Mind-boggling Dodgers trend points to Juan Soto signing in 2024

There has been a massive spending spree this offseason in Major League Baseball and the Los Angeles Dodgers have not been a part of it. All signs point to the team wanting to get under the luxury tax threshold and resetting the team's penalty to spend big next offseason and beyond.

Next winter's free-agent class is not as deep as this winter's, but there are some prominent names atop the class. The most notable is Shohei Ohtani, who many think the Dodgers are going to pursue strongly.

Then, the Dodgers can look forward to potentially plucking the top free agent on the market the following year. Barring an extension with the San Diego Padres, Juan Soto will be a free agent after the 2024 season and is in line to land one of the biggest contracts ever.

While Ohtani might be the main player that Dodgers fans are focused on right now, Soto is someone fans need to keep an eye on two years from now. As the old saying goes, history tends to repeat itself, and Los Angeles has provided plenty of history to indicate that Soto will be in Dodger blue after the 2024 season.

The Dodgers' trend of bringing in players who beat them in the playoffs could lead to Juan Soto signing

The Dodgers have a pretty strong trend of bringing in players from teams that recently beat them in a playoff series. At some point these kind of trends do not become coincidental, and we're reaching that point with Andrew Friedman's decisions.

This trend first started in early 2020 when the Dodgers traded for Mookie Betts and David Price. Sixteen months earlier, Betts was the best player on the 2018 Boston Red Sox team that beat the Dodgers in the World Series. Nearly three years later, J.D. Martinez (and others) have joined Mookie in LA.

The next team to beat the Dodgers in the playoffs was the 2019 Washington Nationals. So what did the Dodgers do? Trade for Washington's two best players, Trea Turner and Max Scherzer. After winning it all in 2020, Los Angeles was bested by the Atlanta Braves in the 2021 NLCS. Who was LA's biggest signing last offseason? Longtime Braves first baseman, Freddie Freeman.

Each of the last three teams that have beaten the Dodgers in the playoffs has had a marquee player stolen from that team to join the Dodgers. There are two potential candidates from the San Diego Padres in Soto and Manny Machado (who has a player option after 2023), but Soto is the far more likely candidate.

This trend goes even deeper than this as well, which is pretty remarkable. While they're not marquee names, Los Angeles has several players currently on the roster from teams that beat the Dodgers early in the current 10-year playoff stretch.

Shelby Miller joined the team from the 2013 and 2014 St. Louis Cardinals, Noah Syndergaard comes from the 2015 New York Mets, Jason Heyward comes from the 2016 Chicago Cubs. Even the 2017 Houston Astros had a player shortly become a Dodger thereafter asTyler White enjoyed a cup of coffee in LA.

The Dodgers may not have been able to trade for Soto at the trade deadline last season, but they could potentially get the final laugh after the 2024 season in Year 2 of big spending.