MLB rated teams which got better between the end of last year’s truncated season and Opening Day and finds several who improved (in WaR) more than the Dodgers. But:

Speaking of an already-good NL West team that somehow managed to get better: the Dodgers. Part of this, obviously, was that when the offseason began, they didn’t really have a third baseman, Turner having gone off to a surprisingly lengthy free agency. (The Los Angeles third-base group, at the time seemingly led by Edwin Ríos, ranked 27th in November’s rankings. They’re now ninth.) Otherwise, the position-player group is so deep that the departures of longtime role players like Enrique Hernández and Joc Pederson didn’t really move the needle; this club is well-equipped to handle it.

There was another big add here, of course, and this time from a new face, as reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Trevor Bauer signed with the Dodgers in February. In addition to the value he brings — he’s projected for 4.4 WAR himself — he takes some of the workload off others. David Price, for example, was projected to need to throw 144 innings back in November. Now, it’s only 62.

This was already clearly the best team of 2020. It’s almost unfair they’ve now gotten even better.