So, the other day I had a super random, but enlightening idea. I asked myself, ‘did Liverpool give up on this season because they’re building something bigger?’ ‘Are they so confident in their squad that the recent struggles are merely a blip in a massive map to them?’
And as soon as that idea rumbled through my head, I thought of another sports team that implemented something similar. The LA Dodgers. And then when I made the connection between the Liverpool owner John Henry and baseball (being that he also owns the Boston Red Sox), the idea became this article.
If you search for YouTube videos on the LA Dodgers, you will find a slew of videos saying that ‘the Dodgers are ruining baseball’. Why are people saying this? Because the Dodgers have assembled maybe the most talented roster of baseball players that we have ever seen in the history of baseball. And every season, they add even more talent to that crop.
This offseason, they signed Edwin Diaz, the best closer in baseball, as well as Kyle Tucker, who is arguably one of the 15 best hitters in MLB. Last offseason, they signed Blake Snell, who was only one year removed from winning the NL CY Young award (the award given to the league’s best pitcher that year). They also signed maybe the most exciting pitching prospect to ever come out of Japan in Roki Sasaki. In addition, they brought in then big time closer Tanner Scott, and resigned All-Star Teoscar Hernandez.
The year before that was even more insane. They signed probably the greatest baseball player of all time, Shohei Ohtani, to the (then) biggest contract in sports history at 10 years, $700 million. They then did the unthinkable and also added Japan’s best pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto at 12 years, $325 million, then the biggest contract ever signed by a pitcher. They also traded for elite pitcher Tyler Glasnow, and signed Teoscar Hernandez.
To cut a long story short, the Dodgers have been loudly building the most talented roster in baseball, and have won back-to-back World Series trophies as a result. But whilst they have been the ones lifting the trophy in both seasons, you wouldn’t have been so sure that it would be them during the regular season(s).
In 2024, they had the best roster in baseball, and that netted them the best finishing record too (98-64). But there were 4 teams within just 5 games of them: the Phillies (95-67), the Yankees (94-68), the Padres (93-69), and the Brewers (93-69). Now these teams were great, but on paper, the Dodgers initially looked far better than anyone else, and the narratives before the season said exactly that. Many thought that it was just a formality that the Dodgers would be by far the best team in baseball and win the World Series. But after the regular season, and how close so many teams were to them in the standings, there was some belief for the lovers of parity.
But ultimately, the Dodgers’ talent prevailed and they won the World Series.
In 2025, they had an even less convincing regular season, with an even more stacked roster. They finished with the 5th best record (93-69), 5 games back from the Brewers (97-65). And throughout the year there were many instances where you would be right to doubt the potency of the Dodgers. They lost the season series 0-6 to the Brewers; they were 2-4 against the Phillies; they even lost the season series 3-4 against the Cubs. All of these teams were viewed as inferior to the Dodgers on paper – everyone was.
But again, in the postseason, they beat everyone. They swept the Reds 2-0 in the Wild Card round; they beat the Phillies 4-2 in the Divisional Series; they SWEPT the Brewers 4-0 in the Championship Series and they inevitably beat the Blue Jays 4-3 in the World Series. Best roster = World Series.
In a similar light, Liverpool came off of winning a Premier League title by bolstering their squad in an unprecedented manner. They broke their transfer record by signing Florian Wirtz for £116 million, then broke it again by signing Alexander Isak for £125 million. In the midst of those signings, they added Milos Kerkez for £40 million, Jeremie Frimpong for £29.5 million, Giorgi Mamardashvili for £25 million, Giovanni Leoni for £26 million, and Hugo Ekitike for £69 million. It was a £446 million spending spree that made the country’s best team (on paper) even better on a scale that many couldn’t begin to believe (…on paper).
Just like in the preseason before the Dodgers’ 2025 season, concessions were already being made by pundits and rival fans due to the squad that Liverpool had put together. It felt like there was simply no way that Liverpool wouldn’t win the league again. It felt to many like Liverpool were ruining football just like it felt like the Dodgers were ruining baseball.
