Tom Verducci talks Dodgers dominance, the odds of a lockout and more

The 2026 MLB season is only about three weeks old, but already the discourse is working overtime: The Dodgers are unbeatable! New York baseball is cooked! The sport is headed for a lockout! The Pirates — wait, the Pirates? — are legit!

On The Baseball Insiders podcast, we spoke with Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated about everything the year has had to offer so far, from how Andrew Friedman built a juggernaut in L.A. to the collective bargaining agreement, the Philadelphia Phillies, the Atlanta Braves and much more.

You wrote a Sports Illustrated cover story on the Dodgers. What did that process look like for you, and what did you learn?

I’ve always wanted to dive into the Dodgers. We know they’re the best team in baseball, the two-time defending world champion. But what’s the secret sauce besides spending money? What do they do really well?

Andrew Friedman gave me a lot of time and was the key to the whole story. But I talked to the coaches, players, front office people, getting the vibe of what they do behind the scenes. There wasn’t anything that was staggeringly eye-opening, but the attention to detail stood out. The (Shohei) Ohtani contract, after doing this story — I knew at the time it was unbelievably a stroke of luck to get the greatest player in the world for $2 million a year and the rest later. It propelled the organization forward. I was told that the Dodgers are making at least $200 million a year off Ohtani. Off of one player. That’s just crazy. It allows them payroll room to sign players like (Blake) Snell, (Yoshinobu) Yamamoto and everybody else they’ve brought in. 

It reminds me of the Yankees in the late 90s, too. The numbers and the analytics were great, but they had Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Bernie Williams, Mariano Rivera. These guys were never satisfied. I think the Dodgers, how they got here, is amazing. Mookie Betts should have never played for any other team but the Red Sox. Freddie Freeman should have never left Atlanta. Those are franchise players and the Dodgers got both of them. Ohtani, too. I don’t know how you even let him go at all. They are the engine of the team and besides being the best players on the team, they’re never satisfied. They never put it in cruise control. A lot of that is Mookie. But Freddie is cut the same way and now Shohei. 

You mentioned Friedman as the key. What traits do you think make him such a good executive?

He has such a diverse skillset. Obviously coming from Tampa Bay, he was schooled early in analytics. He sees the game a lot like a scout. He really does. He does a great job as a connector of people. A lot of teams run into trouble when there are separate silos between player development and analytics. That’s not the case with the Dodgers at all. You talk about glue guys on a team, he’s like a glue guy in an organization who makes everyone feel important.

He asks questions. It reminds me of [former Blue Jays, Orioles, Mariners and Phillies executive] Pat Gillick a lot. Pat Gillick was a great architect, if you will, not just a baseball guy. He would not be afraid to ask anybody a question. In the media, he would pick your brain about what team you were covering. Andrew is that kind of curious guy. It doesn’t mean he’s always going to take it to heart, whatever you tell him. He knows what he doesn’t know. He’s always curious to learn more. If he’s not the best, he’s one of the best out there because he connects every aspect of the organization.

The calls for a salary cap were already loud, and then Kyle Tucker went to the Dodgers for $60 million a year. Do you think it ends up happening?

It accelerated the conversation. Kyle Tucker is a nice player, but he’s more of a complementary player than a franchise-type player. He’s a great player, don’t get me wrong. But for the average fan that name didn’t resonate with those kinds of dollars. You fold in the tax that the Dodgers are paying, and they are paying $120 million in 2026 just for Tucker. That’s more than five or six teams. When you see the disparity in that regard, where a guy is making more than some teams’ payrolls, you’re thinking, "something has to change."

I don’t know about a salary cap. I think it will be very difficult to get. I’ve said this for years, not just now, that if baseball does seriously want to change the economic structure of the game, you’re going to have trauma. You’re going to miss games. I don’t see any way that that’s possible to change the system to something that the Players Association has historically been dead-set against. If you ever do get there, and I have my doubts about whether they could, it’s probably going to cost some games. How many, I don’t know. But I’m optimistic. I tend to think that somehow we’re going to get an agreement probably around March of next year without going through what would be unbelievable trauma, really, when you think about shutting the game down. 

Who would you take from the field to potentially unseat the Dodgers?

Baseball is such a crazy game that I would take the field over the Dodgers. I still would say that. That being said, they’re the best team in baseball and they’re showing that early on.

I came into the season thinking the Philadelphia Phillies were the team that could knock them off. They played them very tough in the postseason last year. Zack Wheeler has two more Minor League starts, and I know the velocity is not where he wants it to be, but all systems have been a go in terms of the shaping of his pitches. They can go toe to toe with the pitching staff of the Dodgers in the postseason environment.

I’m a little bit concerned though because the early signs of this Philadelphia team are not good. Adolis Garcia doesn’t look much better than he did in Texas. Kevin Long, maybe in time, can turn him around. Alec Bohm is completely lost at the plate. He started out hitting cleanup behind Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper. They’ve had to move him down to the eight-hole. So right now they don’t have a clean up hitter on that team. That’s a problem. I wonder how good that offense is going to be. I like Justin Crawford. I think he’s a nice guy in that No. 9 spot. I just don’t know right now if that lineup is deep enough. When you play the Dodgers, and we saw it in the postseason, Toronto had a very deep lineup and could hang with them. You need a deep lineup, not just scoring from the top. I’m a little bit concerned about Philadelphia’s offense and how it’s going to get better during the season.

Has there been a player or team that’s surprised you early on?

I’m surprised the Braves have gotten off to this good start with all the injuries they’ve had. I had a game earlier where Bryce Elder pitched and man, he’s so underappreciated. He just keeps taking the ball and for a team that has so many injuries, he’s so valuable in that regard. They’re off to a good start. It’s funny, every year I try to pick two teams that had losing records the year before that could go to the postseason, and my top two teams this year were Atlanta and Pittsburgh. People are like, “Pittsburgh?”

I saw Konnor Griffin in spring training and the dude hasn’t even hit yet, but I’m telling ya, he’s going to hit. I just watched that team throwing bullpens and the amount of pure stuff they have, I’m going to hedge my bet and say I’m not 100 percent confident they’re a playoff team, but I’m not surprised they have started this well. It’s a good mix of guys with the veterans they’ve added. I think they’re going to be a surprise team. Playoff team or not, I don’t know. But you could be looking up in August and see that the Pirates are still there as a contender.

I go back to when they drafted Griffin: A lot of teams didn’t think they were going to sign him and that he was going to go to LSU. The family had a number out there that was definitely above slot, and we have seen the Pirates try to, in a conservative way, go with [less heralded prospects like] Henry Davis and save some money to get someone later in the draft. In this case, they signed a guy above slot. I give them credit. Now with this contract extension as well, it could be franchise changing. That’s a big phrase. I get it. I’m not sure about Paul Skenes, because that’s a whole different animal about where it goes contract-wise. In the short term, at least, it’s not too different from when Washington had Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg. It was the makings – I know Harper wasn’t there for the championship – but it was the makings of a championship team. 

It will be hard for them to be Dodgers good year after year after year. But this window is just starting to open up for the Pirates.