A humorous factor blocked the trail to a different Andrew Friedman midsummer triumph.
An Andrew Friedman midsummer failure.
The Dodgers and their famend baseball boss got here to bat at baseball’s commerce deadline Thursday poised to knock one other fats midseason pitch out of the park en path to a second consecutive World Collection championship.
They by no means took the bat off their shoulder.
Strike out, staring.
The Dodgers wanted a confirmed nearer. Six groups picked up confirmed closers. The Dodgers weren’t one in every of them.
Mason Miller went to the San Diego Padres, Camilo Doval to the New York Yankees, Griffin Jax to the Tampa Bay Rays, Ryan Helsley to the New York Mets, Jhoan Duran to the Philadelphia Phillies and David Bednar to the New York Yankees.
Another reliever went to the Dodgers. I believe his identify was Brock Stewart or one thing.
How does this make sense? Are they watching what we’re watching?
So that you’re telling me they need to forge forward by the remainder of the season hoping that Tanner Scott will get wholesome or Kirby Yates will get constant or Blake Treinen will get youthful or, heck, possibly the Boston Crimson Sox minimize Walker Buehler and he comes again for another ninth inning! That’s loopy, however this whole state of affairs is loopy, a $400-million roster with no one to pitch the final out.
The Dodger additionally entered Thursday needing a defensive-minded outfielder. 4 groups discovered one. The Dodgers didn’t.
Harrison Bader went to the Phillies, Mike Yastrzemski and Randal Grichuk to the Kansas Metropolis Royals, Austin Slater to the Yankees and Cedric Mullins to the Mets.
The Dodgers picked up an outfielder named Alex…is it Name?
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So now Dodger followers are haunted with the concern that Michael Conforto will lose a fly ball down the left-field line on Halloween with the season on the road.
That is all so bizarre. That is all so, properly, boastful.
Granted, the Dodgers have baseball’s greatest staff on paper, however they’ve had its greatest staff for a number of years and that hasn’t stopped Friedman from dominating the final week in July.
One may argue that Friedman really gained final yr’s championship by brilliantly buying Jack Flaherty and Tommy Edman and Michael Kopech on the deadline.
This has all the time been Friedman’s power, humbly including expertise to a bunch already possessing riches of expertise.
Keep in mind, that is the time of yr he additionally as soon as traded for Wealthy Hill, Yu Darvish, Manny Machado, Max Scherzer, Trea Turner and Evan Phillips, all of whom led them deep into the playoffs.
The one two years throughout which Friedman has fumbled the deadline? He failed to amass pitching in 2022 and so they had been overwhelmed by the Padres. He introduced in solely Lance Lynn in 2023 and so they had been swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks.
This instantly appears like a kind of years.
“We felt like this is an incredibly talented group that, as we get healthy and these guys hit their stride, we feel like we’re in a great position for another deep run into October,” common supervisor Brandon Gomes mentioned on a convention name with reporters.
In different phrases, they suppose they’re ok that they don’t have to commerce any high prospects for win-now expertise.
However are they? And even when they’re, why take an opportunity?
Mookie Betts reacts after placing out in opposition to the Milwaukee Brewers on July 20.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Occasions)
If there’s something the primary 109 video games of this season has taught us is that the Dodgers’ greatness, like all greatness in a sport that hasn’t had consecutive champions in 1 / 4 of a decade, might be fleeting.
The window instantly appears to be slowly closing on the Corridor of Fame careers of Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. Shohei Ohtani has been so bodily pressured that he’s leaving video games with cramps.
Teoscar Hernández doesn’t appear to be final yr’s revelation. Max Muncy can’t keep on the sphere. And Edman is batting aches that will final all season.
The rotation can also be shaky, with fragile Tyler Glasnow and growing older Clayton Kershaw and underwhelming Roki Sasaki and injured Blake Snell and, actually, only one sure-fire starter is Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
“Obviously there was a lot of action today throughout the game, and a lot of teams improved, but we feel really good about this group,” Gomes mentioned. “Coming into the year, felt like this was as talented of a roster as we’ve ever had. We’re in a position where we’re in first place, and I don’t even think we’ve played our best baseball yet. So as we continue to get some of our starters back, and then adding these pieces, and our guys just kind of playing up to their potential, we feel like it’s still a really, really strong team, and we don’t feel any differently about our aspirations than we did at the beginning of the year.”
By way of their beautiful inaction Thursday, the Dodger clearly made the assertion that they’re ok to a championship with none extra assist.
All these groups that drastically improved don’t agree.
The baseball world is sensing a Dodger vulnerability, as if there’s blue blood within the water.
Given an opportunity to dissuade everybody of that notion the Dodgers sighed, shrugged and handed.
A strikeout of a day, a turning level of a season?