Obviously for Liverpool this season, they have fallen extremely short of the lofty expectations that were set for them in the preseason. A shortcoming that has been far more spectacular than any struggles that the Dodgers faced in their last two regular seasons.
But what does this tell us about Liverpool, the Dodgers, roster construction, and winning?
Well for starters, it tells us that some front offices feel like you can never have too many stars. For the Dodgers, this meant adding Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Kyle Tucker to Mookie Betts, Clayton Kershaw, and Freddie Freeman. For Liverpool, this meant adding Florian Wirtz, Alexander Isak, and Hugo Ekitike to Mo Salah, Virgil Van Dijk, and Ryan Gravenberch.
The previous two seasons of Dodger baseball also tell us that the massive accumulation of star players, and the having of the best roster, doesn’t always translate to smooth seasons. We are seeing that in this season’s Liverpool team too. The 2025 Dodger regular season and this 25-26 Liverpool season are similar is many ways. Big name players have gone down with long term injuries. Snell, Glasnow, and Sasaki went down for LA, whilst Isak, Jeremie Frimpong, and Conor Bradley have gone down for Liverpool. For both teams this had a major impact on the ways that their seasons went, and reminded us that no matter how good a roster is, players getting injured can cause our preseason predictions look very bad come seasons end.
But it also tells us that in crunch time, when you have all those elite players healthy and contributing, that having the best roster is conducive to winning. In both World Series victories, the Dodgers had contribution from almost the entirety of their star-studded rosters, something that Liverpool have not had the luxury of at all this season.
It showed that even if your regular season isn’t the most convincing or inspiring, having the best players at the most important times, gives you the best chance of winning. We saw this with the Real Madrid teams between 2016 and 2018. In those years, we may have seen some struggles for those teams, as they failed to win LaLiga in both 2016, and 2018, but in both of those seasons, they won the Champions League. In the biggest moments, the early season struggles didn’t matter, the team with the best roster played like the team with the best roster.
However, comparing football and baseball like this is dangerous. The baseball regular season means virtually nothing to a team like LA. They just need to make the playoffs, and make the playoffs with their players healthy. So, when they entered the 2025 postseason as the no.3 seed in the National League, it didn’t really matter – all that mattered was that they made they playoffs and gave their superstar roster the opportunity to do what it was designed to do – win the World Series.
But for a team like Liverpool, there is no regular season or postseason – there is just the season. And as many would likely admit, performing well in the Premier League, especially as the defending champions, would have been the primary goal for Liverpool at the beginning of this season.
The Dodgers can afford to coast through the season with several players out injured, and if they still make the playoffs, they can forget about the regular season entirely. For example, they lost to the Brewers on all 6 meetings in the regular season. But in the playoffs they played 4… and won 4. That is all anyone will remember.
For Liverpool, every game is important because dropping points in the league is catastrophic. So, building a team that is capable of weathering the storm that is a wild and intense Premier League season is of utmost importance. This Liverpool squad isn’t built for that.
They’re built to win in a postseason. If they get hot at the right time, they can beat anyone – they have the players for that. They have notable wins against giants like Inter Milan, Arsenal, and Real Madrid this season. But their Premier League title defence has been ruined by notable losses to teams like Brentford, Bournemouth, and Nottingham Forest.
To put it simply, Liverpool are built to do well in cup competitions, in knockout games, where the best team on the day wins. They have more elite players than anyone else, when the team is fully fit. If they win the Champions League this season I won’t be surprised. If they win the FA Cup this season, I won’t be surprised. But if they finish outside of the top 5 in the Premier League this season, I also won’t be surprised. The league season doesn’t suit them. The same way the regular season feels like a boring passing of time for the Dodgers.
If it came down to a Champions League final, and everyone was fit, you would likely do well to bet on Liverpool to win. They’re just built for that kind of environment. The same way the Dodgers were built to win their winner-takes-all Game 7 in the World Series this past season but maybe not so much for a random game in August against the Rockies (the worst team in the league).
Have Liverpool given up on this season?