The End of an Era Again

It’s always frustrating losing good, home-grown players to free agency especially when they’re well-liked and have put up huge numbers for the club.  Cody Bellinger meets this criteria for some and doesn’t for others.  He burst onto the scene in 2017 while arriving a year early by most accounts.  He didn’t disappoint.  He crushed 39 homers that year and on the way to winning the Rookie of the Year award, was selected to the All-Star game and finished in the top 10 of MVP voting.  Those 39 homers came in just 132 games and 480 AB’s.  He looked like a future Gold Glove first baseman and a generational player.

He didn’t quite live up to his rookie season in his Sophomore campaign as his OPS dropped by over 100 points and it seemed that the league might have caught up with him.  He had an acceptable 25 homers and 28 doubles, but these totals are marginal for a corner position player.

His third season, as a 23-year-old was purely amazing.  47 homers and 34 doubles to go along with 95 walks against just 108 K’s.  His power/speed combo led to 121 runs scored and 115 RBI.  This earned him the MVP honors to go along with another All-Star appearance, a Gold Glove award in Right Field, and a Silver Slugger award.

The short season to follow was his worst to date.  It seems that Cody is looking like a roller coaster-type player, great one season, average the next.  This down season resulted in a ring, a trophy and an injured shoulder to go along with offseason surgery.  Nobody saw it coming, but this turned out to be the beginning of the end for Cody.

We all lived through the last two years hoping Cody would turn it on again.  It never happened and now he’s gone.  Thank you, Cody for everything you accomplished and for helping the Dodgers win that first ring in over 30 years!  You will be missed, but now it’s time to move on. Let’s hope it doesn’t bite us in the ass too hard.

Now What?

I don’t like how the offseason is taking shape so far for the Dodgers, but I have to remember that we’re just a few days in.  My concern is mostly with the weak free-agent class and with the departure of Cody, there’s another hole in the lineup to fill.

I said goodbye to my favorite Dodger last year with Corey and barely missed him.  It’s easy for me to move on from a player who leaves for money especially when we have an clear in-house replacement of Trea Turner’s caliber.  In the end, Trey was slightly better than Corey.  But, remember that it was Cody who largely put the team on his back on the way to World Series victory. 

This offseason seems like we’re in a much different place than last year.  Last year, we didn’t really seem to have multiple holes to fill.  It seemed like Freddie Freeman fell into our lap and we created a home for him by shifting Max Muncy to DH and 3^rd base timeshare with JT.  With that single move, the infield was complete and the outfield was intact until the ill-fated trade that created a hole in LF to acquire one of the best closers in baseball that didn’t work out that way.  In retrospect, we paid too much to bring back Chris Taylor and figured he would fill the newly created hole in Left Field.  It sure didn’t turn out that way when Left Field because a revolving door of futility.

At this point in the offseason, we have two holes in the infield and two holes in the outfield.  So much for keeping things largely the same after a club record of 111 wins.  A gaping hole in the lineup will need to be filled with the departure of Trea Turner and another with the loss of an aging Justin Turner.  Left Field and Center field were largely black holes last season, and will now be filled with new players.  The good news is that we have some positional flexibility with the players we do have and we have some prospects that are as close to ready as can be reasonably expected.

Will Smith and Austin Barnes have catcher covered.  Together, they’re one of the best catching tandems in baseball.  Will Smith is largely regarded as one of the best, if not the best all-around catcher in the game providing great defense and offense at the position while Barnes is viewed by his teammates as one of the leaders and great game caller.

Mookie Betts is one of the game’s great hitters and all-around great players on both sides of the ball.  He can play RF, possibly CF and second base if needed.

Freddie Freeman is one of the best pure hitters in the game and an excellent defensive first baseman. 

Max Muncy is who he is.  He’s got a lot of power and on-base skills trading off with average to below average defense at 2B and 3B.  He’s a three true outcome type consistently hitting more Homers than Doubles and is consistently near top of the league in both Strikeouts and Walks.  He’ll be healthy next year and is pretty consistent.  In my eyes, he fits best as a DH.

Gavin Lux did a lot to prove himself last season.  He was a top-4 second baseman until a neck injury halted his hot streak.  There’s a lot to like about his game.  He’s extremely athletic and is a rangy, sure-handed defender with a very large wart with wild throws from time to time.  He can handle second and possibly shortstop and he’s got speed, on-base skills and the ability to put the ball in play and could be an All-Star at some point in the future. 

