When the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres play their first game of the regular season in Seoul, South Korea, on March 21, 2024, it will be one of the most exciting moments of the Major League Baseball season. The game will take place in the early morning hours of March 21. Yoshinobu Yamamoto is expected to be the starting pitcher for the Dodgers, which will certainly pique our interest. However, I am looking forward to seeing how Dave Roberts will arrange his magnificent trio of hitters, which includes Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Shohei Ohtani (most likely in that order, with his best slugger coming in behind the other two).
Have these individuals been given a moniker as of yet? I have no doubt that Dodgers supporters will think of one in a short amount of time. Murderers’ Row, The Bombers, The Lumber Company, The Big Red Machine (which was the incorrect team color anyhow), Harvey’s Wallbangers, The Blake Street Bombers, The Killer B’s, Crush City, the Bomba Squad, and Slam Diego are some of the names that are not accessible because they violate the copyrights of already accepted names.
Ohtani, Betts, and Freeman were all among the finest hitters in baseball in 2023. They were first, fifth, and seventh, respectively, in online slugging percentage and on-base percentage; third, seventh, and ninth, respectively, in batting average; and third, fifth, and sixth, respectively, in total bases for the season. These three players have the potential to become one of the most successful attacking trios in the history of the game if they are able to replicate their previous accomplishments.
Is it possible that Betts, Freeman, and Ohtani could be ranked? In the event that they continue to perform in the same manner as they did the previous year, they will achieve a harmonic mean of 55.0, which will propel them to the top of the current list. In the event that Ohtani winds up playing more games than the 135 games he did in the previous season, that number may go even higher. On the other hand, considering that Betts was +29 runs at the plate in 2022, it is possible that he may have some regression after having a season in which he had a plus-55 batting average. Additionally, Freeman’s +56 was a career best, and he is now 34 years old. Even though Ohtani is coming off of elbow surgery, which may cause him to slow down a little bit at the beginning of the season, he was 23 runs better than he was in 2022 after the surgery.