Present Dodgers With Hall of Fame Credentials.

                                                     The Hall of Fame is the ultimate honor for a baseball player. There are currently 59 players, executives, managers, and broadcasters who spent some or all of their careers associated with the Dodgers. 10 of those players have had their numbers retired by the Dodgers. Others, like Zack Wheat, Dazzy Vance and Burleigh Grimes played before teams issued numbers to players. Two managers, Alston and Lasorda were mainly in Los Angeles. Wilbert Robinson is the only manager in the Hall who spent his entire managing career in Brooklyn. 

                                                      After last season, Clayton Kershaw retired after 18 seasons with the Dodgers. That tied him with Bill Russell and Zack Wheat as the longest tenured players in Dodger history. Of course, if Pee Wee Reese did not lose 3 full seasons to WWII, he would be the all-time leader. Vin Scully by far spent the longest time of anyone with the organization, 67 years. Lasorda had well over 50 years with the team. Kershaw most pundits agree will be a first ballot Hall of Famer. The question is, who on the present roster is worthy of consideration?

                                                      I can think of three who presently have enough time and have impressive stats. The first is Freddie Freeman. Freeman is entering his fifth year of a six-year deal. He has already put up some impressive numbers. His career line is .300/367/1322. 33 homers from 400, a little over 500 hits from 3000, which would almost guarantee induction, 53 doubles away from 600. 9-time All-Star, 3 silver slugger awards, an MVP, 1 gold glove and he was 2nd in the ROY vote his rookie season with the Braves.

                                                      He is about as consistent as you could ask for. A good defensive 1st baseman despite just having 1 gold glove. He is a team leader in the clubhouse. He also has two of the more famous World Series homers in Dodger history. His game 1 walk off grand slam in extra innings in 2024, and his walk off solo shot in the 18th inning of game three last season. Both of those he hit on a bum ankle. He played through it in 24 playoffs and tweaked it early in 25 and played through it again. He also played through the serious illness of his sone Maximus in 24. The man is simply a gamer, and one of the best in the game. He is also a very clutch hitter. 

                                                    Freeman is a .332 hitter with runners in scoring position. His OPS in those situations in .994. He has slugged 80 homers and driven in 905 in those situations. He hits .322 with men on base. He has hit .319 with 2 outs in that situation. Freeman has two full seasons left on his contract. He says he wants to play 4 more years; the question is will the Dodgers extend him 2 more years? I believe they might, depending on how he performs in this his age 36 season. He turns 37 in September. Freeman will be in a new spot in the batting order this year with the addition of Tucker, he will be hitting 4th.

                                                    He has experience there from when he was with the Braves, 192 starts, .294 BA in 739 at bats. He also stated in an interview that he is totally healthy this spring and glad to have a full spring to get ready. He also said one of his goals is to hit .300 or higher again. I think he will be able to do it. He hit 24 homers last year; I think he should come close to that number again. The most he has hit in LA is 29 in 23. He should be by the end of the year, in range to pass 400 next season. He should also get at least close to his career average of 181 hits, closing the gap on 3000. My guess, he gets inducted possibly on the first ballot.

                                                    Next on the list would be Mookie Betts. Mookie has 7 years left on the deal he signed just prior to the 2020 season. By the time his contract is up, Mookie will have been a Dodger twice as long as he was in Boston. Some of his numbers as a Dodger are not as good as in Boston. His BA as a Red Sox player was .301 with a .893 OPS. His BA in LA is ,278 with a .863 OPS. But Dodger stadium is not as friendly to RH hitters as Fenway is. His strikeout to walk ratio is almost identical for both teams.

                                                     Mookie hasn’t stolen nearly as many bases, 126-70. He has homered more, 152-139, but has fewer RBIs, 470-443. Betts has 291 career homers; he will easily pass 300 this year. If he comes close to his average of 31, he will be in the 320 range after the season. If he averages just 20 a year after that through the end of his deal he will finish with about 420 homers, and a little over 1500 RBIs. he has an MVP award, 7 silver sluggers, 8 All-Star selections and 6 gold gloves. 