After that, it starts to get dodgy…

CT3 is a utility player and not a starter in my book.  He’s a solid defender, but he’s no Belli in CF and he isn’t as good as Lux as a middle infielder.  He K’s way too much for an everyday player with his power profile and just doesn’t do enough to warrant an everyday position.  His value comes from his ability to play acceptable defense while providing solid offense at every position in the field.

Miguel Vargas is an enigma.  He was billed as a pure hitter while hitting over 300 in each of his minor league seasons with more power to come.  He has range and a strong arm, but makes a lot of errors leading me to believe he’s got a brick for a glove.  Somehow, he won a top defender award as a minor league 3^rd baseman while his bat never got warm in his Grande-sized cup of coffee with the big league team last year.

Michael Bush is compared to a possible Chase Utley type.  Like Chase, he was viewed as a great hitter without a position going into the draft.  His bat has delivered, especially in the power department and his glove has improved each year.  He played mostly 1B and LF in college, but played second base during the summer leagues before he was drafted.  The Dodgers converted him to second base, but he did spend some time in left field last season.  He was viewed as one of the best hitters in his college draft class, if not the best hitter.

James Outman was drafted based on his athleticism, not his results.  Nothing in his college stat line screams MLB Center Fielder.  James was said to have a “Caveman” swing, which the Dodgers successfully broke down and built back from the ground up.  He’s a lefty that doesn’t hit lefties very well (Where have I heard that before?), and while he played a lot of CF, they moved him to right when he was promoted to AAA because apparently, Drew Avans is the better defender.

These are our best options right now with somewhere around $30-40M to spend before they hit the CBT line.  Here’s where payroll stands after the latest non-tenders.

• Players under contract account for $98.5M
• Estimated Arb Eligible Players now stand at $44M
• Estimated Pre-arb Players is around $11M

That brings the known subtotal to $153.5M with a CBT of $233M = $79.5M to spend.

Most of that will be allocated to Trevor and Clayton ($32M and $17M).  What remains after those commitments is about $30.5M to fill 5 open roster spots, plus the spots that will go to 60 day IL candidates, Walker Buehler and Blake Treinen.

With all of this said, I’m not very concerned with the Dodgers payroll.  It’s a fool’s errand to try to postulate on when they’ll dip under the CBT and when they’ll blow everyone out of the water.  After all, they don’t get valuable draft picks regardless since they aren’t ever picking at the top of the draft. There’s little motivation for this team to reset as long as they’re selling tickets and getting into the playoffs when the bid money comes in. (Not quite some big when eliminated after just 4 games, but it’s a big revenue jolt nonetheless.

Taking note of the roster, it’s depth and some clear holes, it sure looks like they might need to be a little more spendy than what the current CBT dictates.  You can certainly field a team with what they currently have, but it won’t be optimal, or anywhere near as good as last year’s squad.

What they do have is enough arms to fill out a bullpen, especially when there’s more than enough live arms in the minors.  Some of them can be used to fill out the pen as Andre Jackson did at the end of last season and others will back up the starting rotation as Pepiot and Grove did last season.  They have a full rotation with Bauer, but will have to spend a big chunk of his salary to replace him if he isn’t a member of the staff.

This is what the starting lineup looks like right now, with what they still have.

Mookie RF (R)

Lux SS (L)

Freeman 1B (L)

Smith C (R)

Muncy DH (L)

Vargas 3B (R)

Outman CF (L) Taylor against lefties

Busch 2B (L)

LF?

It’s very easy to see that this isn’t going to cut it especially when you consider that your right-handed cleanup hitter isn’t going to be in the lineup full-time.  Having just three right-handed hitters in the lineup isn’t ideal by any means and when one is a catcher that hits cleanup it downright unacceptable.  It’s also a big ask to insert three rookies into the lineup and expect some level of production that will match last year’s squad.

If we don’t add a starting position player, we would have to round out the lineup with CT3 or Trayce Thompson while counting on Outman to man CF. It might just be the worst hitting outfield in baseball, a lot like last year. The infield would swap the two Turners steady bats for two highly touted rookies. Part of me says, “Let the kids play!”. The other part says, “This lineup kinda sucks”.

There’s little to no chance the Opening Day starting lineup looks like this.  I just thought it’s a worthwhile exercise to put this “on paper” so to speak to see what we’re working with. Let’s see what the hell happens between now and Opening Day. There definitely some work to do.