Rizzo Finds the Dodgers' Weak Spot

Anthony Rizzo joins the Rich Eisen Show to talk about the Los Angeles Dodgers, what it takes to beat them, and whether baseball's deferred-money era is fair to the rest of the league. Rizzo, working the NBC Sports booth now, brings the perspective of a World Series champion who has faced the Dodgers from the other dugout.

Rich opens with the direct question. Who beats the Dodgers this year?

Rizzo does not flinch. The Dodgers are the powerhouse. They have built a formula around starting pitching and getting healthy in October. The playoff format now rewards teams that limp in healthy rather than teams that grind out division titles. Any team can get hot in a short series, but the Dodgers are proven winners.

Rizzo identifies exactly one vulnerability. Fatigue. Playing at the level the Dodgers play at, every night, for the whole year, is not sustainable. If they make another deep run, it will be three years in a row of October baseball at peak intensity. World Series runs carry a mental load that compounds. That is the one thing that is not on their side.

Rich asks what it is like facing Shohei Ohtani. Rizzo calls him a presence. The fun of facing the superstars of the game is that it makes you feel like a little kid out there. When Ohtani is pitching, it is fun. When he is hitting, it is fun. Rizzo says these are the guys you tell your kids about. What Ohtani does from both sides of the ball, across a language barrier, has brought a whole country of baseball fans deeper into the game.

Rich gets to the real question. Is it fair that players can defer their salaries deep into the future, allowing the Dodgers to keep adding Kyle Tucker and other stars?

Rizzo is diplomatic. The more the merrier. The game is in a great spot. Baseball players make a lot of money up front, and there is only so much you can do with it immediately, so deferring makes sense for players. Every team can do it. The Dodgers have figured out a niche that is working for them.

Then Rizzo delivers the line that lands the segment. Someone told him once, when the whole country starts to hate you, that is when you know you are doing it right.

The Dodgers are doing it right. That is the problem, and the point.