The Dodgers have the air of a team who has their s--t figured out. This has been the case throughout the offseason, but seeing them on the field and still holding onto first place in Cactus League play makes it all more palpable.
Sure, everyone is optimistic during spring training. If your team is killing during camp, it's a great sign of things to come. If they suck— who cares? It's just spring training! How much you read into the Dodgers' success ahead of Opening Day is totally up to you, but we can all agree that the team looks confident and ready.
Accordingly, there are a lot of things the Dodgers have already sorted out with less than two weeks to go before Seoul. But no one's perfect, and there's still one itching, burning question they need to answer as well.
3 questions Dodgers have already answered at spring training, 1 they haven't
How will Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman be configured at the top of the order?
After Ohtani was signed, it was clear that he, Betts, and Freeman would sit right at the top of the Dodgers' order to terrorize pitchers. However, before Ohtani made his spring debut on Feb. 27, we weren't sure exactly how they were going to be configured. Last year, Betts and Freeman were pretty much unshakably in the Dodgers' 1 and 2 spots, and Ohtani bounced around between 1-3 but was mostly at 2 throughout the year for the Angels.
Betts pretty much always had leadoff locked down, but Freeman and Ohtani were different stories. No one really expected any drama out of the decision, but the answer for how and when opposing pitchers would have to handle three of baseball's best hitters was always going to be intriguing.
According to Dave Roberts, neither Ohtani nor Freeman has a preference for where they hit, so Ohtani went to the second spot and Freeman to the third. It's already started to make sense on the field; after Ohtani stole his first base of spring training on March 6, Freeman was asked about that decision to run. Freeman said he always wanted to Ohtani to run, and that he'd take a pitch whenever he was trying to steal. Freeman hit .373 with runners in scoring position last season, so having him behind a steal threat like Ohtani in the lineup just makes sense.