The $300 million disappointment: Dodgers suffer another early playoff exit
So this is what a $300 million payroll gets you. For the third straight season, the Los Angeles Dodgers have been prematurely bounced from the postseason.
The club dropped Game 5 against the New York Mets in the NLDS after only picking up two hits after the first inning. Both of those came from $2.5 million man Justin Turner. The club’s high profile additions couldn’t push the team ahead. The $300 million Dodgers now find themselves in the same position as the $72 million Houston Astros: Eliminated from the playoffs during the Divisional Series.
For most franchises, this wouldn’t be a bad thing. Making the playoffs three years in a row is a strong sign of a successful club, and everyone knows that anything can happen in a best of five series. You could run into a pitcher like Jacob deGrom twice, or Daniel Murphy can briefly transform into Barry Bonds. The best team doesn’t always win in the postseason.
[Elsewhere: Daniel Murphy helps lead Mets to NLCS]
None of that matters, however, because we’re talking about the Dodgers. The team’s willingness to go out and spend obscene amounts of cash is going to raise expectations. The club more or less bought Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Nick Punto and Josh Beckett for $262.5 million in 2012, signed Andre Ethier to an $85 million extension and followed that up by spending $147 million on Zack Greinke and $36 million on Hyun-Jin Ryu. When you have the freedom to spend that kind of cash, fans expect more, even if that’s not a fair demand.
Despite the results, the Dodgers are going to remain a team with a giant payroll. That’s one thing that’s not going to change. Everything else might, though.
For a successful club with a lot of resources, the Dodgers find themselves with some huge questions entering the offseason.
The most important of which is whether Zack Greinke will return next year. The 31-year-old Greinke is coming off arguably his finest season as a pro. The righty posted a ridiculous 1.66 ERA, and should be a strong contender for the Cy Young award. While he just signed with the club back in 2012, Greinke can opt out of his deal this winter. Considering the year he’s coming off, it would be foolish not to test the market. He could easily receive a contract similar to the one he signed in 2012 despite being three years older.
While it seems likely Greinke will choose to opt out, that doesn’t mean he’ll leave Los Angeles. The Dodgers have more than enough money to bring him back, and Greinke seems to enjoy playing for the team.
Despite the fact that the Dodgers had the best 1-2 punch in the game in Clayton Kershaw and Greinke, the team’s pitching depth was fairly thin behind them. Los Angeles attempted to fix that in the offseason, signing injury-prone guys to cheap deals, but only Brett Anderson worked out. Anderson only signed a one-year deal, and can leave as well. The team will get both Ryu and Brandon McCarthy back next season, but both will be coming off significant injuries.
Greinke may be the biggest loss if he departs, but Don Mattingly’s situation could provide the most drama. Mattingly has a .551 winning percentage over five seasons with the club, but that hasn’t stopped many from speculating about his job security. There were questions about whether Mattingly would be brought back after the club was eliminated in 2014, and those issues only intensified when Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi were brought in to run the team.
Both Friedman and Zaidi have analytical backgrounds, and it was assumed they would bring in a manager who leans that way. Instead, they stuck with Mattingly this season and it led to a similar result. Now that they’ve experienced a year under Donnie Baseball, it’s entirely possible the new front office decides to bring in some new blood.
If that were to happen, the Dodgers would likely turn into one of the more favorable managerial destinations. The franchise has talent, infinite resources and some of the smartest men in baseball in the front office. What manager would turn down that opportunity?
Desirable doesn’t mean easy, though. With the increased expectations surrounding the club, the new manager would likely be in the same scenario as Mattingly. Even if the new guy proves to be the best manager ever, he’ll still get killed if the team doesn’t go all the way.
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That’s the danger of the Dodgers’ current position. The club that has everything deserves to be the best team. And the best team deserves to win the World Series. That’s not the way it works in baseball, but the Dodgers won’t accept less.
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Chris Cwik is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Chris_Cwik
