Obviously Roki Sasaki Signed With The Dodgers And Formed An Even Bigger Super Team Than They Previously Had

We all knew back in November when it became clear that Roki Sasaki was leaving Japan that he would end up on the Dodgers. Now, if you are dumb like I am, maybe you tricked yourself the last couple of week into believing the Padres or Blue Jays had a chance. Anyone but the Dodgers. Of course not. It was always the Dodgers.

The same team that convincingly won a World Series last year has now added Sasaki, Blake Snell and now Shohei Ohtani can pitch for them. Yes, they have to replace Bobby Miller and half of a season of Jack Flaherty...but what the fuck are we even talking about? Look at this staff:

1. Shohei Ohtani

2. Blake Snell

3. Tyler Glasnow

4. Yoshinobu Yamamoto

5. Roki Sasaki

6. Tony Gonsolin

7. Landon Knack

8. Dustin May

You can add Clayton Kershaw to that group when he re-signs because he said he wants to play another year and will retire as a Dodger. Of course, he would. If you're him, why go anywhere else?

What's better than that staff? The 1990's Braves? Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, Avery...and Pete Smith? They could only dream of having this level of depth. They had better 1-2-3 but this Dodgers staff may be the deepest I've ever seen.

Eric Espada. Getty Images.

I don't even know how you stop this. With Snell, Yamamoto or Ohtani, you can talk about a salary cap but that doesn't apply here. Because Sasaki left Japan before he was 25, he'll be under club control for six more years. The largest bonus the Dodgers could give was no larger than any other team. He chose the Dodgers…because they are the Dodgers.

Now MLB has a Superteam on their hands. Is that a positive or a negative? The 1936-39 Yankees won four World Series in a row and the 1949-53 Yankees amazingly won five straight. The last team to even win 3 World Series in a row was the 1998-2000 Yankees. As dominant as those teams were, baseball was in a pretty good spot nationally when those Yankees teams were just bulldozing everyone in their path. Maybe parity is a bad thing?

As a fan of another NL team, my heart sank a little when I read the news. I was already having to play mental gymnastics just to find a way for the Mets to compete against them for a pennant. I imagine Diamondbacks, Phillies, Braves and other decent NL teams are doing the same of thing. At least before today. Now it's a race to the NLCS and get curb stomped by dominance.

SOURCE - Sasaki's numbers were down a bit last year, his ERA rising to 2.35. His four-seam fastball went from averaging roughly 98 mph to 96. At one point, he dealt with shoulder fatigue. There are concerns about how Sasaki will handle a major league workload, and many will acknowledge that his command needs improvement.

Any other team and that might be a reddish enough flag to cause at least some concern. But the Dodgers can roll out a 6 or even 7 man rotation with zero issue to keep innings down for all of their guys. They can do whatever they want, whenever they want.

If that's not annoying enough, Dave Roberts is going to go down as one of the greatest baseball managers ever when anyone of us could manage this pitching staff for the rest of the decade.

They've done it. I now hate the Dodgers more than the Braves.

Not the Yankees though. Fuck them.