team in baseball history because that really was the first super team. We know the names of that lineup for a reason. And we'll know this team for a long time. And so I think it’s been great for baseball. There’s no doubt about it. But the fact that their success, which has been unique and has been done in a variety of ways, is going to lead to a work stoppage, it's a bummer.

You all have referenced a possible lockout before the 2027 season. Is this the trade that finally makes a fight over the collective bargaining agreement and a lockout inevitable?

Sridhar Pappu: It was already inevitable. With the proposals that the owners are putting out, the players must be thinking, "You have to be kidding me." Beginning with wanting to reduce the draft to one round. They're putting out things that are just utter nonsense. And so they want a cap and they're going to go to any means necessary to do it. And this is what they wanted all along. So it was always inevitable, but people are just going to say this trade is the one that set things in motion.

Kelvin C. Bias: It really depends on the small-market teams and if the MLB puts through this competitive integrity tax. If that happens and that becomes a battlefield where small-market teams get taxed and their revenue goes down if they don't spend a certain amount of money on their payroll, then I think there's definitely going to be a lockout.

Albert Chen: I completely agree it was inevitable before the trade. But on this perception that something needs to be changed, the Dodgers are an example of an organization that does everything well. It's not like they just spend money and fix their problems by throwing around $150 million contracts. And this will probably be part of the players’ argument. The Dodgers aren't evidence that the system is broken. They're proof of what can happen when an organization is actually run really well. Dodgers president Andrew Friedman's mentality was always, "Draft well, develop well, identify undervalued talent." And that's what they're still doing. And they're dominating international scouting. So they do everything well. More teams should be like the Dodgers. We shouldn't penalize competence and well-run organizations. ⚾

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