I love being here. I'm from Southern California. I've had a great time with fans. You guys treat me great. Everyone's treating my family good....I'm not worried about another contract, not going to bring it up, not going to talk about it. I got two years left. I'm just an employee. I just do my job, and if they want me back, they want me back. But I think Andrew [president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman] and everyone knows that I love being here.
It's the second stint with the Dodgers for the 31-year-old Almonte. He was with Los Angeles in 2022-23, combining for 83 1/3 innings with a 3.35 ERA, 23.9% strikeout rate and 11.9% walk rate out of manager Dave Roberts' bullpen. That production came in quite uneven fashion, however; Almonte delivered 35 1/3 innings of immaculate 1.02 ERA ball in 2022 but was roughed up for a 5.06 mark in 48 innings in 2023.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) In the backfields of Camelback Ranch, the Dodgers' River Ryan and Blake Snell stayed behind to field grounders and practice throws to second. After a few dropped balls by Ryan during his transition, the two-time Cy Young winner talked it over at the mound with the young pitcher. It was a typical scene you'd see in the early days of spring training, the extra work to dial in fundamentals. But for the 27-year-old Ryan, it's part of the journey in his return from Tommy John surgery.
Hiura spent last season in the Rockies organization. He was up with the big-league club for a couple of weeks in June, but mostly spent the year at Triple-A. Hiura put together a solid season with Albuquerque. He hit .272 with 21 home runs across 100 games. Hiura went 3-for-18 in his brief stint in Colorado. Milwaukee selected Hiura with the ninth overall pick in the 2017 draft.
Dodgers fans and supporters of 19 other Major League Baseball clubs will now be able to stream their local teams' games without a cable subscription. "Each Club's in-market direct-to-consumer streaming option delivers all local games to subscribers located anywhere in the Club's home territory," the MLB said in a press release. "The service essentially removes local blackouts for these Clubs." The Dodgers' local broadcast rights are currently controlled by Spectrum, and the streaming is being handled through SNLA+, the company's Spectrum SportsNet LA digital service.
Olney: Financial disparity among teams has long existed, but the Dodgers' payroll will serve to galvanize the effort of other owners to rebuild the sport's financial system through some kind of proposed cap-and-floor design. As one former player said: "It's like we're back in 1994 -- you've got some owners looking for the players to solve ownership issues." The players went on strike in August of 1994, of course, and that fall's World Series was canceled. But it remains to be seen how far the owners will push to revamp the system, and whether the players' coalition will hold together as strongly as it did three decades ago.
The Los Angeles Dodgers made a couple of splashes by signing Kyle Tucker and Edwin Díaz to lucrative contracts, but they have also emphasized bolstering their overall depth this offseason. The club reunited with Carlos Duran, Nick Frasso, Nick Robertson and Chuckie Robinson on Minor League deals, and more recently signed Ryder Ryan, the older brother of River Ryan. But as the last few seasons have shown, a club can never have too much pitching depth, and the Dodgers have added another arm with MLB experience.
The signing of outfielder Kyle Tucker has sparked a total meltdown on social media, with fanbases from all over the MLB spectrum coming out of the woodwork and calling out the Dodgers for "ruining baseball." Tucker is set to earn $60 million per season, an incredibly high average annual value, which will have him among the highest-paid athletes in the sport. He is joining a team already full of stars in Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani, and Freddie Freeman - the reigning World Series champions.
Irvin makes his return to North American ball after spending the 2025 season in Seoul with the Doosan Bears of the KBO League. Over 28 starts and 144 2/3 innings with the Bears, Irvin posted a 4.48 ERA, 19.7% strikeout rate, and 12.2% walk rate. For comparison's sake, Irvin had a 4.54 ERA, 17.1 K% and 5.6 BB% over 593 innings at the Major League level from 2019-24, so the lack of control is a sudden red flag.
Improving the defense was important - just as important as improving the offensive output. The eye test would tell you as much. By bringing Kyle Tucker in - who, let's be real, was brought in because of his bat - the Dodgers have done that. While Tucker isn't the fleetest of foot outfielder anymore, his improvement over Teoscar Hernandez should be apparent next season.
The Dodgers are able to keep an additional $66 million every year because of how their TV deal is structured with MLB. When the organization filed for bankruptcy in 2011, the league agreed to lock in a fair market value for the rights of Dodgers baseball. Therefore, a significant portion of the $334 million the Dodgers earn annually from the deal is exempt from MLB's revenue sharing due to the bankruptcy settlement.
There are still plenty of power arms in L.A.'s pen, too; expect a much better season from that group. So, let's go with 30.7 as a key number - the average weighted age via Baseball Reference (based on playing time) of Dodgers position players in 2025, making it the oldest group in the majors. It was still an effective group, thanks in large part to Shohei Ohtani, as only the Yankees scored more runs than L.A.
The final calculations for the luxury tax bill of all 30 MLB teams have been revealed recently, with the Los Angeles Dodgers paying a record amount of $169.4 million in penalties for the 2025 season. The competitive balance tax (CBT) threshold continued its growth for the 2025 MLB season with a new high of $241 million, but the Dodgers far surpassed it with a payroll of $417.3 million.
Roki Sasaki came back into the game after a scoreless eighth inning, but quickly found himself in a hole. He plunked Alejandro Kirk and allowed a controversial ground rule double to give the Blue Jays men on second and third with no outs. Tyler Glasnow relieved Sasaki afterwards and got a huge out, forcing Ernie Clement to pop out to first baseman Freddie Freeman and keep the runners in place.
