The Dodgers are not the norm in baseball. For the majority of teams in the major leagues, the last week of the regular season is the last week until spring training.
As the Angels played out their final week, the Angel Stadium store featured a “Thank You Fans” sale, with up to 50% off caps, T-shirts, polo shirts, jackets, even authentic Mike Trout jerseys.
Inside the clubhouse, the reminders for players had the feel of the final week of school: return your team-issued iPad; order your gloves for next season; take your exit physical.
As the Dodgers play out their final week of the regular season, on the road, the Dodger Stadium store is stocking up on blue “October Baseball” T-shirts, the same ones the players wore last week, when they clinched a postseason spot.
On Thursday, the Dodgers clinched the National League West, again. On Tuesday, the Dodgers will make their 13th consecutive postseason appearance, one shy of the major league record. Only once in those 13 seasons did the Dodgers fail to win the NL West: in 2021, when they won 106 games and the San Francisco Giants won 107.
For the Angels and their decorated closer, and for 17 other teams, Tuesday will be the second day of the offseason. That is the norm in baseball, at least outside Chavez Ravine, the Bronx, and recently Milwaukee.
Kenley Jansen played October baseball for the Dodgers from 2013-21, and for the Atlanta Braves in 2022.
In 2023, the first time in 11 years Jansen did not appear in the postseason, his family alerted him that the Dodgers’ playoff opener was on television, with good friend Clayton Kershaw pitching.
Jansen had no interest in watching.
“I’m like, guys, I’m not on the Dodgers anymore,’ ” he said this week at Angel Stadium.
He wanted to be around his family. His friends and family members wanted to be around him, which they assumed meant around baseball.
“I get it,” he said. “I still feel like I’m going to get those calls: Did you watch that game?”
He appreciates how difficult it is to get to the playoffs. In his first two full seasons, the Dodgers vs. the rest of the league at Dodger Stadium was a sideshow to the main event: Frank McCourt vs. Major League Baseball in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del.
Never mind whether the Dodgers would make the playoffs. Would the players get paid?
“We went from the bankrupt Dodgers to getting into the playoffs every year,” Jansen said. “I think it was the core group, the leadership that we had, plus the front office and the ownership wanting to win a championship every year. They make it competitive.
“They’ve got to keep that train going.”
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, center, celebrates with teammates in the locker room after the Dodgers defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday to clinch the NL West division title.
(Darryl Webb / Associated Press)
In Anaheim, for the first time in 50 years, the Angels are bound for a second consecutive last-place finish. Their last postseason appearance: 11 years ago. Their last winning record: 10 years ago.
This playoff drought included the stretch in which Trout and Shohei Ohtani played together. The Dodgers are more — much more — than Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman.
“For me, on the other side now, I see how hard it is to get in the playoffs,” Jansen said. “It’s not easy. You’ve got to have depth — not only here in the big leagues, but depth in the system — to give yourself a chance to win the division.”
It’s too bad the Dodgers and Angels could not complete a trade to get Jansen back to Los Angeles, where he would immediately have become the Dodgers’ most reliable right-handed reliever.
Jansen has a 2.64 ERA this season, and he has converted 28 of 29 save opportunities. He hasn’t given up a hit in more than a month.
But the Angels didn’t sell at the trade deadline, declaring they were in serious contention without buying any serious upgrades.
Dodgers fans should take it from Jansen: Don’t take this golden era for granted. Take a few days to appreciate it. On Wednesday, Jansen said, he’ll start his offseason workouts.
On Tuesday, the Dodgers will start the playoffs, trying to become baseball’s first back-to-back champions in 25 years. The percentages are not in their favor: As of Thursday, Baseball Prospectus gives the Dodgers a 9.6% chance to win the World Series, a smaller chance than the Milwaukee Brewers, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies and Seattle Mariners.
The Angels have been so bad for so long that a division championship would be cause for great celebration. The Dodgers have been so good for so long that nothing but a World Series championship would suffice.
And so, on Tuesday, the days of gratitude can end, and Dodgers fans can resume reflexively criticizing their manager and grimacing about whether they can trust anyone in their bullpen.