If you can’t buy championships, then the Los Angeles Dodgers are doing it wrong.  After Magic Johnson and the Guggenheim Baseball Management team bought the Dodgers for $200 billion last season, they made their presence felt.  Unlike other owners in the MLB they did not shy away from spending the money they have. 
After trading to get Hanley Ramirez, the Dodgers made one of the largest trades, monetarily, that the league has ever seen when they acquired Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett, and Adrian Gonzalez.  They were dubbed the team to beat even though they trailed the San Francisco Giants in the division at the time of the acquisitions.  Of course, they did not overcome the Giants and many people believe that it’s because the Giants had one thing that the Dodgers couldn’t buy, leadership and camaraderie.

So that brings up the question, can the Dodgers click and come together to live up to the expectations of their large contracts after adding even more talent to the roster in pitchers Zack Greinke and Hyun-Jin Ryu?  Can someone step up and be a leader among all of these hot shot players?

People look at the Miami Marlins of 2012 and say, "No, they have no shot of meshing together enough to win games." Look further at how Crawford and Gonzalez negatively affected the Red Sox and you may be certain that there is no way this team can mesh. The Dodgers have a few things the Red Sox and Marlins did not have, though.  They have a half of a season that they played together and a good mix of veterans and role players with those superstar players.

Mark Ellis is a veteran who leads the team by example with his strong defense and timely hitting.  Among the solid leadership you have the supporting role players such as Luis Cruz, Nick Punto and Juan Uribe who can fill in at just about any infield position or come off of the bench to pinch hit.  On top of that, the Dodgers have two young superstars who are growing into leaders on the field in the form of Clayton Kershaw and Matt Kemp.

A.J. Ellis is another leader on this team who leads the pitching staff.  Ellis took over full time catching duties last season after six seasons on-and-off in the minor leagues and his experience had a profound effect on the pitching staff.  Chris Capuano had his best season since his 18 win season for the Milwaukee Brewers in 2006, and he wasn’t the only one.  Not only did he affect Capuano, Ellis had an effect on the team as a whole.  In 2012, Ellis’ first full season catching at the MLB level, the Dodgers finished third as a team in ERA with an overall team ERA of 3.34, which was 20 points lower than in 2011.  A lot of that had to do with Kershaw, who finished second in the NL Cy Young vote, but Kershaw had an even better year in 2011 and still the team ERA was lower in 2012 with Ellis behind the dish full time.  With the addition of Greinke, a number-one pitcher on most teams, and the Ellis effect, this Dodger team could end up with the best ERA in the league in 2013.

The Dodgers may look like just another team of overpaid superstars thrown together hoping they can hit enough to win a championship. But the Dodgers ownership has done things the right way, even if they over-spent to do it.  Pitching wins championships, just ask the rival San Francisco Giants, and this Dodgers team has quite possibly the best pitching staff in the league.  With that pitching staff it doesn’t matter how long it takes the offense to mesh, and it will mesh, this staff will keep them in every game.