With a great amount of money spent and high hopes, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels entered spring training expecting the best out of their respective teams. With the amount of money spent by both teams they have to be performing well right? Wrong. The Los Angeles Dodgers rank 26th in the power rankings with a 15-21 record, and the Los Angeles Angels rank 23rd in the power rankings with a 14-23 record. These teams are underachieving and are beginning to panic, much like the Miami Marlins of last year.
MLB teams can’t just buy teams. When teams have the ability to spend money, they do. They try to get the best players that are available and it has proven time and time again that it doesn’t work. An example is the Boston Red Sox of last year. They had several high-priced players and once they were dumped, they began having success. The Red Sox are only 0.5 games out of first place this year, instead of sitting at the bottom of the division like last year. It shows that money can’t always buy success.
The Angels and Dodgers have some of the best players in the game, but they cannot put it together. Maybe there are too many egos? Maybe the high-priced players care more about the money then the team. I have some advice for the teams out in LA. Build your teams the old fashion way, through the farm. Avoid buying all the egos in the free agent market and making it the manager’s job to figure it out. Plug some holes with free agents and build on the chemistry you have. You can’t buy happiness and up until this point in the season you can’t buy wins either.
