PHOENIX — Dave Roberts made the case over the winter that the Dodgers will have a chance to be the greatest team in baseball history.

Listening to Roberts in the first two weeks of spring training, it sounds as if they will also have the opportunity to be one of the most decorated.

Every couple of days, Roberts has mentioned how he believes one player or another will contend for a major award. He said in the winter that Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani will be Cy Young Award candidates. He recently elevated Tyler Glasnow into that category, saying the 6-foot-8 right-hander should compete with “the best pitchers in the National League” if he remains healthy.

Blake Snell, who has been slowed in camp by a shoulder injury, has won the award twice. Roki Sasaki has said he wants to be the first Japanese pitcher to win a Cy Young.

Ohtani is the preseason favorite to win the National League’s version of the MVP Award, and rightly so. He’s a four-time MVP, twice with the Dodgers and twice before that with the Angels.

However, by Roberts’ estimation, Ohtani will have competition from at least a couple of his teammates. Roberts has “no doubt” that Mookie Betts “will be in the MVP conversation this year.” He has also said newcomer Kyle Tucker can “absolutely” be a candidate for the prize.

“I mean, when you have the talent, you should expect (that),” Roberts said. “I expect a lot for myself, and everyone should expect that of themselves. That’s how you get good and great, and not be complacent. With the talent that we have in this room, in the clubhouse, they should expect individual great things as well as collective.”

The Dodgers most recently swept the MVP and Cy Young awards in 2014 when Clayton Kershaw claimed both prizes. The last time the Dodgers had separate players win the two awards was in 1988, when Kirk Gibson was the MVP and Orel Hershiser the Cy Young Award winner.

The 2013 Tigers are the last team to have two players win its league’s two major awards, with Miguel Cabrera taking the MVP and Max Scherzer the Cy Young.

The Dodgers could do the same this year, but what could distinguish them is their potential volume of legitimate candidates. They very well could do what the Braves did in 2023 when they had three of the top seven finishers in MVP voting — Ronald Acuna Jr. first, Matt Olson fourth and Austin Riley seventh. Betts and Freddie Freeman were second and third, respectively.

Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos