October baseball was a birthright in these parts, the Dodgers practically guaranteeing a playoff spot for most of the last decade.
You know, in the good old days.
The Dodgers are operating under a new reality in the wake of Monday’s Massacre in which their worst fears were realized.
Their best hitter, Corey Seager, agreed to a 10-year, $ 325 million contract with the Texas Rangers.
Their best pitcher, Max Scherzer, accepted a three-year, $ 130 million offer from the New York Mets.
The brain drain could well continue as Clayton Kershaw, Chris Taylor and Kenley Jansen are free agents.
Rather than thinking about what they could do to advance further into the playoffs next year, the Dodgers will now be fighting their way back to the postseason.
Andrew Friedman doesn’t have to rebuild his roster, but he certainly does have to revamp it, a process that could result in him making the kinds of franchise-altering moves he made in his first offseason as the team’s president of baseball operations.
Conditions are less than ideal for such an undertaking.
The league has yet to sanction Trevor Bauer for the sexual assault allegations made against him, meaning the Dodgers don’t know how much of their $ 32 million salary they will have to pay by 2022. Players are expected to be blocked afterward. the collective bargaining agreement expires on Wednesday, which means the free agent and commercial markets are about to freeze for an indefinite period.
The Seager and Scherzer deals suggest the Dodgers have more competition for players than before. The Rangers have already spent more than $ 550 million on free agents. Under hedge fund executive Steve Cohen, the Mets are spending like the Dodgers did in their early days under Guggenheim Baseball Management.
Andrew Friedman, president of baseball operations for the Dodgers, speaks to reporters at general managers meetings in Carlsbad on Nov. 10.
(Gregory Bull / Associated Press)
The Dodgers now have legitimate rivals in their division in the San Francisco Giants and the San Diego Padres.
Friedman, however, is not starting from scratch.
The Dodgers still have two elite players at the top of their lineup in Mookie Betts and Trea Turner, who could move from second base to shortstop to replace Seager. (Turner will be a free agent at the end of next season and could be more of a one-year band-aid than a long-term fix.) Justin Turner and Will Smith are legitimate offensive threats.
But as the roster builds, Seager’s departure demands that Cody Bellinger rediscover his MVP form after a low year. Or for Gavin Lux to become the player he was expected to be before his development came to a halt. Or Max Muncy recovering from a season-ending elbow injury.
Muncy revealed that he suffered a torn ulnar collateral ligament in an interview Monday with the MLB Network.
“I’m not recovering as fast as I would like, but that’s what happens when you do serious damage to your body,” Muncy admitted.
Losing Taylor could lead to other problems. Taylor’s ability to play multiple positions kept him in the lineup most days, preventing manager Dave Roberts from having to draw on his reserves as often as he would have otherwise.
As much as Albert Pujols ‘contributions were celebrated, the reality was that the Dodgers’ bench was weaker last year than in any previous season under Friedman. The deficiency was particularly obvious in the postseason when the team resorted to deploying Steven Souza Jr. as a pinch hitter.
With Scherzer advancing and Kershaw weighing his options, the Dodgers’ traditional strength has become a weakness. They have no rotation.
The Dodgers have Walker Buehler and Julio Urías, but little further.
They’ve accepted a $ 8.5 million flier on home run-prone Andrew Heaney. They expect Dustin May to return from reconstructive elbow surgery at some point. They will likely be forced to continue providing opportunities for players like David Price, who no longer looks like a major league starter, or Tony Gonsolin, who has never been shown to be.
Their agricultural system has not produced another Buehler or Urías.
The free agent market alone will not serve his needs, especially now that many of the best players have signed. They will have to make trades, some of which could include popular players. Friedman, in any case, has shown to be fearless; once he changed to Yasiel Puig and twice to Matt Kemp.
He will have to do something like that again and he will have to do it without the lieutenant who helped him build his World Series team, current Giants executive Farhan Zaidi.
But the biggest risk Friedman can take is not taking any risks. An elimination in the divisional round of the postseason no longer represents a worst-case scenario for the Dodgers. Missing the postseason entirely is.
