The Los Angeles Dodgers have a dynasty. Their 5–4 win over the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday night, in one of the best winner-take-all games in World Series history, makes them the first repeat champions in a quarter-century.

It’s an astonishing outcome for a team that has been the center of years of discourse about whether they have “ruined” baseball by acquiring so many of the game’s best players and putting them on the game’s biggest payroll. They haven’t, for the record. But the Dodgers are eminently hateable villains now, even though Shohei Ohtani’s smile and skill make him impossible to dislike. It’s not because they paid Ohtani, or pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, or future Hall of Fame hitters Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts, or anyone else. The Dodgers are also a player development

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