One of the highlights of the 2024 MLB season will take place in the early morning hours of March 21 when the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres open the regular season with a game in Seoul, South Korea. Yoshinobu Yamamoto will be the likely starter for the Dodgers, and that will certainly engage our curiosity, but I'm looking forward to seeing how Dave Roberts lines up his magnificent trio of hitters: Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Shohei Ohtani (probably in that order, putting his best slugger behind the other two).
Is there a nickname yet for these guys? I'm sure Dodgers fans will come up with one soon enough. Among those unavailable, due to copyright infringement of previously adopted monikers: Murderers' Row, The Bombers, The Lumber Company, The Big Red Machine (wrong team color anyway), Harvey's Wallbangers, The Blake Street Bombers, The Killer B's, Crush City, the Bomba Squad and Slam Diego.
Ohtani, Betts and Freeman were all among baseball's best hitters in 2023, ranking, respectively, first, fifth and seventh in both OPS and slugging percentage; third, seventh and ninth in batting average; and third, fifth and six in total bases. If all three repeat those performances, they have a chance to become one of the greatest trios of offensive teammates of all time.