A billion-dollar chunk of the new look Los Angeles Dodgers made its debut in Dodger blue during spring training in Arizona this week, with promising results.

Shohei Ohtani, signed in the offseason as a free agent for $700 million, hit a two-run homer in three at-bats as a DH against the Chicago White Sox at Camelback Ranch on Tuesday. On Wednesday at Surprise Stadium, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who came to LA from Japan on a $325 million deal, threw two scoreless innings against the Texas Rangers.  

Yamamoto looks like the real thing. He needed 19 pitches—16 of them strikes—and struck out three, barely breaking a sweat. Ohtani, who didn’t play in the game, was in the dugout nonetheless, cheering on his Japanese countryman’s first MLB start.

“These are very exciting times around here right now,” Dodgers manager Dave Robert said.

But despite spending $1.09 billion on nine players this season, the new-look Dodgers could very well turn out like the old-look team that was knocked out of the playoffs in the National League Division Series the past two postseasons.

The Dodgers won 111 games and the NL West in 2022, finishing 22 games ahead of the runner-up San Diego Padres. They followed that with 100 wins in 2023, ending 16 games ahead of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Yet both second-place teams easily dispatched the Dodgers in the NLDS.

The Dodgers have won the West 10 times in the past 11 seasons, but only have a single World Series win to show for it.

And so, here we are again. Ohtani, Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Teoscar Hernández and James Paxton are among the new faces on the roster. Clayton Kershaw, Jason Hayward and Enrique Hernandez are returning free agents, with Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Will Smith and Max Muncy among other players who are back.

This team is stacked. Overall, Ohtani and Yamamoto cost the Dodgers $1.25 billion over the course of the next 12 years. But is it enough? 

Project these Dodgers to walk away with another division title by winning 100-115 games. Once again, they will not play a meaningful game after the All-Star break. Once again, they will sit around for a week awaiting a Wild Card-round winning opponent for their NLDS to start. Once again, they could be flat.

Roberts said he hasn’t discerned how to avoid all that, although he’s thought about it a lot.

“I don’t know what else we can do,” he said. “You can’t give guys days of rest because they need to play during the season. You can intersquad as much as you can to try to prepare during the week off. Certainly, we just didn’t perform the last few years. I just don’t know the answer.”

The answer is lack of pitching.

Kershaw couldn’t make it out of the first inning of Game 1 last year at Dodger Stadium against the D-backs. He faced eight batters, allowing six runs on six hits while recording one ground out. That set the tone for a three-game sweep. Lance Lynn allowed four third-inning homers in Game 3. The next thing for Kershaw was left shoulder surgery. The next thing for the Dodgers was another long offseason after an early elimination.

“We just got ourselves in a big hole,” Roberts said. 

The front office answer has been pretty simple: spend money trying to win the club’s first non-COVID World Series since 1988. The Dodgers defeated the Tampa Bay Rays in the Texas bubble to win it all after the pandemic-shortened 60-game season in 2020. Considering the obstacles of that season it was no easy feat, but it didn’t follow 162 games.

Since then, the Dodgers have 317 wins in three seasons but haven’t been back to the Fall Classic.

And so, they spent a lot of money this past offseason, a lot more than any other team.

The San Francisco Giants were second, spending $207.3 million thus far on four free agents.

The New York Mets spent $65.2 million on nine lower-level free agents.

The New York Yankees signed two—pitchers Marcus Stroman and Luke Weaver—for $39 million. 

Yet, because of some creative accounting, the Dodgers’ overall payroll of $215.6 million is eighth in MLB and well below the $237 million luxury tax threshold for this season.

On the field, they are hoping to avoid the same results. 

“Right now, this team is very focused,” Roberts said. “We’re not going to make any excuses.”

It’s all about front-line pitching, and the past two years the Dodgers haven’t had enough of it. At one point or another last season they lost just about every starting pitcher on their roster to injury. Two of them—Kershaw and Walker Buehler—are on rehab stints heading into the season.

Kershaw is not expected back until August, and that’s if there are no setbacks. Buehler is being slow-walked this spring after a second Tommy John surgery on his right elbow and is targeted to return by May.

That leaves Yamamoto, Glasnow, Paxton and Bobby Miller thus far in the rotation, Roberts said.

The two-way Ohtani is rehabbing from his own right elbow surgery this past September during his waning days with the Los Angeles Angels and will not pitch this season. Because of injury, surgery and rehab he actually has made only 86 starts during his first six seasons.

“It was definitely a big first step,” Ohtani said after surviving his initial Dodgers outing as a hitter. “The biggest thing is that I was able to finish off the game without any problems.” 

Unlike Ohtani, who joined the Angels from Japan in 2018 with a Grade 1 tear in his ulnar ligament, Yamamoto is healthy. He said Wednesday he felt fine, but was “relieved to get this first start out of the way.” 

He’s accustomed, though, to starting once a week in Japan, he added. That doesn’t sound like it’s in the cards with the Dodgers, Roberts responded.

“It’s not going to be exactly what he’s used to,” Roberts said. “He will get extra days’ rest. It’s not going to be a true six man. We might drop somebody in at times. Paxton is going to need extra time once in a while. It’s not a hard and fast five- or six-man rotation yet.”

The veteran Paxton had a strained left flexor tendon with the Yankees limiting him to five starts in 2020 and spinal surgery after that season. One start into the 2021 season with the Seattle Mariners he had Tommy John surgery on his left elbow, missed the rest of that season and the entirety of 2022. The Dodgers still signed him for one year at $7 million.

Glasnow, who was acquired in a trade with Tampa Bay in the offseason and then signed by the Dodgers to a five-year, $136.6 million contract, missed 289 games in 2021 and 2022 after Tommy John surgery on his right elbow.

Miller had a good first season in 2023 filling in for the Dodgers, finishing 11-4 with a 3.76 ERA in 22 starts.

The fifth spot is still up for grabs, “because Buehler’s not here,” Roberts said.

It’s not exactly the most stable of rotations, and even with all their spending, the Dodgers may not be able to fend off another postseason collapse.