                                                   He is a leader in the clubhouse and on the field. He also transitioned from RF to SS full time last year and had -17 defensive runs saved. Tied for first in the majors. That in and of itself is pretty amazing since transitioning to a position like SS is difficult enough without being that good at it. He practices long and hard. His offense suffered last season not because of the position change, but mostly due to him getting ill during the team’s trip to Japan to open the season. He still managed to hit 20 homers while striking out just 68 times in 589 at bats. 

                                                     With the addition of Tucker, Roberts has decided to change the batting order around. He is abandoning the left-right formula they used so much last season. The top four in the order will look like this, Ohtani, Tucker, Betts, Freeman. Betts has had some experience in the 3-hole. It was a while ago, but his career line is .267/11/41. His OPS out of that slot is .801. Mookie has dedicated himself to improving from last season’s career lows. As bad as the year was for him, he still finished with a WAR of 4.9. Above all else, the man is a professional and his own biggest critic.

                                                       The third man on the list is no surprise to anyone, especially Dodger fans: Shohei Ohtani. Shohei is the Unicorn. He was getting Hall of Fame hype from the time he signed his first MLB deal simply because he is a pure two-way player. He spent the first 6 seasons with the Angels and piled up some impressive stats.  Yet he and Mike Trout could not get the Angels back into the playoffs, so heading into the 24 season, he still had not appeared in post season play. 

                                                     His line as an Angel, .274/177/437. OPS .922. He earned two MVP awards, a ROY, and 3 All-star selections. He finished 4th in the Cy Young voting in 2022 and was 2nd in the MVP vote that year or he would have five MVPs in a row. It was not a close vote because Aaron Judge had a massive offensive season. Now that he will be pitching pretty much from the beginning of the year, he will once again be a full-time two-way player. Dodger fans have been looking forward to this ever since he signed with the team prior to the 24 season.

                                                     Let us look at what his stats look like after 8 seasons in the majors. His batting line is .282/280/669. OPS is at .957 and his OPS+ is 160. with 8 full years left on his deal, it is doubtful that Ohtani will reach his season averages over the last two or three years of his contract. That being said, I would think he is still on pace to slug over 500 homers and drive in close to 1500 runs. Ohtanis is like many power hitters, a huge strike out man. He has averaged 176 Ks a season, and he walks a little less than half of that total. 

                                                    Shohei is also very streaky. When he gets hot, he virtually can put the team on his back. His two years in blue have been excellent. He has slugged 109 homers, setting and then passing the teams season high leadership. 54 in 2024, 55 in 25. With him now having more of a permanent role in the rotation, I would expect that number to drop a little. Of course, he could surprise us all and mash even better. His best combined year as a pitcher and a hitter was 2022. He hit .274/34/95. He was 15-9 as a pitched with a 2.33 ERA. In 21, he was 9-2 and slugged 46 homers and drove in 100 runs. 

                                                    I am pretty sure most Dodger fans would love those kinds of numbers. His OPS as a Dodger is over 1.000. He has scored 280 runs in two years and driven in 232. He has made up for lost time in playoff play. He has hit 11 homers in 33 games which ties him with Duke Snider, who led in post-season homers until Justin Turner passed him a couple of years ago. The leader now is Muncy with 16. Ohtani has really shined in NLCS play, .361/5/10. He has actually walked more 12 in LCS play than he has struck out 11. Overall, he is a .248 hitter in post season play, but I would expect him to improve on that.

                                                 Now, are any of these three first ballot guys? That is up to the writers. I would think if he continued as a top-of-the-line DH and pitcher, Shohei would be that easily. You listen to today’s baseball pundits and the praise they heap on the guy is non-stop. I also think Freddie will get a lot of first ballot play. In my mind, Mookie should also, but I do believe that this is a very important season for him to show he can bounce back from his worst offensive season. I hope they all make it. Ohtani and Betts would be locks to be inducted with the LA logo on their caps. Freeman would be a tossup, unless LA wins another championship or two with Freddie on board.