The Los Angeles Dodgers have made some significant additions for their local broadcasts this year on Spectrum SportsNet LA, English-language radio partner AM 570 LA Sports, and Spanish-language radio partner KTNQ 1020 AM. The team announced five new hires Monday, including ESPN MLB analyst Jessica Mendoza, former players Adrián González, Eric Karros, and Dontrelle Willis, and prominent former Los Angeles Angels announcer José Mota. Here’s more on that from a release:
The Los Angeles Dodgers today announced the addition of five new broadcasters that will serve various roles on the 2022 Spectrum SportsNet LA broadcast and studio teams, the AM 570 LA Sports radio broadcast and the Spanish broadcast on KTNQ 1020 AM. The new hires are former Dodger All-Star first baseman Adrián González, Dodger legend Eric Karros, Olympic gold medalist, former All-American softball player and current ESPN baseball broadcaster Jessica Mendoza, former Major Leaguer and longtime baseball announcer José Mota and two-time NL All-Star Dontrelle Willis.
The five will join the current broadcast lineup, which includes Hall of Famer Jaime Jarrín, Joe Davis, Orel Hershiser, Fernando Valenzuela, Charley Steiner, Rick Monday, Nomar Garciaparra, Pepe Yñiguez, Jerry Hairston Jr., John Hartung, Tim Neverett and Kirsten Watson.
That release notes that González will be a pre- and post-game analyst for both English-language radio and TV, while Mendoza and Karros will each call select TV games as analysts alongside Davis. Willis will also slide into calling selected TV games alongside Davis, and he’ll appear on the English-language radio and TV pre- and post-game shows as well. Meanwhile, Mota (who spent the last 20 years working for the Angels in English and Spanish, and whose father Manny Mota played for the Dodgers) will provide play-by-play for selected English and Spanish radio broadcasts this season. Here are some quotes from the release:
“I’m so excited to be working on the pregame and post game broadcasts this year,” said González. “I can’t wait to reconnect with all of the great Dodger fans.”
…“As a kid from Southern California, I could never have imagined playing for the Dodgers, let alone having the opportunity to ‘call’ Dodger baseball,” said Karros. “I can’t wait to get back to work at Dodger Stadium.”
…“To broadcast games for the Los Angeles Dodgers is a dream-come-true,” said Mendoza. “I grew up here and have spent a great deal of my life in this park, which was like a second backyard when I was a kid. “I’m honored to join this great organization and am excited to get to work with such an amazing team of talented broadcasters.”
…“I am really excited for this opportunity to join the Dodgers and their world-class, globally-recognized organization,” said Mota. “I am so blessed to be able to follow in the footsteps of my father and I look forward to connecting with the Dodger fan base in Los Angeles and around the world in both English and Spanish in my new broadcast role.”
…“I’m honored to be a part of one of the best organizations in sports,” said Willis. “I truly feel blessed to be surrounded by the best in the business.”
This is quite the broadcasting team the Dodgers are building, especially when their returning figures are also factored in. And the addition of Mendoza is perhaps particularly notable, considering that this organization once complained about her covering them as a broadcaster while she also had a role with the Mets. That issue was three years ago, though, and Mendoza gave up her Mets role in 2020 to focus on broadcasting with ESPN. And she’s now joined the large numbers of people who work for ESPN as well as other broadcasters (and that’s perhaps necessary with ESPN cutting its numbers of MLB broadcasts and many of those games moving to Apple and Peacock).
At any rate, the Dodgers have added some interesting names here. And they’ll have a lot of prominent people, new and returning, appearing across their various TV and radio broadcasts this season. We’ll see how these additions work out for them.
