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With a 4-1 Dodgers win over the Cubs in Tokyo, the 2025 baseball season is underway!
Plus: The Padres’ surprise Opening Day starter, I admit I might have been wrong on a controversial rule and Ken reads the Marlins for filth. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal. Welcome to The Windup!
While You Were Sleeping: Dodgers top Cubs to open the (actual) season
The 2025 season began the same way the 2024 season ended: a Dodgers win.
On the field, Shota Imanaga pitched four no-hit innings for the Cubs, but walked four. The Dodgers pounced in the fifth off reliever Ben Brown, scoring three runs.
Shohei Ohtani did not hit a home run. I repeat, Ohtani did not homer. But he did go 2-for-5 with a double and a couple of runs scored, giving the hometown fans something to cheer for. Likewise for Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who allowed a run on three hits over five innings for the win.
Of note: In addition to Mookie Betts being sent home — according to the Dodgers broadcast, his illness caused his weight to fall to 161 lbs., down from his listed 180 — Freddie Freeman was also a late scratch after tweaking the same ribcage injury that was bothering him last offseason.
The teams will resume the series tomorrow at the same time (6:10am ET). For all our links and stories, here’s the catch-all for our Tokyo Series coverage, including live updates and stories.
Ken’s Notebook: Marlins’ lack of spending risks grievance
From my latest column:
The Miami Marlins are on alert. Or should be. It’s difficult to consider them part of Major League Baseball when their Opening Day roster of Sandy and the Nobodies will be barely recognizable to the average fan — and even more faceless after the team moves Alcantara, its ace, in a ritual trade-deadline parting.
In December, The Athletic reported the A’s needed to add tens of millions to their luxury-tax payroll or risk a grievance from the Major League Baseball Players Association. The A’s did just that. But the Marlins, according to Fangraphs’ figures, appear to be operating about $20 million below the level the CBA will require by the end of the season. The chances of them even attempting to reach the specified threshold appear about the same as a record snow hitting Miami.
Rather than add the necessary salaries, the Marlins are far more likely to trade Alcantara, who at $17.3 million is by far their highest-paid player. Their approach contrasts sharply with the A’s, who through a series of free-agent signings and contract extensions have boosted their luxury-tax payroll since December by almost $40 million.
This is not the first time the Marlins’ spending has drawn scrutiny under owner Bruce Sherman, who took control in September 2017. The union in 2018 brought a revenue-sharing grievance against the Marlins, A’s, Pittsburgh Pirates and Tampa Bay Rays, and another in 2019 against the Marlins, Pirates and Rays. One of the complaints was dropped, according to people briefed on the process. The two against Miami remain active.
Such matters often are settled during collective bargaining. The current agreement is nearly two years away from expiring. Having yet to face punishment, perhaps Marlins officials believe the danger in flouting the rules is not as great as it would appear. Then again, perhaps they also are underestimating the potential for the union to expedite this particular case. The team declined comment.
A refresher: The CBA mandates that a team’s final luxury-tax payroll must be 1 1/2 times the amount it receives from local revenue sharing. The A’s and Marlins are expected to be among the highest revenue-sharing recipients this year at roughly $70 million if not more, according to people briefed on the league’s revenue-sharing distributions who were not authorized to speak publicly.
The magic luxury-tax payroll figure for both clubs and others receiving similar amounts of revenue sharing, then, would appear to be around $105 million. No other potential revenue-sharing recipient is below that number. The Chicago White Sox are just above the Marlins at $87.9 million, but they are a revenue-sharing contributor, not a beneficiary.
More Marlins: A recent ad called for baseball players to come serve as a “practice squad” for Miami. That plan has now been scuttled.
Hmm: Maybe the grumps were right?
Admission time: Until about five minutes ago, when I started reading Grant Brisbee’s latest story, I was generally in favor of the “ghost runner” in extra innings — and not just because it gave me a way to stave off boredom by sowing chaos in the Rangers clubhouse a few years ago.
In theory, the rule should help preserve arms, and prevent the rare 17-inning game that goofs up everyone’s travel and sleep schedules for a week.
Now? Now I’m not so sure. Grant makes some very valid points, including this bit of simple math:
- Home team winning percentage in extra innings, 1901-2019: .523
- Home team winning percentage in extra innings, 2020-24: .493
He goes on to make some suggestions as to why this is the case, including:
“It’s asymmetrical warfare. A team that’s guaranteed to win with three more outs can use its best reliever to protect the lead if it hasn’t already used him; the home team can use its best reliever only to protect a tie.”
True, though that has always been the case in extra innings. The difference now? The runner on second makes it far more likely that a run will be scored in the top half of the inning, meaning a lot more road-team leads entering the bottom of the 10th.
Also, there’s a compelling argument that this rule violates the most sacred baseball text of all: “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”
Twists: Padres Opening Day starter is …
By now, you’ve seen many reports about teams naming their Opening Day starters, most of them predictable.
BREAKING NEWS: Reigning NL Cy Young winner Chris Sale will, in fact, be the Braves’ Opening Day starter (despite calling a teammate “the best pitcher on the team”).
But in San Diego, the announcement was actually a bit of a surprise. Despite employing Yu Darvish and Dylan Cease, the Padres are going with Michael King on Opening Day.
Not that King is undeserving. Last year, after coming over from the Yankees in the Juan Soto trade, he flourished — 13-9 with a 2.95 ERA, striking out 201 in 173 2/3 innings. But Padres manager Mike Shildt said it wasn’t so much about bestowing the honor on King above Cease or Darvish — it was just the way the schedule lined up, especially after Darvish’s start last week was pushed back due to the weather. Here’s a quote from Dennis Lin’s story:
“I went to Yu and said, ‘You know, this can impact your opening (start of the regular season),’” Shildt said. “He said, ‘Oh, don’t worry about that. Michael or Dylan, let one of those two guys be the Opening Day starter. I’m OK with it.’ So that really spoke well (of) Darvish.”
Side note: I don’t think we talk enough about how Darvish has gone from being the bad boy of Japanese baseball to one of the better human beings in the game.
Handshakes and High Fives
(Top photo: Darren Yamashita / Imagn Images)
