As Evan Phillips stood in front of his locker before the Dodgers’ home opener Thursday, answering questions about the team’s upcoming World Series celebration that night and the gold jersey they would wear to mark the occasion, his new neighbor in the Dodgers clubhouse interjected from one stall over.
“What’d you say to Tanner before the game?” first-year Dodgers reliever Tanner Scott, a longtime personal friend of Phillips’ in the game, implored his new teammate to share with a reporter.
Phillips laughed.
“I was surprised they gave 66 over here a little bit of gold on his jersey,” Phillips joked, referring to Scott’s uniform number — and the fact he wasn't part of the club's title-winning roster last year.
“That’s some bull, right?” Scott responded with a playful shake of his head.
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“It’s just foreshadowing," Phillips insisted, "what’s to come for him."
Such was life for new Dodgers players this past weekend, with a group of six offseason acquisitions populating the team’s opening day roster.
All series long, they were present for the nightly pregame ceremonies honoring last year’s World Series. They wore the same gold-accented uniforms, and the same 2024 title sleeve patches, as the rest of their reigning-champion teammates.
But for them, the proceedings provided a different kind of perspective.
They weren’t in any of the scoreboard highlight reels honoring last year’s team. They didn’t have the same emotional attachment to watching a World Series banner get raised in center field. And when the team’s championship rings were presented to players and coaches Friday, they all stayed back in the dugout, serving as mere spectators while being reminded of what their previous teams failed to accomplish last season.
“There’s a lot of people in that room who enjoyed it,” manager Dave Roberts said of his clubhouse’s reaction to the weekend-long celebration. “And also, there’s new guys that didn’t partake. And I want them to want that next year.”
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So too, of course, do the new players themselves — almost all of whom offered the same reason for wanting to sign with the Dodgers this offseason.
“I went to a World Series as a rookie. Now I'm almost 10 years removed from that, and I want to go back,” veteran outfielder Michael Conforto, a member of the New York Mets’ 2015 pennant winner, said at the club’s preseason fan fest event after signing a one-year, $17-million deal in December.
“I wanted to go to a team that's going to compete. That was the first thing that I told my agent, that it has to be a team that's competitive. So I think it was a no-brainer when the Dodgers called. … We want to win games and have a chance to get a ring.”
Scott echoed similar sentiments at his introductory press conference in January, fresh off inking a four-year, $72-million contract.
“They’re not a fun team to face,” he said then, just months removed from being eliminated by the Dodgers in the playoffs as a member of the San Diego Padres. “We’re ready to win another one. And I’ll be a part of this one.”
Veteran reliever Kirby Yates, signed to a one-year, $13-million deal a week after Scott, referenced the same championship aspirations when he was introduced at Dodger Stadium for the first time.
“The older you get," said Yates, who has appeared in just one playoff game over his 11-year MLB career, "that starts being more important."
For Yates, a spectacle like this weekend’s was nothing new.
In 2022, he watched the Atlanta Braves receive their World Series rings after signing with the club in the wake of their 2021 championship. Last season, he went through it again as the newly signed closer of the Texas Rangers’ defending-title squad.
"This is my third time signing with the reigning World Series champions," he said. "I'm looking forward to finally trying to make that run and be able to pitch in the postseason."
Last year's Rangers celebration, Yates recalled this weekend, was a bittersweet experience — the 38-year-old right-hander still reeling at the time from the 104-win Braves’ division series knockout the prior October.
“I think everybody on that Atlanta team felt like we had a really good chance of winning that World Series, and it didn’t happen,” Yates said. “So watching that ring ceremony ... you’re excited for [your new team] and you’re happy for them. But on a personal level, you want your chance to win one, too.”
This weekend, however, Yates had a more auspicious feeling during the Dodgers' World Series festivities.
Here, he saw a team uniquely poised to repeat as champions; one that already had a star-studded core, then aggressively pursued additional depth and talent during a half-billion-dollar offseason spending spree.
Yates’ signing itself, after all, represented one of their most luxurious splurges — likely to effectively cost more than double its $13 million price tag when accounting for luxury tax penalties and the Dodgers’ need to cut former reliever Ryan Brasier and his $4-million salary in a corresponding move.
“The idea was to have as many good pitchers and as many good players as they possibly could have,” Yates said, “to basically help [distribute] the load for the entire season, including October.”
Having been part of two previous failed title defenses, Yates’ hope is that such roster construction will allow the Dodgers to overcome what he believes to be the biggest obstacle for any defending champion: health.
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“Playing that long into October, it takes its toll on everybody’s body,” Yates said. “But I think the difference here, and what they’ve done, is how many people they’ve added; the depth that you have to be able to make that run.”
The Dodgers, meanwhile, are hoping the hunger of their new additions will serve as a different kind of catalyst in their 2025 quest.
None of their new players — from Yates to Scott to Conforto to Blake Snell — has won a World Series. And this weekend, they had the feeling of a title dangled in front of them, getting a fleeting preview of how a long-sought championship might taste.
“I don’t think any of the new guys really need any more motivation to go out and win,” Yates said. “But watching how cool that is, watching everybody go get their rings, yeah, you definitely want your chance to be a part of that.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
