Here’s a twist on fantasy baseball: Which quartet would you prefer at the top of your lineup?
Option 1: Bobby Witt Jr., Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge and Kyle Schwarber.
Option 2: Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Tucker, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman.
If you go with Option 1, you are taking the top four batters, in order, in the lineup of what was billed as the best team this country ever had to offer: the United States entry in the 2026 World Baseball Classic.
But, with the Dodgers off to another hot start, this would be an opportune moment for fans to take a step back from whatever concerns they might have about pitching depth and the injury list to appreciate the star-studded championship lineup of the home team.
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Their opening day lineup started with Option 2. Betts is injured now, but the Dodgers just took a series from the defending American League champion Toronto Blue Jays without him. Twelve games into the season is a small sample, but no team has a better record than the Dodgers (9-3).
They lead the majors in batting average (.287), home runs (21) and OPS (.841). That OPS is the same as Tucker put up for the Chicago Cubs last season, which means their lineup essentially consists of nine guys putting up the OPS that earned Tucker a Dodgers contract for $60 million per year. (That won’t last, but the Dodgers did put up a .768 OPS over the full season last year, the best in the National League.)
Hall of Famer Pedro Martínez took to social media this week to call this “the best Dodgers team I’ve ever seen” and call the lineup “absolutely loaded.”
And, yes, the Dodgers lineup just might be better than the Team USA one.
“I’ll take our guys against anybody,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “How about that?”
The Dodgers’ lineup on opening day finished, in order, with Will Smith, Max Muncy, Teoscar Hernández, Andy Pages and Miguel Rojas. The Team USA lineup in the WBC championship game finished with Alex Bregman, Roman Anthony, Smith, Brice Turang and Byron Buxton.
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“There were probably more accolades and all that on that USA team,” said Smith, the Dodgers’ catcher and the only man in both lineups. “It was more of an all-star team type of thing, the best guy at his position.”
In that Team USA lineup: five MVP awards and 28 All-Star appearances. In that Dodgers lineup: six MVP awards and 33 All-Star appearances.
Dino Ebel, the Dodgers’ third-base coach, throws batting practice as well. He coached for Team USA and threw batting practice there, too.
“I was like, ‘This lineup I’m throwing to is familiar to what I see every night for 162.’ Pretty cool,” he said. “You compare the Dodger lineup, all the way from 1 to 9, to Team USA, I thought we matched up pretty well.”
For the opinion of someone never employed by the Dodgers, I checked in with Blue Jays and Team USA infielder Ernie Clement.
“It’s tough to compare a WBC team with an actual MLB team,” Clement said. “The Dodgers have a really great lineup, obviously. I think they have learned how to win when they don’t have their best stuff. That’s what great teams do.
“Our lineup on Team USA was pretty stacked. It’s tough to do when you only play seven games. You don’t go through that whole grind of a season. The Dodgers have had the same guys on their team for quite some time, with some pieces added here and there. But, for the most part, they have those main guys that have been there and know each other really well.”
Those main guys are international stars now, Ohtani and the rest of his constellation. Everyone watches them. Everyone outside Los Angeles blames them — nothing personal, mind you, but as a symbol of the gaping financial disparity in baseball and a trigger for the almost certain lockout to follow the World Series.
Those four guys at the top of the Dodgers lineup — that Option 2 above — carry contracts worth a combined $1.5 billion. Would your team do that?
The thought that the Dodgers lineup matches up well against the Team USA lineup presents a marketing idea for Major League Baseball.
Of all the major sports, baseball boasts the one All-Star Game that has largely resisted gimmicks, but then again last year’s game ended with a home run derby. So why not lean into the Dodgers hate by turning this year’s All-Star Game into a Dodgers-against-the-world affair?
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The game is in Philadelphia. Nowhere else do people boo like they do there.
And, if the Dodgers can match up with Team USA, they can take on the best lineup the other 29 major league teams have to offer.
Seriously, then, your 2026 All-Star Game: The Dodgers vs. Everybody Else.
Roberts laughed, but the twinkle in his eye was genuine.
“I’ll bet on us,” he said, “against anybody.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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