The culture within the Los Angeles Dodgers organization has been a significant contributor to their success and made them a premier destination for free agents in recent years.
When Shohei Ohtani signed with the Dodgers in December 2024, he was already a two-time American League MVP and had firmly established himself as the best player in baseball. But he also brought an aura with him, and as an established star, it could have been difficult for players already on the team to offer advice or call out mistakes.
That has been seen in other clubhouses across sports, where the star players don’t feel the need to buy in or listen to the advice of other players.
However, Ohtani was open to feedback from his new team early on and fit into the culture of the clubhouse well. During an appearance on “Foul Territory,” Max Muncy described how coachable Ohtani was and his willingness to buy in:
“I remember very clearly within the first month of us having Shohei, there was a play where he was running the bases and he didn’t necessarily get as good of a secondary lead and he wasn’t able to score on a certain play.
“After the game, it was Freddie, Mookie, our first base coach Clayton, several of us grabbed him and just said, ‘Hey, we want to show you something. This is what you did on your secondary, you need to be a little bit better at this, and that would allow you to score.’
“He was just like, ‘Oh, this is great. People are approaching me and wanting to talk to me about things.’ That’s just how we’ve always done things here. That’s part of the culture we’ve created.”
Ohtani has been open about just wanting to be one of the guys on the team and not have any special status or privileges due to his status as the most popular, and well-paid, player in MLB. His attitude toward accepting advice and fitting into the team-first culture is a reflection of that.
Clayton Kershaw has also discussed the Dodgers’ culture recently, describing how their will to win gives them an advantage over other teams.
Kershaw believes teams run into problems when they have players who give more priority to their personal desires and goals rather than wanting to win. He praised the Dodgers’ superstars, such as Ohtani and Freddie Freeman, for having a win-above-all-costs mentality and credited Roberts for establishing that value as a foundational pillar of the clubhouse culture.
While Edwin Díaz has yet to play a game for the Dodgers, he received a first-hand account from his brother Alexis about how well the organizations treats each one of their players.
Shohei Ohtani baseball card sells for record price
Ohtani’s 2024 Topps Black Dynasty “50/50” Relic sold for $1.067 million earlier this year, becoming the first Dodgers card of any kind to sell for more than $1 million.
He has now topped that mark with his Topps Chrome Gold Logoman Autograph card auctioning for $3 million in the middle of December.
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