{"id":644235,"date":"2026-03-26T09:49:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T09:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/644235\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T09:49:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T09:49:25","slug":"la-dodgers-go-for-3-peat-as-lockout-looms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/644235\/","title":{"rendered":"LA Dodgers go for 3-peat as lockout looms"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 Baseball is changing at a dizzying speed in 2026 with the arrival of robot umpires, the return home of the Tampa Bay Rays and an alphabet soup of networks televising games in perhaps the last season before a labor shutdown.<\/p>\n

Much has transpired in the 4\u00bd months since the Los Angeles Dodgers rallied in World Series Game 7<\/a> to beat the Toronto Blue Jays in 11 innings and become the first repeat champion<\/a> since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees.<\/p>\n

There was the usual free-agent musical chairs that saw Kyle Tucker wind up with the Dodgers<\/a>, Bo Bichette with the New York Mets<\/a>, Alex Bregman with the Chicago Cubs<\/a> and Pete Alonso with the Baltimore Orioles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Venezuela became a first-time champion<\/a> of a World Baseball Classic with record attendance and television viewers.<\/p>\n

But looming above the usual excitement for opening day Wednesday is the possibility of no games in a year.<\/p>\n

Tony Clark was forced to resign<\/a> as players association head and replaced by Bruce Meyer<\/a> as talk intensified about a possible management salary-cap proposal the players association vows to fight. Major League Baseball is likely to lock out players on Dec. 2, leaving 2027 in limbo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cy Young Award winners Paul Skenes and Tarik Skubal<\/a> are on the eight-man executive subcommittee that directs collective bargaining.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need people that are invested and kind of have status among players and within the game to go into the negotiations and be comfortable going toe to toe with the owners,\u201d Skenes said. \u201cIt\u2019s not something that I sought out. Some guys nominated me for the position and that\u2019s not something you say no to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Send in the robots
\n\"TheThe Automated Ball-Strike System is displayed on a screen behind the outfield during Cubs spring training at Sloan Park on Feb. 17, 2026, in Mesa, Ariz. (Armando L. Sanchez\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

Following testing that started in the minor leagues in 2019, MLB decided in September to use the Automated Ball-Strike System<\/a> in the regular season.<\/p>\n

While human umps will call every pitch, each team has the ability to challenge two calls per game, retaining the challenge if successful, and have the possibility of at least one more in each extra inning.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want get the egregiously wrong calls fixed and you want make sure you get it right in a big spot,\u201d three-time Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander said.<\/p>\n

ABS won\u2019t be used for a two-game series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres on April 25-26 in Mexico City, for the Philadelphia Phillies-Minnesota Twins game at the Field of Dreams on Aug. 13 in Dyersville, Iowa, or the Atlanta Braves-Milwaukee Brewers matchup on Aug. 23 in Williamsport, Pa.<\/p>\n

Channel surfing<\/p>\n

Regular-season national broadcasts are split among Fox\/FS1, TBS, ESPN, NBC\/Peacock, AppleTV and Netflix. NBC\u2019s networks take over the wild-card series from ABC\/ESPN.<\/p>\n

In addition, MLB will produce and distribute the local telecasts of 14 teams following the financial problems of Main Street Sports Group, which operates the regional FanDuel Sports Network stations.<\/p>\n

When the Yankees play the MLB season opener at the San Francisco Giants on Wednesday, the game will be exclusively on Netflix.<\/p>\n

Dodgers go for three-peat
\n\"DodgersDodgers World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto holds his trophy as teammates celebrate their win in Game 7 of the World Series against the Blue Jays on Nov. 2, 2025, in Toronto. (Ashley Landis\/AP)<\/p>\n

After becoming the first team to win consecutive championships since the 1998-2000 Yankees, the Dodgers try to become just the fifth group to win three in a row, joining those Yankees, five by the 1949-53 Yankees, four by the 1936-39 Yankees and three by the 1972-74 Oakland Athletics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re a Dodger, people want to take us down. They want to beat us,\u201d manager Dave Roberts told players in his spring training speech. \u201cIt\u2019s a Game 7. So we\u2019ve got to look ahead and say that this is going to be harder than it\u2019s ever been and we got to work even harder. And so my ask as a team, as an organization is to push ourselves even more. We already got the talent. There isn\u2019t any more talent in a major-league clubhouse than in this room.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coming off his fourth unanimous MVP award, Shohei Ohtani is expected to be a two-way player over a full season. He returned to the mound on June 16 following his second major elbow surgery on Sept. 19, 2023.<\/p>\n

Back at the Trop
\n\"AA cleat-level view of the center-field turf, looking toward the plate with the dome overhead, as renovations continue at Tropicana Field on Feb. 13, 2026, in Tampa, Fla, in preparation for the home opener on April 6. (Dirk Shadd\/Tampa Bay Times)<\/p>\n

The Rays return to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla., after a season playing home games across the bay at Steinbrenner Field, the spring training home of the Yankees.<\/p>\n

Damage to the Trop caused by Hurricane Milton in October 2024 has been repaired. The Rays were 41-40 at Steinbrenner last year, their lowest home winning percentage since 2016. They drew 786,750 for an average of 9,713, selling out 61 games.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is genuine, authentic excitement to get back to the Trop,\u201d manager Kevin Cash said. \u201cWe\u2019ve played well in the Trop. We\u2019ve had a lot of success in the Trop. And I think we\u2019re going back to something that\u2019s probably going to be a little bit newer, a little better than maybe as we left it because they had to do so many repairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Milestone watch<\/p>\n

Four players could reach 400 career home runs this year.<\/p>\n

Manny Machado starts the season at 369, followed by Freddie Freeman at 368, Aaron Judge at 367 and Bryce Harper at 363.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 Baseball is changing at a dizzying speed in 2026 with the arrival of robot umpires,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[82457,72,33411,5,57,4,297,49105,468,2550,68,2551,2549],"class_list":{"0":"post-644235","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-rays","8":"tag-2026-mlb-season-preview","9":"tag-alex-bregman","10":"tag-automated-ball-strike-system","11":"tag-baseball","12":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-rays","15":"tag-robot-umpires","16":"tag-shohei-ohtani","17":"tag-tampa-bay","18":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","19":"tag-tampabay","20":"tag-tampabayrays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116294858983200149","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}