Remember Sham? Of course you do.
On name alone, you just had to buy a ticket on him in his quest to upset Secretariat in the 1973 Belmont Stakes.
As far as we know, Sham is still somewhere rounding the far turn, winning the duel of horses no longer visible on your TV screen.
And there goes Secretariat … along with my lottery ticket.
The point here is: This year’s Major League Baseball race is a sham. A fraud. A put-on.
An eminence front, if you will.
The Dodgers are Secretariat. The other 29 teams are, relatively speaking, shams.
By all rights, the No. 2 slot in the 2025 season-opening Power Rankings should be left blank.
Who is the Dodgers’ chief competition this season? There is none.
Starting at the bottom, because that’s where there’s still an ounce of mystery, here’s how the teams rank as they start the death march. My suggestion: If you like a name — the A’s without a city distinction? — bet it to place or show.
30. Miami Marlins: Their big offseason additions — Cal Quantrill and Eric Wagaman — make you wonder: Is Cooper Flagg available in the lottery this year?
29. Chicago White Sox: Over the last decade, the average win total of the worst team in baseball has been 56. That would be a 15-game improvement for the White Sox … and bad news for the Marlins.
28. Colorado Rockies: Owner Dick Monfort, who predicted a .500 season in 2023 (he missed by just 22 wins), is now calling his defense potentially the best “in the history of the game.” Then again, he has Deion’s Colorado Buffaloes as No. 2.
27. Washington Nationals: They’ve given up on the Joey Gallo experiment. Good for them. Now they’ve begun the Josh Bell/Paul DeJong experiment. Bad for them. Really bad for them.
26. Toronto Blue Jays: It’s shocking they haven’t been able to agree on a blockbuster trade with the Giants: The most overrated prospects in the game for the most overrated first baseman.
25. Athletics: Sacramento’s rental is spending money. Imagine that. A boatload is going to Luis Severino. Who says being cheap is a bad thing?
24. Pittsburgh Pirates: Here are the San Antonio Spurs of baseball: You’ve got the most dominant force in the game, but really no interest in winning quite yet.
23. Tampa Bay Rays: They have no stadium. They have no talent. But they do have Kevin Cash. They might be seven spots lower without him.
22. St. Louis Cardinals: No more Paul Goldschmidt. But Nolan Arenado is back. The latter qualifies as: Subtraction by Retention.
21. Los Angeles Angels: The AL Worst has gotten so weak … If Mike Trout turns into a big fish again, even this team could win the division.
20. Milwaukee Brewers: In the NL Central, everyone has a puncher’s chance. Ex-boxer Pat Murphy would know. But he also knows, regardless of how Round 1 goes, you can always get knocked out in Round 2.
19. Houston Astros: They can’t figure out what to do with Jose Altuve. I can think of about 29 teams that would love to have that problem.
18. Minnesota Twins: This year’s theme is: “If we stay healthy …” I got three things to say about that: Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton and Royce Lewis. They won’t.
17. Texas Rangers: Bruce Bochy is old, but apparently he still loves teeter totters. What goes up, must come down. And vice versa. Supposedly, this is a “goes up” year.
16. Cleveland Guardians: Oye como va. The Carlos Santana reunion tour hits Cleveland this summer. These things are never like the originals.
15. Detroit Tigers: They’ve already done something few others will accomplish this season: They’ve one-upped the Dodgers — sending them Jack Flaherty last July for two really nice prospects, then snatching him back on the open market in February. Brilliant.
14. Cincinnati Reds: Going baseball-hunting this summer? Try behind first base at a Reds game when Elly De La Cruz puts on an errant aerial show AFC North fans have come to identify with Deshaun Watson.
13. Kansas City Royals: They improved from 56 to 86 wins basically overnight. Now here comes Jac Caglianone. That’s Italian for “Second Coming of John Mayberry.”
12. Chicago Cubs: Rival general managers are calling the addition of Kyle Tucker the best move of the MLB offseason. Presumably, if the Cubs had landed Juan Soto, it would have been labeled the best move of the century.
11. Arizona Diamondbacks: A mirror image of the Mariners, only in a much tougher league. If MLB mandates that all starting pitchers must go nine innings … look out, Dodgers.
10. San Francisco Giants: Gabe Kapler was criticized for not giving the Giants’ overblown prospects a chance, even while winning 107 games. In his second season, veteran-friendly Bob Melvin clearly has made the same assessment. Hello, 90 wins.
9. Seattle Mariners: These guys have so much pitching, you wouldn’t want to play them in a 15-game series. They all hit like Buddy Biancalana but, in today’s AL West, having one strength is enough.
8. Atlanta Braves: If you can’t beat them: The Braves responded to elimination by the Padres by raiding them … for Jurickson Profar? That’s the best they could do?
7. San Diego Padres: Hey, Sham did beat Secretariat in the Wood Memorial, so anything’s possible. If nothing else, they got the Dodgers’ attention last postseason.
6. Philadelphia Phillies: Some say they did nothing in the offseason. Not true. Their 30-somethings turned 30-something-plus-one. That’s not good.
5. New York Yankees: The Yankees of new got a taste of the Yankees of old in the financial mismatch of the 2024 World Series, then responded by doubling down on the fiscal sensibility of their new era. The Mets and Red Sox say: Thank you.
4. Boston Red Sox: Garrett Crochet, Walker Buehler, Aroldis Chapman, Alex Bregman … If these guys don’t make the playoffs this season, they really should retire Babe Ruth’s jersey as a gift to the never-forgiving baseball gods.
3. Baltimore Orioles: They say you have to taste the postseason before you can truly enjoy it, so here we are with baseball’s most talented up-and-comer. It’s their turn in the Junior League.
2. New York Mets: Last year they had Grimace. This year there’s a new face of the franchise: Smiley. No, not Soto. Rather, the guy who will benefit most from the mega-signing: Pete Alonso.
1. Los Angeles Dodgers: They figure to open the season with about $50 million worth of pitchers unable to take the hill. That’s OK, because they have another $100 million ready to perform. But at least it’s a sliver of chipped paint on Hoover Dam.
–Dave Del Grande, Field Level Media
