A classic sweep.
The Dodgers’ run for a three-peat ends in a four-game flop.
Congratulations to the Milwaukie Brewers! You won the NL Pennant for the first time since 1982, and you get to face the Tampa Bay Rays in the World Series. A series win seems inevitable.
The Brewers are a fantastic baseball team that completely embarrassed my Dodgers out of the playoffs. For every punch the Boys in Blue threw, the Brewers counterpunched. Those were some heavy hits, and it only took four rounds to knock the Dodgers out. I knew the run had to end, and after the All-Star break, I was eighty-percent sure that it was going to end this year, but…
The Dodgers have struggled for years with bringing home runners in scoring position. I’m consulting zero data beyond the observational data that I’ve collected watching season after season of Dodgers’ baseball. Last year. the failures of their boom-or-bust offense were on full display in the World Series against the Blue Jays. They couldn’t string together hits the way the Jays did. The difference in that series was that they had big hits when they needed them (and some wild defense and a lucky break). This postseason, the Brewers always seemed to have a runner on second and the knack for bringing him home. It is in the team’s DNA.
Where do the Dodgers go from here?
They are probably bringing back a lot of the same guys, so the roster shouldn’t look drastically different. Mookie Betts, Will Smith, Yoshi Yamamoto, Shohei, and Roki Sasaki are signed into the 2030s, and some of the other guys have shorter contracts but will be around for at least another season. The Dodgers don’t have a lot of space to sign someone or call up a player from triple-A to take a full-time roster spot, so they’ll have to make some tough decisions.
Miguel Rojas has retired, so there’s one open roster spot. Miggy Ro played second and third base and also did some wonderful impression of pitchers on their staff.
Do the Dodgers try to sign Luis Arraez, or is this Hyeseong Kim’s year to have a major role in the major leagues? Decisions, decisions. Trade Teo to make room for Josue De Paula? Let the free agents walk to make room for some other younger ball players who have been stuck in triple-A? Yes. The young guys need major league playing time as the older stars age out. Next season provides the organization with the perfect opportunity to do this, and Josue De Paula’s hype demands that he see more playing time, and Teo’s expiring contract and diminishing returns may be the way that it happens.
The starting pitching staff will more or less look the same. Tarik Skubal’s price tag might be a bit high for the Dodgers. Does that sound crazy? We don’t know if there will be a strike and what the new collective bargaining agreement will look like, so the Dodgers may not even be able to sign Skubal. I would like to see him back, but the starting pitching wasn’t the team’s glaring issue. They couldn’t hit. The clutch swing was lacking, big time. It was a team wide epidemic, and their best hitter (Shohei Ohtani) was among the worst offender. It looked like he was hurt, and he played like he was hurt for pretty much the second half of the season. Pundits and fans debated whether or not it was the right move to keep Shohei in the lineup. We’ll never know if putting in JDP would have changed the outcome of the series. There was a discussion about how he could be the spark that could ignite the rest of the team’s bats. I doubt it. There were too many uncompetitive swings to pin it on one guy’s bat, but I hope the team’s management learned something from doing it Shohei’s way. It didn’t work, so let’s not do that again.
I’m hopeful for the next season, whenever that begins.
