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The Los Angeles Dodgers and their Player Development Machine

By Michael Francis

LOS ANGELES, CA- OCTOBER 27: Max Muncy of the Los Angeles Dodgers reacts after hitting the game winning home run to defeat the Boston Red Sox 3-2 in the 18th inning of during game three of the World Series at Dodger Stadium on Friday, October 27, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Keith Birmingham/Digital First Media/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA- OCTOBER 27: Max Muncy of the Los Angeles Dodgers reacts after hitting the game winning home run to defeat the Boston Red Sox 3-2 in the 18th inning of during game three of the World Series at Dodger Stadium on Friday, October 27, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Keith Birmingham/Digital First Media/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images) /
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Los Angeles Dodgers Infielder Max Muncy
LOS ANGELES, CA- OCTOBER 27: Max Muncy, center, of the Los Angeles Dodgers reacts after hitting the game winning home run to defeat the Boston Red Sox in the 18th inning of during game three of the World Series at Dodger Stadium on Friday, October 27, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Keith Birmingham/Digital First Media/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images) /

The Los Angeles Dodgers can already outspend nearly every other team in baseball and yet every year it seems that they have a player come out of nowhere to be a superstar. How does this keep happening and who is poised to be next?

The Dodgers have been the class of the National League for a while now with six straight NL West titles and two straight World Series appearances. They have this success in a number of ways. They draft players well, they develop players well and they spend money on the right players. Their core players are home-grown and they avoided selling them off when they were prospects. One constant of course has been their ace starting pitcher, Clayton Kershaw, and it looks like they may have found a new ace in Walker Buehler as well.

A big reason for the Dodgers’ success has obviously been their willingness to spend at or above the competitive balance tax threshold for years. The team even blew past the $200 million every year of their current division title run up until this past year where they pushed up to the tax threshold while staying under for the first time in years. Having this kind of money helps a team in many ways. They can pay for the big free agents, they can take more risks as they are able to absorb bad contracts, and they can keep their superstars like Kershaw.

The other thing that big money can do is improve the organization off the field. Spending money on scouting, research and data are new ways that big market clubs are flexing their financial muscle. Through these new mediums, the Dodgers and teams like them, such as the Yankees and Astros, can better find players out of obscurity and develop them into superstars. The Dodgers seem to do this better than anyone and they have a player pretty much every year break out from nowhere. Let’s take a look at some of their breakout stars and see how they got to this point:

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