It’s the bottom of the 7th inning and the Dodgers are down 5-3 to the Rockies in a game that everything has gone wrong for the boys in blue. Max Muncy steps up to the plate with two on and two out. Muncy would proceed to crush a Yency Almonte change up over the wall in right center to flip the game in a L.A Minute. The following night the Dodgers would win a thriller in San Diego in 12 in which the Padres had about 97 chances to win but the Dodgers would always get the big out including striking out Fernando Tatis Jr. with the bases loaded to end the 10th inning. The night after that Clayton Kershaw would outduel Yu Darvish 2-0 in a pitchers duel with Mookie Betts making the catch of the year to end the game on a Tommy Pham line drive that looked for sure to be dropping and tying up the baseball game with two on in the ninth inning. The Padres would win Sunday’s game to avoid the sweep but even with that loss the Dodgers are a stupefying 13-3 to begin the season. This Dodgers team even with the recent thrilling games look to be even better than ever. Is 117 wins and beyond possible? Let’s take a dive into the why and why not the 2021 Dodgers could be the best team in the history of the game.
Reasons for the Dodgers to Win 117 games
The Dodgers have no weakness- The Dodgers literally have no weakness. Their lineup (even with Cody Bellinger out with a broken leg) is loaded from 1-8 with the top 3 of Mookie Betts, Cory Seager and Justin Turner looking like an almost certain to score runs in the innings that trio comes up to bat. The bullpen is loaded as well with the back end of Victor Gonzalez, Blake Treinen, Corey Knebel, Danny Santana, and even Kenley Jansen. The Dodgers are six deep in the back end, most teams in baseballs weakness (middle relief) is the Dodgers strength.
The Rotation- The Dodgers have three aces and a couple of number two starters as their everyday five. Walker Buehler, Trevor Bauer and the never aging Clayton Kershaw are three of the top 10 starters in the game. Then the final two starters is new Dodgers World Series legend Julio Urias and flame throwing Dustin May, May and Urias are at worst number three starters but more closer to with their performance and stuff number two or even top end starters. Then you have the most expensive middle reliever in Major League history in David Price who can fill in for a perceived injury.
Diamondbacks, Giants and Rockies in division- The Giants and Diamondbacks aren’t awful teams (the Giants are off to a decent start btw), but those teams will certainly be overmatched when they play the Dodgers this season. Dbacks and Giants are 70-85 win teams this season but the Rockies look to be a 100 loss team this season and are already 1-6 against the Dodgers. My projection is the Dodgers will go 42-15 at worst against those three teams this year with being superior at almost every position and especially at starting pitcher on any given night (exception is Zac Gallen for Arizona or the good version of German Marquez for the Rockies). At a 42 win rate in 57 games that’s a 119 win rate for the season and as I said above I think that’s the worst case record against those three opponents and those three opponents take up over 30 percent of the Dodgers schedule.
Reasons Dodgers will not Win 117 games
Injury luck- Baseball is a very long season and almost every team gets injured. Cody Bellinger is already out for the foreseeable future, what if the Dodgers have four or five more significant injuries. Even the never ending depth of the Dodgers does have a breaking point. If the Dodgers do suffer several significant injuries they will still be pretty good but not historically good.
National League namely Padres- As this weekend showed the Padres will not be a pushover for the Dodgers with three very competitive games. Where as the Dodgers will almost certainly dominate the bottom three teams in the division the Padres look to be a tough matchup for the Dodgers and will likely win 8 or 9 games against the Dodgers this season. If the Dodgers even go 11-8 against the Padres. The Dodgers would have to go 106-37 against the rest of baseball to make history. Having to play two series against the entire very competitive NL East and six games against the potentially good (and always competitive against the Dodgers) Angels will make it very difficult for the Dodgers to have that kind of dominance against the rest of baseball.
Baseball is too random- The randomness of baseball is the biggest reason why the Dodgers will not win 117 games. Baseball is too damn random and there will be games like Thursday against the Rockies throughout the season where every bloop hit by the opponent will drop and the every line drive the Dodgers hit finds leather. The difference is the Dodgers won’t be playing the putrid Rockies but a better team that will make sure to not lose that game.
My Conclusion: I think there is a real chance for this Dodgers team to win 117-120 games this season. When they have the offense/run prevention they will have throughout the season anything is certainly possible. The Dodgers will have a plus 200 and maybe even a plus 300 run differential this season which will be at an historic level (the 114 win 1998 Yankees had a run differential of plus 309). My original prediction of 103 wins is almost certainly too light but to only lose 45 or less games in a 162 games season is tough for me to predict that even this Dodgers team will accomplish that feat. I will say the Dodgers win 110-112 games this season and fall just short of that all time wins record of the 1906 Cubs and 2001 Mariners. Regardless, already through 16 games we can see this is the best Dodgers team ever and highly probable this is the best team of the 21st Century thus far. Let’s see what happens, will be a fun season for all of the fans in the city of Angels.