Joel comes to us from spring training in Arizona, where his weekend notebook took on a bit of a California Dreamin’ theme.
East Coast fans, particularly Yankees fans, are well aware of what it’s like to be the Evil Empire dynasty. And in Joel’s first thought he’ll explain why it’s good for baseball that the Los Angeles Dodgers currently own that love from their own fans and vitriol from fans of opposing teams.
Joel digs even deeper into how long LA can actually stay at the top of the baseball world with the second thing he’s thinking. How will the Dodgers eventually handle Father Time and replace the likes of Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts to surround the star of stars, Shohei Ohtani?
And finally, Joel digs his heels into the fact that this “unbeatable” Dodgers team has, in fact, shown that it can be beat, but gives us multiple examples of teams that just didn’t get it done. Is LA so untouchable in 2026? And which teams will have the best shot?