Dodgers Division Rivals Going Big to Keep Up With the Competition

National League West rivals are scheming to upend the Dodgers successful run. Believing that loading up on talented players will get them over the hump in 2018.

Because of the Dodgers winning ways of late, some NL West teams have developed a serious case of pennant envy. And why wouldn’t they? After all, the Dodgers have won their division for five straight years. With eyelids propped open like Alex in the film A Clockwork Orange, the jealous Giants have turned green watching as the Dodgers ran their consecutive division win streak to five.

The Giants were on a streak of their own in the early 2010s, winning the World Series every other even numbered year. When they didn’t reach the Championship Series round of the playoffs in 2016, it must have driven their executives to the point where they developed a Napoleon complex in the winter following. That season they went after the top tier of free agent closers, including courting Kenley Jansen. They settled on a $62 million investment in RHP Mark Melancon on a 4 year contract. All in an effort to be the best team money can buy and in direct financial competition with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Giants really wanted to land Giancarlo Stanton and even met with his representatives in Los Angeles to see if they could work something out. It would have been a coup for them to get the 2017 NL MVP not only because he hits the ball really, really hard, but to keep him from possibly joining the Dodgers, his preferred landing spot. The Marlins and Giants even had a deal in place, but Stanton was holding out to play on one of four predetermined teams. Sadly for Giants fans, ix-nay on the Anfrancisco-say.

Evan Longoria was not someone that the Dodgers really targeted, but boy, is he an improvement for the Giants over the last guy. Addition by Pablo Sandoval-subtraction for San Francisco here.