This offseason has been covered with Dodger blue, just as it seems every offseason for the past decade has been dominated by the Dodgers. This winter, LA won the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes, paying the star $700 million over ten years. While they are winning the offseason, they have some issues to address.
The Dodger’s offense didn’t really need help after their recent campaign. LA ranked seventh in team average in all of the MLB. They hit 249 homers, clubbed 303 doubles and collected 877 RBI’s. All those numbers were good enough to put the Dodgers in the top 5 of all those categories. Not only were the team achievements impressive, but also some of the individual players on the roster had career years.
Freddie Freeman collected 29 homers with 102 RBI and slashed a robust .331/.410/.567. He had an OPS of .914, won NL player of the month in May and was named to the all-MLB first team.
Mookie Betts turned in a wonderful season as well. He led the team in homers, slugging 39, hit .307 and turned in a .987 OPS. All those numbers earned him a silver slugger award for the second year in a row.
Four of their players hit north of 25 homers. Four of their players collected 100 plus RBI. The numbers go on and on. They were a dominant force, and now they have added Ohtani. Ohtani had another stellar season. He hit .304, hit 44 homers and collected 95 RBI. The most impressive stat that Ohtani owned was a league leading 1.066 OPS. The awards came in droves. Ohtani won a silver slugger award, all-MLB first team and of course AL MVP.
With all that said, the Dodgers were probably the second-best offense behind the Atlanta Braves last season. Now with Ohtani in the lineup, the Dodgers are the best offense in baseball.
However, the Dodgers are not the team to beat. They have not fixed the one problem that they have.
Let’s remember that the Dodgers did not even move past the divisional round this past October. They didn’t even win a game in the playoffs. A 100-win team, a team that had one of the best offenses in baseball, didn’t even win a game in the postseason. The question now begs, what was the problem.
In the playoffs the Dodgers allowed 19 runs. That means that in the three games they allowed an average of 6.3 runs per game. Worse, the offense that beat them was not a particularly amazing offense. Now, the team that beat LA was the Arizona Diamondbacks, a team that was as hot as the 2019 Washington Nationals were in the second half of their World Series run. But, the Diamondbacks ranked 22nd in the league in home runs, hitting only 166 home runs. They were in the middle of the pack when it came to scoring runs. In other words, the 2023 Arizona Diamondbacks were not 19 runs good against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Diamondbacks won that series because they exposed the one problem that the Dodgers have, their pitching.
The Dodgers had a team ERA of 4.06. Their pitching staff allowed 209 homers. Only five teams allowed more homers than LA, and only one of the five teams had a winning record. None of those teams appeared in the postseason. LA did not have a terrible pitching staff, but they did not have a great pitching staff.
An elite team needs elite pitching. The Dodgers did not have elite pitching last year. If you shell out the cash that the Dodgers do, you expect elite play. LA ranked number 5 in payroll in all the MLB. Yet, they were 0-3 in the playoffs.
The Dodgers did sign the Japanese pitching star Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The MLB is the highest level of baseball, but no player is a sure bet to be successful. Yamamoto has yet to throw a pitch in the MLB, so the jury is still out on whether or not this is a good move.
The Dodgers also lost the good pitchers that they had last year. Lance Lynn, who won 7 games in the second half of the season, recently signed with the St. Louis Cardinals. Clayton Kershaw, for the moment, seems to be moving on from the Dodgers after 16 years in LA. Kershaw won 13 games and owned a 2.46 ERA in 24 games last year.
The bullpen also got weaker, losing Ryan Brasier. Brasier is still a free agent and could possibly be signed back with the Dodgers, but that looks unlikely. Brasier pitched in 39 games with a 2-0 record and a 0.70 ERA for the Dodgers.
To sum it up, the Dodgers have had a great offseason so far. They will be a great team this year, but they will not be an elite team unless they address their pitching.
by Ollie Hammonds
